Hi all, Ric here! So, I’m a huge mass effect fan which is probably not a surprise and even to this
day, with the franchise being quiet for so long, I still will seize any opportunity to talk about it.
So Imagine my excitement when a teaser trailer was announced revealing the
warming up of the franchise that had been put on ice for a time since Andromeda.
An early teaser trailer doesn’t give out much, but I’ve been scouring every frame
for as much information as possible to see what I can garner. So, let’s take a look.
It’s been mentioned by Bioware’s Michael Gamble that we shouldn’t count out Andromeda altogether
despite the trailer seemingly revealing characters and things from the Milky Way galaxy. So, the game
itself may be a sequel to both Mass Effect 3 and Andromeda, this might be the reason for the two
galaxies being present in the opening shots. Despite this, we see a cowled figure,
presumably the same character who finds the broken N7 armour piece, walking over the wreckage of a
crashed Reaper, again confirmed by Mike Gamble. The Reapers were a threat present only in the
Milky Way galaxy, (as far as we know) and were destroyed or controlled by Shepard at
the end of Mass Effect 3. These galaxy scourging sentients seem to be wreaked in this trailer,
so perhaps the story may be taking one of the multiple endings of the Mass Effect trilogy
and making it the canon ending, in this case “destruction” would seem most likely. This
would kind of be the only way to directly continue within the Milky Way galaxy, unless the setting is
radically different for every iteration, as one ending sees all technological intelligence and
organic matter melded into a new life form, the synthesis ending, while another involves allowing
the cycle or Reaper harvest to continue, resulting the wiping out of all life in the galaxy.
However if Destruction is the canon choice, then A.I like Edi and the Geth would have been
wiped out, but not the knowledge of how to create more. So we might still see AI in this game.
In any ending, Commander Shepard dies, except for the easter egg at the end of the Destroy ending
with a higher enough ready rating. This wouldn’t be the first time that Bioware dropped an ending,
as Mass Effect 2 could finish with Shepard and their entire team dying,
which couldn’t take place for Mass Effect 3 to occur. So they’ve done it before.
In this way, Doctor Liara T’Soni survives all three games, the young Asari maiden being only
106 in Mass Effect 1. And the figure who we see find the N7 Helmet fragment does seem to be Liara,
although with a few more wrinkles than we last saw her. Asari have a very long lifespan broken up
into stages, from Maiden ending around 350 usually marked by the desire to learn and experience,
Marton sage which is often the familial stage and the Matriarch stage which begins at 700.
This sees an Asari at her most powerful and usually in a position of some
influence among the Asari community. Point being, Asari are very long lived,
and providing this is not a misdirect, this chapter of the game could be anywhere between
three-hundred to seven hundred years after Mass Effect 3. Granted a side profile of an Asari is
not too much to go on, but many hundreds of years could explain the joining of Andromeda
and the trilogy’s storylines. As it took about 600 years to get from one galaxy to the next.
Throughout the majority of the trailer however, we’re privy to a recounting of the Mass Effect
timeline. We get Houston talking to the Eagle, which I assume is the moon landing and then the
events of the Relay 314 Incident, the first contact between Humanity and the Turians.
We then get the line that “humanity now stands as partners of the galaxy” as they took their
place on the Citadel embassies, followed by the launch of Ark 6. This is a bit strange,
as there were only 5 Arks, the vessels launched from the Milky Way to Andromeda that carried
the various species to their new habitats. If we count the Nexus, the station hub ship, then the
6th vessel would have been the Keelah Si’yah, the Quarian stasis ship. These vessel were all
launched pre-reaper invasion and the Keelah Si’yah was the last known arc to depart the Milky Way.
We then get the emergence of the Reaper threat and a flyby of a busted-up Mass Relay. Something
that happens in most of the endings too, although the extended cut ending reveals that
the damaged Mass Relays were repaired in time, ensuring interstellar travel could continue.
Speaking of that destruction, it’s not the first time an N7 Helmet,
presumably Shepard’s has been found amid snowy debris. Mass Effect 2 saw the commander’s remains,
a very dead commander’s remains recovered from Alchera’s icy surface, the Normandy Crash
Site. This is notable for Shepard’s subsequent Lazarus style rebirth at the hands of Cerberus,
so are we going to see a similar rejuvenation for the main character? Probably not,
the likeness between the two events is probably more of an allusion to the rebirth of the story.
As for the figures that make their way off the ship beyond Liara? Starting with the ship itself,
the small vessel is one of Standard Council design and judging by the text on it,
human involved. But with Mass Effect, much of the technology is rather uniform due to the common
ancestor shared by the tech and the closeness of the Council races. So again, a bit hard to tell.
When it comes to the figures, one of them is clearly a Salarian in posture,
one seems to be an Angaran from the form and I think the biggest is a Krogan.
Hard to tell from the distance, but the species tend to maintain unique silhouettes,
such as the Krogan domed armour. If the middle is Angara, then it hints that not
only is interstellar travel up and running, but over the next few centuries (at least 600),
then a method of reaching the neighbouring galaxy has been established.
Although this trailer looks to be set in the Milky Way, I am wondering if this Ark 6 might
be yet another wave of Milky Way pioneers leaving post reapers invasion for the habitats
in Andromeda, and Liara is among them? After all T’Soni knew of the Andromeda Initiative. But if
that is the case, then the framing of the timeline in the trailer doesn’t match what we’re seeing.
So, I’m pushing for at least 800 years after Mass Effect 3’s ending.
What would be around at this time and what plot threads are left open form the original trilogy?
Well, Krogan also have centuries long lifespans, but Wrex was already pretty old but maybe Grunt
would still be alive. In terms of unresolved issues, we still have the mystery brought up
in Mass Effect 2 by Tali and the Quarian team on Haestrom. That system’s sun was burning up due
to strange Dark Matter behaviour and while supposedly merely a scrapped plot thread,
it remains an unanswered mystery in universe. The other bigger issue is of course the origin of the
Scourge in Andromeda, the strange matter tendrils that snake throughout the Heleus Cluster and had
ruined the otherwise prime colony worlds. Both of these large-reaching space phenomena that severely
hinder life and may be related in some way. But honestly, we’re not going to get all the
details from a trailer that was merely to announce that Mass Effect is back in the pipeline. I will
be keeping an eye on my favourite gaming universe and if you guys have any theories, let’s talk in
the comments below. One thing I’m unsure on is what exactly that ring is around the star?
I thought it may be to do with the First Contact War, but I can’t place it as something from what
I know of the books and everything. Thanks for watching, and I’ll keep
my ear to the quantum entanglement communicators. Until then, Goodbye!