I've been replaying Mass Effect and there's literally a side quest where a bunch of biotic "terrorists" have taken a chairman from the Alliance hostage. Specifically because he voted against reparations for L2 biotics, being an L2 biotic requires implants which cause insanity, mental disability, and crippling pain. So Shepherd is literally sent in as an agent of capital to kill them, and you don't have anyway to express any sympathy to the biotics. The paragon path is literally just telling the biotic leader that you won't kill him if he lets the chairman go, and whooooa as soon as you convince the leader to stand down, the chairman has a change of heart. This stood out to me cause it's just a small side quest, but the series both sides genocide and has you actually commit genocide in 2. The Batarians, despite the series trying their best to paint an entire species as xenophobic slaver/terrorists, are victim to multiple war crimes committed by the player character. The game has created a situation where there are 'good' aliens (the council races) and 'bad' aliens (batarians/vorcha/krogan) and the lives of the 'bad' aliens matter significantly less than the good aliens. You get hordes of vorcha and batarians to kill, and dialogue and story reinforces the fact that it's okay. There might as well be calipers in the game. It's honestly kind of fucked to play through.
Mass Effect has also always been ridiculously US centric and thus pro US military when it comes to depictions of humanity as a whole. It goes for all races, but if you're a civilian you're usually depicted as either useless or just conniving evil, and we should listen more to the military. Take the council or Udina, they're all just useless pencil pushers who want PROOF that something is happening before they want to act, luckily we have Colin Powell... I mean Admiral Anderson there to back you up.
This isn't even touching the ideological nightmare that is the spectres.
The SpecTRe program is so good for storytelling purposes as it gives you a reason to do whatever you want while also giving you a strict mission guideline to do.
But it's not a great thing to have when you really think about it.
Mass effect is reactionary trash. The entire premise of the game is that you're an ultra-cop who can do anything he wants and fuck the law. The whole Krogan genocide is a great replacement narrative.
The way the Batarians have been portrayed, from the very start, has always rubbed me the wrong way. Shepard, who is portrayed as a force for good (even his Renegade path has him framed as "crude but effective"), derisively tries to justify the Batarians being outcasts when talking with a terrorist leader speaking about their grievances. Even the goody-goody Paragon options doesn't have anything to convey sympathy. Then comes Mass Effect 2 where Zaeed, the veteran of a fucking PMC, is portrayed as having a moral compass since he refused to let Batarians ("Goddamn Terrorists") join the Blue Suns when he lead them (as opposed to his greedy partner). They're so obviously a stand-in for [designated bad guy in the global periphery], even incorporating some of the DPRK (being a "Hermit Kingdom" and all).
Also, another thing about ME is that class conflict seems to never be brought to the forefront, despite the Galaxy being a crapsacharine neoliberal hellhole where corporations and their mercenary companies run amok, and poverty is still an everpresent problem. It's effort to be a "dark" science fiction setting just end up making it Capitalist Realist as fuck.
Honestly replaying the series with the Legendary Edition has been kind of an eye opener when it comes to just now much of a neoliberal hellhole that universe is, didn't give it much thought as a kid. The Batarian thing always threw me just because it's like they sat down with the intention to design a race for you to hate.
Now that I think about it, the reason it was shocking to me (and maybe to you as well) was because it felt out of place with the socially Liberal tone of the series. If it were consistent, it would have at least made the "government, not the people" distinction but no, mask off. At least they sorta get treated like people by Mass Effect 3.
I've been replaying Mass Effect and there's literally a side quest where a bunch of biotic "terrorists" have taken a chairman from the Alliance hostage. Specifically because he voted against reparations for L2 biotics, being an L2 biotic requires implants which cause insanity, mental disability, and crippling pain. So Shepherd is literally sent in as an agent of capital to kill them, and you don't have anyway to express any sympathy to the biotics. The paragon path is literally just telling the biotic leader that you won't kill him if he lets the chairman go, and whooooa as soon as you convince the leader to stand down, the chairman has a change of heart. This stood out to me cause it's just a small side quest, but the series both sides genocide and has you actually commit genocide in 2. The Batarians, despite the series trying their best to paint an entire species as xenophobic slaver/terrorists, are victim to multiple war crimes committed by the player character. The game has created a situation where there are 'good' aliens (the council races) and 'bad' aliens (batarians/vorcha/krogan) and the lives of the 'bad' aliens matter significantly less than the good aliens. You get hordes of vorcha and batarians to kill, and dialogue and story reinforces the fact that it's okay. There might as well be calipers in the game. It's honestly kind of fucked to play through.
The more the Batarians get genocided the nicer they become lol
It's heavily implied in 3 that they'll become good aliens after their entire civilisation was destroyed.
100% true, they literally get subjugated to goodness, which is literally what they did to the Krogan.
"I'm sure the Palestinians will stop hating us once we bomb/displace/starve them this time"
Mass Effect has also always been ridiculously US centric and thus pro US military when it comes to depictions of humanity as a whole. It goes for all races, but if you're a civilian you're usually depicted as either useless or just conniving evil, and we should listen more to the military. Take the council or Udina, they're all just useless pencil pushers who want PROOF that something is happening before they want to act, luckily we have Colin Powell... I mean Admiral Anderson there to back you up.
This isn't even touching the ideological nightmare that is the spectres.
deleted by creator
The SpecTRe program is so good for storytelling purposes as it gives you a reason to do whatever you want while also giving you a strict mission guideline to do.
But it's not a great thing to have when you really think about it.
deleted by creator
Mass effect is reactionary trash. The entire premise of the game is that you're an ultra-cop who can do anything he wants and fuck the law. The whole Krogan genocide is a great replacement narrative.
deleted by creator
The way the Batarians have been portrayed, from the very start, has always rubbed me the wrong way. Shepard, who is portrayed as a force for good (even his Renegade path has him framed as "crude but effective"), derisively tries to justify the Batarians being outcasts when talking with a terrorist leader speaking about their grievances. Even the goody-goody Paragon options doesn't have anything to convey sympathy. Then comes Mass Effect 2 where Zaeed, the veteran of a fucking PMC, is portrayed as having a moral compass since he refused to let Batarians ("Goddamn Terrorists") join the Blue Suns when he lead them (as opposed to his greedy partner). They're so obviously a stand-in for [designated bad guy in the global periphery], even incorporating some of the DPRK (being a "Hermit Kingdom" and all).
Also, another thing about ME is that class conflict seems to never be brought to the forefront, despite the Galaxy being a crapsacharine neoliberal hellhole where corporations and their mercenary companies run amok, and poverty is still an everpresent problem. It's effort to be a "dark" science fiction setting just end up making it Capitalist Realist as fuck.
Honestly replaying the series with the Legendary Edition has been kind of an eye opener when it comes to just now much of a neoliberal hellhole that universe is, didn't give it much thought as a kid. The Batarian thing always threw me just because it's like they sat down with the intention to design a race for you to hate.
Now that I think about it, the reason it was shocking to me (and maybe to you as well) was because it felt out of place with the socially Liberal tone of the series. If it were consistent, it would have at least made the "government, not the people" distinction but no, mask off. At least they sorta get treated like people by Mass Effect 3.