Mass Effect 2

[Osterbaum]

I figured she could be trusted with making sure the nuke went off.

[Eltargrim]

I'm a control freak :p

[synkr0nized]

I never saw the advantage to using an AI-controlled character that was only good with guns. So, yeah, never used Ashley.

[Krylo]

Originally Posted by Mirai Gen

Ashley ruled and you all can fuck yourselves.

She would have been ok if she would have stopped talking about how much she hated/distrusted aliens for ten seconds.

She wouldn't, though.

Thus she got killed in every play through except the one or two in which I used her because when properly stated she is basically a wrecking ball.

Also, I liked Kaiden. Other than sounding like Carth they were really nothing alike. Kaiden had every reason to be a distrustful paranoid prick, but he actually came out exactly the opposite. While Carth had, at best, shitty reasons for being a distrustful paranoid prick, and totally was.

[Solid Snake]

Originally Posted by Krylo

She would have been ok if she would have stopped talking about how much she hated/distrusted aliens for ten seconds.

But I mean, could you blame her? Humanity was a relatively recent addition to the intelligent species of the galaxy, right? They fought a costly against one of the strongest alien factions, in fact. The aliens didn't really give humans positions of any power or authority, and I dunno, I felt I could sympathize with her somewhat. It's one thing to be racist or discriminatory to individuals of a different color or creed who're also humans and who've existed and interacted with your ancestors for centuries, but it's quite another to be suspicious and distrustful towards a bunch of aliens with completely different histories, cultures, biological compositions, and identities who've just suddenly become a part of the human story. I don't think I'd be comfortable if I woke up tomorrow and my worldview was shaken by news reports of the discovery of an entire galaxy worth of disparate aliens and Intergalactic institutions. How would you know what their intentions were? And given their superior technology, a certain degree of paranoia makes intuitive sense: they could destroy humanity without blinking an eye at any moment if they wanted to.

[Melfice]

Originally Posted by Solid Snake

But I mean, could you blame her? Humanity was a relatively recent addition to the intelligent species of the galaxy, right? They fought a costly against one of the strongest alien factions, in fact. The aliens didn't really give humans positions of any power or authority, and I dunno, I felt I could sympathize with her somewhat. It's one thing to be racist or discriminatory to individuals of a different color or creed who're also humans and who've existed and interacted with your ancestors for centuries, but it's quite another to be suspicious and distrustful towards a bunch of aliens with completely different histories, cultures, biological compositions, and identities who've just suddenly become a part of the human story. I don't think I'd be comfortable if I woke up tomorrow and my worldview was shaken by news reports of the discovery of an entire galaxy worth of disparate aliens and Intergalactic institutions. How would you know what their intentions were? And given their superior technology, a certain degree of paranoia makes intuitive sense: they could destroy humanity without blinking an eye at any moment if they wanted to.

If I recall correctly, while it was a tough war and the Turians WERE more powerful, the humans were pretty much on equal footing with them.
Though I may be wrong, as it's been a while.

That said, yeah. I kinda see where Ashley was coming from.

"We" found a Mass Relay. Started colonizing planets, and suddenly we're attacked by the Turians for something the Turians did themselves. More than that, the humans were attacked for doing what the Turians did and being good at defending themselves while doing it.

Scrap that. The humans were attacked for opening too many Mass Relays.

[synkr0nized]

Originally Posted by Solid Snake

And given their superior technology, a certain degree of paranoia makes intuitive sense: they could destroy humanity without blinking an eye at any moment if they wanted to.

Wait. Isn't the Normandy proof that, though we had some help, we can make better stuff? Besides, once you reverse-engineer from the Mass Relays, your technology isn't really behind the other races' anymore. Also, humanity fought back the Turians. In fact, throughout the first game it's mostly the Turian council member who has the most negative things to say about humans/Shepherd, likely a side effect of this AND his race's relative newness to the Council. The other races you meet, while maybe having some stereotypes about us just as we do of them, are hardly as negative or worthy of Ashley's near-racism.


Kaidan was pretty neat, I thought, especially as you learn more about his training. But maybe that's my first character talking, since they did become an item.


I was always amused at the "oh no we can't trust the aliens" bit that most of the human NPCs stick to and yet there I am taking out non-humans as my party members almost every time (Kaidan aside for that character).

[Melfice]

The Normandy's actually a joint-effort between humanity's and Turian's best engineers.
But as I understand it, most of the biggest technological features are human.

EDIT: Ooh, sneaky. Editing in that "though we had some help".
Yeah, disregard me.

[Krylo]

Edit: Got distracted and ninja'd. Whatever.

Well, except the entire crew was made up entirely of aliens, and most of the game went about showing how much humans were exactly the same.

Then you have Williams, whom has never really interacted with aliens except for (probably) Terra Firma holovids being anti-alien, while in the meantime you have Kaiden whom was beaten, broken, watched his friend have her arm broken, and killed a Turian in self defense, coming away from the whole thing saying aliens are just as 'human' as anyone else.

Also: In the First Contact War more Turian lives were lost than human lives. The second fleet was able to decimate what Turian forces were sent to attack humanity, and while a full blown war at that time would have probably gone in their favor, one during the time frame of the actual games probably wouldn't given that the humans have one the strongest militaries in the ME universe (probably owing to the First Contact War).

So, no, paranoia of them 'wiping out humanity without blinking an eye' isn't exactly warranted, nor is any misconception about superior alien technology.

Also, any time speaking with any other race would show that any assumptions anyone was making about the humans not being given a position of power of authority is blatantly false, as humans gained more political power faster than any other race, the council founders aside.

And Mass Effect takes place two full generations after the Alliance was inducted into the council.

So it's not even a 'just woke up and they were there', thing. Ashley would have been raised knowing that aliens exist and all about the politics and what not surrounding them.

[Solid Snake]

Originally Posted by synkr0nized

Wait. Isn't the Normandy proof that, though we had some help, we can make better stuff?

Actual technological parity and perceptions of technological parity are two very different things. If we suddenly learned that an entire galaxy of alien civilizations was out there, I highly doubt we'd perceive ourselves to be on equal footing.
In fact the whole concept of humanity attaining technological parity struck me as somewhat silly in the context of Mass Effect: it was difficult for me to envision an intellectual justification as to how human beings with comparatively limited knowledge of the universe could compete with the Turians, who (even if unaided by other alien factions) could trade with other worlds beyond human comprehension or understanding. It seemed like one of those plot twists that was necessary to justify humanity's position in the story and Shepherd's identity as the main character, but beyond that it wasn't really answered to my satisfaction.

NOTE: I have not actually beaten ME1 yet, so I could be completely and utterly wrong about all this. However, that above issue was one of those persistent gnawing ones that colored my gameplay experience. Insofar as I haven't fully gravitated towards the ME "universe," that was one of the reasons why.