Favorite Mass Effect Planet descriptions

[Trunkage]

Eletania:

WARNING: Level 1 Toxic Hazard

Eletania appears to be a world eminently suited for colonization. Sadly, appearances are deceiving. It is covered by a verdant carpet of mosses, algae, and lichen, and possesses a thick oxygenated atmosphere, but the animal kingdom is a web of microscopic symbiotic creatures. These are impossible to filter from the air and necessary for the native life to thrive. Unfortunately, they also cause anaphylactic shock when inhaled by non-native life.

In short, settlement requires either fully sealed environment suits, or replacement of the entire world's ecosystem. Some have proposed limited colonization at altitudes above the symbiotes' range, or in areas where favorable winds keep the air clear.

Is that the planet with the spherical Prothean artifact that never gets explained?

OT: I usually just skim the planet descriptions, but it's nice to know that they are there, even if I ignore 90% of them. I wonder who wrote them, was it one of the writers or did they reach out to an astronomer or something?

I think that is Eletania. But it's not completely unexplained. Usually when you go there the sphere just hangs there and you can't interact with it. But the last time I played I went there after I had helped Sha'ira the Consort on the Citadel. If you do all her side missions she gives you a Prothean trinket that seems useless, until you take it to that Prothean sphere. Then you get a glimpse of what it was built for.

And I wonder too who wrote all that text. So much of it contains ideas and terminology and oddities that most people wouldn't know. They must have had several astronomers on staff to advise on all of that stuff.

Didn't the sphere show up in the Firewalker DLC (Hammerhead mission). And then they were retconned into Leviathan DLC which made it blatantly obvious that their initial plan for them were changed (like so many other things in the series).

 

[008Zulu_v1legacy]

The first one that comes to mind is the gas giant Ploba. When it was first charted, the exploration team's readings indicated several enormous solid masses inside the planet's atmosphere. When they approached to investigate, the structures sank away one by one until they disappeared, and have not been spotted since.

That was my favourite too. The description reminded me of Whale Sharks.

 

[Knight Captain Kerr]

Two planets I really like the descriptions of are Jartar and Chasca.

Jartar:

Jartar is a terrestrial world with a trace atmosphere of krypton and xenon. The surface is hot, and mainly composed of unremarkable silicates. Occasional deposits of aluminum, magnesium, and other light metals can be found.

Jartar is noted for the discovery of the "Leviathan of Dis," the apparent corpse of a genetically engineered living starship. The Leviathan was found in the bottom of a crater by a batarian survey team, and estimated to be nearly a billion years old. It "disappeared" after a visit to the system by a batarian dreadnought twenty years ago.

Since then, the batarians have steadfastly denied that the Leviathan existed at all and all the more vociferously when shown recordings of the corpse made by salarian researchers.

This is included in the first Mass Effect and ends up being involved in the Mass Effect 3 Leviathan DLC. In retrospect I like how from the start there is evidence that other civilisations before you have killed Reapers, it isn't impossible. Also I like the idea of the Batarians covering it up for some reason.

Chasca:

Chasca is a large, but low density world, fundamentally similar to its inner neighbor Inti. Like Inti, Chasca is tidally-locked to Matano. The same side always faces the sun, resulting in a scorching day side and a frozen night side. In the temperate areas around the terminator, temperatures average around 30 Celsius. Combined with a nitrogen-oxygen atmosphere, this slender band of habitable terrain allows limited colonization by humans.

Chasca's ring is unique. It appears to be, for lack of a better term, a massive piece of alien "installation art." The rings are made of small pieces of synthetic material, and are almost invisible from space. From the ground, they catch and scatter the light of Matano in picturesque ways. It is not known who created the ring or when.

Chasca is very early in development, with little more than a few pioneer teams scattered across the surface. Information is being collated about native hazards and ecology, while a massive colonist recruiting drive is gearing up back on Earth.

I just love the idea of the kinds of art work that aliens and a space faring species can make. That this space faring species made something in the rings of their planet not for any pragmatic purposes but because it looks beautiful from the surface.

 

[Offworlder_v1legacy]

Gamayun-

Gamayun is a hydrogen-helium gas giant with six large, icy moons. The outermost one, Gigula, is of note for a well-preserved wreckage of an ancient starship that was recognized by a turian military surveyor. Little information has been released to the public on the vessel, aside from a scholarly paper regarding how the internal layout suggests a horizontally-oriented race.

The idea of a horizontal race is just really cool. I love how tiny asides in Mass Effect games can open up entire other realms of lore and story.

 

[Tilly]

Does EDI's comments when you probe Uranus count?

What are they? I assume that's ME1?

 

[Offworlder_v1legacy]

Does EDI's comments when you probe Uranus count?

What are they? I assume that's ME1?

 

[MysticSlayer]

Klencory is sort of humorous given the story of the series:

Spoiler: Description from Mass Effect

Klencory is a rock and ice planet with an atmosphere composed of chlorine and argon. The frozen surface is mainly composed of potassium with deposits of iron.

Klencory is famously claimed by the eccentric volus billionaire Kumun Shol. He claims that a vision of a higher being told him to seek on Klencory the "lost crypts of beings of light." These entities were supposedly created at the dawn of time to protect organic life from synthetic "machine devils."

Shol has been excavating on Klencory's toxic surface for two decades, at great expense. No government has valued the world enough to evict his small army of mercenaries.

Spoiler: Description from Mass Effect 3

Klencory is a rock and ice planet with an atmosphere composed of chlorine and argon. The frozen surface is mainly composed of potassium with deposits of iron.

Klencory is famously claimed by the eccentric volus billionaire Kumun Shol. His once-ridiculed visions of "beings of light" protecting organic life from synthetic "machine devils" don't seem quite so far-fetched now. His private army of mercenaries are well-established on the planet, waiting for husks to come knocking in on their door. In all likelihood, they will be obliterated by the molten metal of a Reaper orbital bombardment, on its way to somewhere important.

 

[Sir Thomas Sean Connery]

[quote/]
Prescyla is a terrestrial world so small, it cannot even retain a trace atmosphere. The surface is frozen and composed mostly of magnesium silicates with carbonaceous deposits.

In its recent past, a pirate gang from the Terminus Systems carved a message into the surface using ship-based laser weapons. In hundred-meter-wide batarian syllabic, the message proclaims the military prowess and virility of one "Captain Zaysh". A smaller postscript alludes to the questionable parentage of all humans.
[/quote]

This is the one I always remember. I just love the idea that some guy took the time to write, in massive letters something along the lines of: "I kick all the ass and I fuck all the bitches. [sub/]Also humanity's mother was a hamster[/sub]"

 

[LetalisK]

Also, there was that one with a huge ravine that was theorized to be the result of a glancing blow from a ludicrously large mass accelerator weapon. Which then become a minor plot point in ME2, which was a nice touch.

Is that in reference to the "Sir Isaac Newton is the deadliest son of a ***** in space!" thing? Or something else?

Edit: Never mind, just found it.

 

[Zhukov]

Also, there was that one with a huge ravine that was theorized to be the result of a glancing blow from a ludicrously large mass accelerator weapon. Which then become a minor plot point in ME2, which was a nice touch.

Is that in reference to the "Sir Isaac Newton is the deadliest son of a ***** in space!" thing? Or something else?

Nah.

You know the derelict Reaper you board in ME2? The one where you meet Legion? The Illusive Man tells you that it was taken out during one of the previous Reaper invasions by a species who built a massive planet-based weapon and used it to pop at least one Reaper as a final "Fuck You" before they were overrun. The projectile went on to carve out the huge canyon on the planet I mentioned.