Why No Female Aliens in Mass Effect?

[Sariteiya]

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?

 

[DustStorm]

Quarians? There are quite a few Quarian females in the game. You can even recruit one.

 

[Loop Stricken]

Aside from the Asari and the Quarians you mean.

Because:

1) Krogan females are too valuable to move around much what with the whole genophage thing. They sit in heavily-guarded structures and BREED BABY BREED!

2) Salarian females make up only about 1/8th of the race and are basically the political elite. Also tied up with horribly twisted contracts about breeding.

Volus, Elcor, Hanar... could you really tell?

Turian females don't look too much different from males but I think that's more that Bioware only recently settled on what they actually looked like.

Quarians? There are quite a few Quarian females in the game. You can even recruit one.

... you can? Oh my gosh, do tell me how! Dem hips!

 

[Robert Ewing]

What's to say some alien races aren't Asexual?

It's perfectly possible that a race is composed purely males, or purely females.

And Quarians have a lot of female members present in the game.

 

[AddytheGreat]

On the Krogan homeworld you do see a single female emissary from a clan.
Its not much, but its something, right?

 

[Delsana]

Batarian females, do you REALLY want to see them?

 

[emeraldrafael]

Now, I've never played the game, so all of what I've seen is from friends playing and talking, but isnt tali a girl?

and arent there alot of female characters that you run into as NPCs?

 

[Daystar Clarion]

Just because you've never spoken to a female turian, doesn't mean you haven't seen one.


Can you tell the difference between a male and female dog without getting a close look between their legs?

 

[Daystar Clarion]

On the Krogan homeworld you do see a single female emissary from a clan.
Its not much, but its something, right?

That's a male Krogan.

The guy's an emissary for the females, not a female himself.

 

[RYjet911]

Yes yes, ASIDE from the Asari.

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?

It wasn't technically possible with the original engine. I remember reading it up somewhere a while back. The engine improvements have helped ease that, such as applying male Quarians, and ME3 will likely improve this further.

 

[Zhukov]

Basically, because they couldn't be bothered.

Although they do have an excuse for the Salarians. Their species is 90% male, and the females rarely leave the homeworld.

Incidentally, there's at least one female Krogan in ME3.

Also...

On the Krogan homeworld you do see a single female emissary from a clan.
Its not much, but its something, right?

That was a male. He was the emissary to the female clans.

 

[FalloutJack]

Maybe they're trying to avoid Captain Kirk Syndrome.

 

[Sariteiya]

Sorry, yes I meant aside from Quarians as well. And as for the whole 'Asexual" angle I don't exactly see it. If they were supposed to be Asexual why do they all have masculine traits and voice actors? I'd understand if some of them were, (Hanar, why not,) but all of the unrepresented races mentioned? That seems lazy.

 

[Mintaro]

Are you talking about mass effect 1 or 2? Because in 2 you see many Female Quarians. I'm pretty sure you see some female Salarian (they look a lot like males). :And you even see a female Krogan (when talked to she says she is too important, and doesn't have to speak with you.: Volus are in a suit so who knows. Hanar are pretty alien, so I doubt we could tell. And as for the Turian's, well their clearly some sort of reptilian race. So the males probably look just like the females.


All in all I think the only mammal races are Volus and Elcor. Meaning you wouldn't be able to tell most of them by general appearance. As the two primary ways we define females in humans are enlarged mammary glands and separated hip bones.

:Edit- the previouse post about my claimed Krogan female is correct. It was a male. However in double checking this I discovered there is a Krogan female Under a tarp during Mordin Solus' loyalty mission.

 

[Loop Stricken]

On the Krogan homeworld you do see a single female emissary from a clan.
Its not much, but its something, right?

No you don't; that's an immature male.

Spoiler: Wanna see a female turian?

 

[Zeraiya]

I wonder the same thing on many occasion. I think getting a glimpse of a female Tuarin or a female Drell would be awesome.

I remember watching an interview with the character designer of Garrus and the Tuarians and he spoke about how they had no idea what to do with female Tuarians - hence why they never introduced any into the Mass Effect universe. They were completely stumped. The one guy even said "What are we going to do? Add breasts? Add some lipstick?" They honestly can't conceive how to turn a Tuarian - or a Salarian, Drell, Volus, Vorcha, Batarian, etc. - into a female. It's almost like making a whole other alien.

In that respect making the female Quarians was easy! You could never see their faces so all the artists had to do was add breasts and hips and BAM, females!

My sympathies go out to the artists. It can't be easy, because no matter what they do they're going to piss someone off.

At least in Mass Effect 3 we get to see a female Krogan! Yay for that.

I'm not sure if this helps, but Taurian females can be seen in the Mass Effect comics. They look identical to the males except they have very short horn/fringes. They hardly look feminine.

 

[ReservoirAngel]

Same reason there aren't any gay dudes. Bioware just didn't bother including some.

 

[Chemical Alia]

Look at it from the developer's point of view. Artists rarely enjoy modeling females that aren't hot.