The Mass Effect Universe: Primer
The Mass Effect universe is complex. It is steeped in history, encompasses scores of worlds in hundreds of solar systems, and is incredibly colorful and gritty. As such, it is outwith the scope of a short 'primer', and any information that I relay below should only be seen as a skeletal framework. If you wish to know more about any race, piece of history, individual or entity that is mentioned in this primer (and this novel), your appetite can be satisfied by visiting any of the online resources dedicated to Mass Effect; specifically, the Mass Effect Wiki located at https://masseffect.wikia.com/wiki/Mass_Effect_Wiki.
Brief Universe Overview:
In the year 2148, mankind investigated Mars and discovered the ruins of an ancient civilization called Protheans. From the ruins and technology contained within them, humans were first able to unlock the secrets of mass effect physics and element zero. These advances led them to first discover the Charon mass relay near the planet Pluto, activate it and thus become part of the vast intergalactic community of races beyond the Sol System (earth's solar system).
Over the past centuries, the intergalactic community has been brought together by huge constructs called 'mass relays,' which propel spaceships through a virtually mass-free corridor of space-time between relays, allowing nearly instantaneous travel between solar systems. Believed to be the work of the long-extinct species called the Protheans, it has recently been discovered that the mass relays were actually made by the Reapers - a race of gigantic, sentient machines widely regarded as myth at the beginning of the Mass Effect trilogy of games.
Throughout the events of Mass Effect 1 and 2, we learn that the Reapers are indeed real. They are highly advanced, massive synthetic-organic starships, and every 50,000 years they arrive from their resting place beyond the galaxy and obliterate every advanced spacefaring civilization. They comb the entire galaxy, harvesting the organic bodies of the advanced civilizations to make new Reapers, leaving the unevolved species to thrive and take their place. They assert that this ritualistic genocide brings "order to the chaos of life," and also maintain that - should life be allowed to continue past their predesignated genocide date - eventually artificial life that is created by organics will proceed to advance past and dominate their makers.
In Mass Effect 3 - the Reapers arrive with little warning, blackening the skies of every planet in every solar system. The galaxy is plunged into all-out war after having refused to heed the warnings of protagonist Commander Shepard, who has been trying to get the intergalactic community to listen to the warnings about the imminent arrival of the Reapers.
The Citadel:
The Citadel is a massive space station that serves as the seat of government for the intergalactic community and as a hub of trade, commerce and culture. It has five "ward arms" that are 43km long, and serve as colossal cities accommodating the residential and commercial districts of the station. The ward arms are arranged around a park-like central ring known as the Presidium (7.2km in diameter), where Citadel Tower, council chambers, embassies, government, restaurants and recreational facilities are located.
In addition to the Council (a governing body consisting of the three central races - salarian, asari and turian) being located here, it is also home to millions of residents from many galactic species.
It was also believed that the Citadel was of Prothean construction, but during the events of the Mass Effect trilogy it becomes understood that it was also built by the Reapers to serve as an encouragement for the mingling of intergalactic communities and peoples. The Citadel has been saved once already by Shepard during the attack by the Reaper 'Sovereign,' whereby it attempted to gain control of the station. Once the Reapers arrive in Mass Effect 3, however, they transform it into a massive harvesting device, allowing the Reapers to collect the billions of bodies of the peoples they choose to 'ascend.' This 'ascension' is nothing more than their organic matter being assimilated to form another Reaper.
Citadel Tower:
The massive central tower at the heart of the Presidium is known as Citadel Tower. It houses the council chambers and main traffic control operations for the Citadel. It is generally a peaceful place, furnished with cherry trees and fountains around an array of staircases leading to the central platform where the Council convenes.
Commander Karen Shepard:
Commander Karen Shepard is our protagonist and - in this novel - is female. Born on earth and orphaned at an early age, she scraped a living together from the back alleys of Earth's cities until she was old enough to enlist in the Alliance. During her rise as a young soldier in the navy, she earned a reputation as a ruthless individual who would do anything to accomplish her designated objective. Occasionally seeing the world as too black-and-white, Shepard has spent years of intergalactic involvement learning that mankind's best interests are served when it collaborates with the other species in the galaxy.
Through many twists of fate, Shepard's life has been bound to the coming of the Reapers. She averted their coming into the universe not once but several times over the course of Mass Effect 1 and 2, though it also meant many complicated missions and difficult choices. One such decision involved crashing an asteroid into the Alpha Relay. They relay's destruction caused the death of hundreds of thousands of batarians in the system and led to a charge of genocide against the Commander. The Alpha Relay was imminently about to be used by the Reapers to gain access to the galaxy, however, this fact was overlooked during Shepard's prosecution.
Shepard has also been plagued by accusations and bad press after leaving the Citadel council to die in Mass Effect 1 in order to destroy the Reaper known as Sovereign. The sacrifice of the 'Destiny Ascension,' and the thousands onboard, including the Council, allowed Fifth Fleet and the amassed allied forces defending the Citadel to concentrate on destroying the Reaper. Sovereign's mission was to assess the state of galactic evolution, and to allow the rest of its kind to return through the Citadel in order to initiate the next genocide or 'harvest.'
During Mass Effect 1, Shepard takes command of the Normandy SR-1 - a prototype stealth ship that is the product of collaboration between the humans and turians. While investigating a working Prothean beacon on the planet Eden Prime, the beacon uses Shepard as a vessel for a scrambled transmission of data, which turns out to be a warning sent by the doomed Prothean empire to its shattered remnants. The psychic vision given to Shepard by the Prothean beacon affects her fundamentally and makes her the subject of curiosity - and ridicule.
At the beginning of Mass Effect 2, the Normandy SR-1 is destroyed by an alien warship while on deep space patrol. Shepard saves all her crew but in turn gets 'spaced' (sucked from the ship's wreckage into the void). She is presumed dead after she gets caught in the gravity well of the nearest planet and falls into its atmosphere. However, unbeknownst to her former crew and the Alliance, her body is recovered soon after the crash by an organization called Cerberus who, acting on their own motives, resuscitate her from 'nothin' but meat and tubes' to the person she once was. Over the course of the next two years, Cerberus' top scientists work to rebuild Shepard's broken body, while their top engineers work on building the Normandy SR-2 - a larger, more well-appointed version of Shepard's original ship. Shepard works with Cerberus to defeat the Reaper-controlled Collectors who have started harvesting far-flung human colonies.
Shepard maintains she has survived through all of this mainly because of the team she has surrounded herself with. She has built and relied upon a vast team of many species from every walk of life. They maintain an inherent respect for one another and have become some of the galaxy's most respected combatants and Reaper experts. Shepard ha
s also found her love interest in a fellow team member of another species.
At the beginning of Mass Effect 3, Shepard is a 'guest of the Alliance' on Earth, grounded and essentially incarcerated in Vancouver for the detonation of the Alpha Relay in order to avert the return of the Reapers, but which also resulted in the killing of the system's inhabitants. Destroying this relay, even with the terrible loss of life, did stop the imminent Reaper invasion. However, the Reapers are only delayed and return regardless.
The day the Reapers finally arrive - bringing war and destruction to every corner of the galaxy - Shepard is summoned from her quarters by the Alliance's most senior officials to appear and offer advice regarding the sudden loss of communication across human-dominated space. A heated exchange takes place in which she decries the slow rate of preparations for the coming Reaper invasion. Shortly thereafter, communication with the human base on the moon is subsequently severed, and the Reapers attack Earth. Chaos descends on the entire planet, and large cities are hit especially hard. Shepard escapes Earth with little more than her life and once again takes command of the Normandy after being reinstated to active duty by Admiral Anderson (one of her oldest friends).
Throughout the events of Mass Effect 3, Shepard acts as the Alliance's sole bridge-builder during the war with the Reapers and manages to forge alliances between species that had long since resigned themselves to being eternal enemies. The turian councilor on the Citadel is the first (and, at the time, only) politician to extend a hand to Shepard and humanity with the offer of assistance for Earth. The most pressing initial mission is to rescue the turian primarch from Palaven's moon, Menae, in order to begin building a war summit. During the chaos of the Reaper invasion of Menae, Shepard is reunited with turian Garrus Vakarian with whom she forged a strong bond during the story of Mass Effect 2. After they ultimately succeed in evacuating the new turian primarch off the surface of the moon so as to bring him to the war summit, Garrus joins Shepard on the Normandy where they immediately rekindle their romance.
The Normandy SR-2:
The Normandy SR-2 is the flagship of the Alliance (Earth's spacefaring navy). The Normandy SR-2 is a prototype ship capable of stealth and recon missions, with speeds far exceeding other craft. The SR-2 was built by pro-human splinter group Cerberus to replace the SR-1 when it was destroyed by a Collector vessel at the beginning of Mass Effect 2. Using the experimental tantalus drive core fueled by element zero, it is a very powerful and valuable ship. The SR-2 is a substantially larger and better-appointed craft than the smaller SR-1 was, incorporating a number of civilian-grade comforts such as a full-sized kitchen and 'leather chairs'. The addition of a fully-evolved Artificial Intelligence within the ship's systems, known as the 'Enhanced Defense Intelligence' (EDI) provides the vessel with an unparalleled strategic advantage.
Cerberus:
A pro-human splinter group with a very shady background. It is run by the 'Illusive Man', who believes that the way to saving humanity is to work with the Reapers and 'control them,' instead of destroying them. In Mass Effect 3, Cerberus has morphed from mysterious research organization, into an organization that pits its own agenda against that of the Alliance and greater-good in general. They now experiment on humans, turning them into human-Reaper hybrids, and the Illusive Man is colluding with the Reapers in order to try and 'save' mankind. He does not realize that the Reapers are indoctrinating him?..
Indoctrination:
An insidious way of subduing those that defy them, the Reapers turn to indoctrination when presented with particularly challenging enemies. The process can take weeks or months, throughout which an organic individual is gradually taken over by the Reapers. Headaches, hallucinations, vivid dreams, mood swings - all of these are experienced as someone is turned into a sleeper agent for the Reapers. The Illusive Man of Cerberus became indoctrinated by the Reapers towards the end of Mass Effect 3.
SPECIES:
There are several core species that the stories of the Mass Effect universe deal with. Humans are a very new addition to the intergalactic community and generally regarded as brash upstarts. In order to be able to appreciate a large degree of the dialogue and exchanges in the following novel, it is essential to have at least a rudimentary grasp of the fundamentals of each species - their beliefs, drives, appearance and habits. The following is a very generalized description of the primary races of the Mass Effect universe.
Turians:
"The only thing on Palaven that isn't silver are the turians - it's all too clear they are made of steel."
~Alliance hero Jon Grissom, during his initial journey to the turian home world, Palaven.
One of the founding council races, turians are a disciplined, militaristic people where the needs of the many always outweigh the needs of the few. They are respected for their public service ethic, and were the species who initially suggested the creation of the Citadel's police force, C-Sec. Humanity's first experience with alien life was a battle known as the First Contact War, when the turians found a human scout fleet attempting to activate a dormant mass relay. The two species now enjoy civil - if cool - diplomatic relations.
Possessing the largest military in the galaxy, the turians were welcomed into the fold as a primary Council race after they succeeded in quashing the once-cooperative krogan during the Krogan Rebellions war. Turian society is highly regimented and very organized, and the species is known for its strict discipline and work ethic, although many other races tend to view them as rigid and imperialist.
Due to its weak magnetic field, the turian homeworld of Palaven has little radiation protection - as such, most life on the planet evolved with some degree of metallic skin or carapaces to protect from the increased radiation levels. In the turians, this has resulted as a bony, bio-metallic ridge around their upper chest, where a human's collarbone would appear. The turians' DNA is also based on dextro-amino acids, putting them in a distinct minority galaxy-wide. Food that is suitable for humans will at best pass through the turian digestive system without being absorbed - at worst, it can cause a significant allergic reaction.
Turians stand more than six-feet tall and possess two proportionately thick fingers and one opposable thumb on each hand. Their stature is both lean and powerful, and their features have been described by some as avian. They have distinctive mandibles on either side of their jaws and males sport a crest on the back of their heads. (Notable turians - Garrus Vakarian, Primarch Adrien Victus, Executor Pallin, General Corinthus.)
Quarians:
"Keelah se'lai"
~Common quarian benediction ('By the homeworld I hope to see one day.')
Exiled hundreds of years ago from their home planet during a war with the geth, quarians are the only other evolved dextro-amino life form in the galaxy alongside turians. Living as nomads in the sterile environment of the massive Migrant Fleet, the centuries quarians spent without a homeworld had led to their immune systems atrophying. Being a spacefaring, marooned people constantly facing the upkeep of the Migrant Fleet's vessels, quarians are renowned for their technical and synthetic expertise.
Adolescent quarians must undertake a Pilgrimage outside of the Migrant Fleet during their coming-of-age. They are expected to return from their travels with something of value to offer to the captain of their home ship - thereby gaining them a permanent home and allowing the quarian to adopt the vessel's name as their own last name (displayed by the suffix 'vas' in all quarian names - meaning 'of the').
Approximately three hundred years before the story of Mass Effect 1, the quarians created the geth - a species of synthetic artificial intelligences which were designed to serve as a source of economic artificial labor. However, as the geth networked together, their collective intelligence became far greater than had been foreseen, and eventually the quarians, having become fearful of the consequences, attempted to exterminate them. The geth won the resulting war and forced the quarians into exile from their home p
lanet of Rannoch.
Biologically, quarians possess slight stature and typically stand slightly shorter than the average human being. They have three fingers on each hand - a thumb, an index finger and a longer finger. They are generally humanoid in appearance, both males and females having general distinctive characteristics that match human beings' two genders. Their most notable physical feature is the lack of an immune system; as such, each adult quarian presents in an enviro-suit and their faces are never seen. A simple breach of this suit can result in a life-threatening infection for a quarian - whether intentional or accidental. For a quarian to remove his or her enviro-suit (even for the purpose of reproduction or medical procedure), they must undergo a regimen of antibiotics, immunoboosters and herbal supplements. Even still, they will usually become sickened for some time. (Notable quarians - Tali'Zorah vas Normandy, Admiral Shala'Raan vas Tonbay, Admiral Daro'Xen vas Moreh.)
The Geth:
"My name is Legion - for we are many."
~Gospel of Mark - Chapter 5: Verse 9.
The geth are a synthetic race of artificial intelligences created by the quarians hundreds of years ago as instruments of manual labor and war. However, as each geth unit was created and joined the collective intelligence of its peers, they became immeasurably more intelligent and self-identified. Inevitably perhaps, the geth began to question the purpose of their own existence. Such questions coming from a race of synthetics that were created purely as tools of labor troubled the quarians, and eventually they issued a termination order for all geth. Initially, the geth did not respond to this order with violence - it was only after the panicked quarians fired upon them that they took up arms and defended themselves.
During the events of Mass Effect 1, the geth are largely shown as following servants of the Reapers. In fact, a relatively small percentage of geth units followed the Reapers (the 'Old Machines' as they call them), and the majority of geth remained neutral. In Mass Effect 2, Shepard is able to salvage a working geth soldier from a derelict Reaper while obtaining the IFF device that will allow the Normandy safe passage through the Omega-4 relay to destroy the Collectors. Later, Shepard activates the in-tact geth unit and learns some surprising facts about the synthetic race. EDI names the geth unit 'Legion', and it subsequently becomes a part of Shepard's team. Legion is never able to answer in a straightforward manner why he is sporting a piece of Shepard's old armor, which appears to have been used as a makeshift field dressing by the synthetic.