Why No Female Aliens in Mass Effect?

[Farther than stars]

I'm wondering why we don't see more quadrupedal species. There are millions of different species of them on earth, with very few bipeds in comparison. What makes two legged animals so much better? The Elcor get along fine walking four legged, but nobody else.

Check out the smartest animals on Earth. Hominids are all semi-bipedal with the exception of humans. And even then, there's that first year where we are technically quadrupeds. Corvids and parrots are bipeds. The only crafty/clever animals that aren't bipedal all live in the ocean.

Well, it is sort of explained with an indication that the Reapers are responsible for evolution taking place along similar lines. And I suppose theoretically having one's arms free to undertake more complex tasks is a sign of being further along the evolutionary scale.
But in the end, it's all just sci-fi and there are going to be come inconsistencies here and there. Admittedly the Mass Effect universe is very well engineered to deal with most of those, which is why it's so much harder to swallow that all of the alien races speak English and it never goes explained. Our English, or in the case of the Mass Effect universe, English that's 100 years old. I mean, even here on Earth dialects and accents vary from nation to nation.

 

[Stammer]

What?

The animal doesn't intentionally expend energy trying to produce anything. Evolution happens via mutation and natural selection. Its not like spore where you only have so much of a resource and you can either buy the extra sex organs or a more complex brain. It takes more energy to actually keep a complex brain and extra sex organs and the like running, but as long as food supplies are enough to keep that up it doesn't matter.

It isn't intentional, it's just what's given to us. Human beings, for example, only spend about 9 months in the womb. There's only so much production that can go on in that time. Between time and food energy, the unborn child only has so many resources to put towards certain things. And evolution asks "what does this individual need more of".

That little extra brain power comes at the cost of physical strength and reproduction. We are arguably one of the worst reproducers in the entire world. And as we've evolved we've needed less and less physical strength.

The ability for the asari to reproduce with virtually any species of any gender is likely a cause of them spending their first 350 years of life in prepubescence. That's a LOT of time their bodies can finish growing and working out the kinks.

 

[ThePilgrim101]

There's this thing called "the point" -- and you missed it.

I saw your point. It was just a really crappy point.

Next time, when you don't have an actual comeback, try falling on your sword. It's much less stupid.

 

[someonehairy-ish]

What?

The animal doesn't intentionally expend energy trying to produce anything. Snip

It isn't intentional, it's just what's given to us. Human beings, for example, only spend about 9 months in the womb. There's only so much production that can go on in that time. Between time and food energy, the unborn child only has so many resources to put towards certain things. And evolution asks "what does this individual need more of".

That little extra brain power comes at the cost of physical strength and reproduction. We are arguably one of the worst reproducers in the entire world. And as we've evolved we've needed less and less physical strength.

The ability for the asari to reproduce with virtually any species of any gender is likely a cause of them spending their first 350 years of life in prepubescence. That's a LOT of time their bodies can finish growing and working out the kinks.

The reason that humans have less physical strength than say, an ape, is because it became unneccessary as we began to develop tools and more complex language that allowed us to work as a hunting group that could take down pretty much any predator out there. The strength was uneccessary and thus died out, it wasn't 'sacrificed' in order for us to have more brain power.
Before we (human beings) came along there were other intelligent hominid species that likely also had the beginnings of culture, abstract thought, tool making and language and ALSO retained the strength of their ape-like ancestors.. However, we managed to wipe them out by pretty much being able to out-produce them and also by living in massive social groups rather than tiny family groups. But their existence shows that it is more than possible for a being to be both extremely strong and intelligent. Evolution gives what is needed and takes what isn't used, it doesn't give one beneficial thing but only at the cost of another beneficial thing as though it is trying to maintain a status quo.


The fact that Asari can reproduce with anything would have to mean that they are somehow sexually compatible with species that has evolved millions upon millions of miles away (lolwhut) or they perhaps have a system that merges alien DNA with their own to produce offspring like alien, which would likely result in a monstrosity that barely resembles either parent species. So really the only reason they can reproduce with any species is because Bioware thought it would be cool and bullshitted an explanation for it.

 

[xXGeckoXx]

Yes yes, ASIDE from the Asari.

EDIT: And Quarians, sorry.

It's been kind of a running joke for me and my boyfriend that all the races in Mass Effect must have 1950's-esque culture, because apparently all the females of their race stay at home. aside from Asari and Humans, you have yet to see a female of any other race, even minor races like Volus, Elcor or Hanar, not to mention Turians, Salarians etc. I know some of them have cultural excuses, (Krogan women are precious etc,) but ones like the Turians are particularly egregious when it comes to this; Garrus mentions that Turian women serve in the Military, so why have you NEVER run across one?

I understand that in ME3 you're supposed to see more females of the species, but my question is, why has it taken so long? It doesn't seem terribly difficult to design a few female Aliens, and they seem to have plentiful female voice actors, so why have they neglected to use female Aliens up to this point?

Salarains are explained in game females are closely guarded on the hokme planet by their families as a trade resource, 90% of all salarians are male. Read more to understand exactly why. Turians are the only unexplained one, Krogan females are also a rare commodity and guarded on tuchanka due to the genophage. The elcor and the hanar, how do you know whether one is male or female? And finally the Drell, well they mostly stay on the hanar homeworld so very few people have seen a drell fullstop let alone a female.

I'm wondering why we don't see more quadrupedal species. There are millions of different species of them on earth, with very few bipeds in comparison. What makes two legged animals so much better? The Elcor get along fine walking four legged, but nobody else.

Check out the smartest animals on Earth. Hominids are all semi-bipedal with the exception of humans. And even then, there's that first year where we are technically quadrupeds. Corvids and parrots are bipeds. The only crafty/clever animals that aren't bipedal all live in the ocean.

Mega agreement, there are a few reasons why smart creatures are often bypedal (not gonna go into it here). The game takes the approach that there is a benefit evolutionarliy for bipedality (spell check says those are both words so suck it) and for all we know there could be. The games also give exceptions to this rule such as the elcor and the hanar that developed on high gravity and ocean worlds respectively.

 

[Zachary Thornburg]

That again has to do with the developers had a set humanoid physic set, so that made it easy to make bipedal races.