Why No Female Aliens in Mass Effect?

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TsunamiWombat

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synobal said:
I think some people here should google Fornax and download the fan published issue to satisfy their curiosity with some fan made concepts.
Do not for the love of god do not
 

scorptatious

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AddytheGreat said:
On the Krogan homeworld you do see a single female emissary from a clan.
Its not much, but its something, right?
I thought that was a young male krogan. Could be wrong though. Although you do see a body of a female krogan that's covered up during Mordin's loyalty mission.
 

FuzzyRaccoon

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personion said:
I don't see why radically different aliens need genders that we can understand, but since they all are humanoid, and for some reason not only have the tongues to speak English but CAN speak, so hey why not. I find the aliens in mass effect are really unoriginal, so if they need genders then why not. I guess Elcor would be asexual, only 10% of salarians are female, so that's explained, I just disgusted myself by thinking about a female batarian, I don't imagine female vorcha going anywhere or doing anything, but besides that I can't think of any excuses.
A translator is being used. When talking to Thane once, a word that cannot be translated comes up, and Shepard is momentarily confused.
Hanar and Elcor also have a different way of talking, but in order to blend into the galactic community better, they have developed alternate methods with dealing with those not of their kind.

Edit: And Rachni communication issues (other than them getting their ideas "colored" by an outside force) is one of the largest reasons why it was so difficult to deal with them.
 

someonehairy-ish

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Stammer said:
someonehairy-ish said:
'why are all the aliens in Mass Effect split into Female/Male? Why aren't they hermaphroditic or something else?'
Not all of them are. But having a male and female in a species is EXTREMELY important for evolution. And it's almost a requirement for the kind of evolution required for a species with cognition and space-faring intelligence.

Asari are hermaphroditic, I can't remember what the codex says about vorcha but I do remember they've long since stopped evolving (so it's possible they've lost the necessity to find a mate to reproduce), and I don't even think I want to know how hanar reproduce lol.
Well a hermaphroditic race could evolve at the same rate as one with gender pairs, because even though each individual has all the sets of sexual organs they can still ah... get it on... with each other and therefore variation, deviation and the like can still happen.
A race with three genders instead of gender pairs is also conceivable but a lot less likely.
And races with two genders could exist but each gender would probably still not be recognisably different to a human.

As for whether this is still relevant to Mass Effect at all... no idea. Never played it. I was just going off what the OP said. I know that the actual reason for it is because people can relate to humanoid things/it helps if some of those humanoid things have breasts, but its more fun to point out that everything about the idea is pretty much wrong :L
 

Stammer

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someonehairy-ish said:
Well a hermaphroditic race could evolve at the same rate as one with gender pairs, because even though each individual has all the sets of sexual organs they can still ah... get it on... with each other and therefore variation, deviation and the like can still happen.
Right, but from an evolutionary point of view, that's a heck of a lot harder for the animal to produce. Cognitive beings spend a lot of their energy in production producing the brain. If they spent it creating two sets of functional sex organs it would either use up a lot more energy to create, or would replace the advanced brain.
 

FuzzyRaccoon

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We've seen a rachni female. They use parthenogenisis.

We don't know if we've seen elcor, hanar, or batarian females, since they haven't talked about any visible differences between them. The same is true for salarians and turians essentially. They might simply look exactly the same, or have differences we can't recognize, again like that dog concept.

I would however, appreciate knowing this. I just want females, or an explination, out of curiosity.
 

Lonan

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A major character meets a female Turian general in the third book, I believe there are also other females of non-Quarian or Asari species in the books. Remember, despite the frustrating inventory system in the first and planet scanning in the second, the video games generally have to be streamlined.

In other words, they want to get the main parts of the story across. In the first and to a slightly lesser degree the second, most aliens hate or dislike humanity and view them as impudent upstarts. While it would likely be more painful for males to have bigotry from a female than from a male, the simplest way to get dislike and prejudice across is to have male aliens, so that we can better identify them as threats and enemy's. There are also no children in Mass Effect, especially not alien children. They make for a very different atmosphere. The story of Mass Effect is clear, the galaxy is a standoffish place, it is no place for children of humanity, and seeing the children of other races would make them seem more "human," shall we say, and would not make them seem like a bigoted threat to our species.

The major point is that only the races friendly to humanity have woman we've seen. While the Hanar, Volus, and Elcor seem friendly to humans, they are not powerful in terms of their military, and are not much of a threat, therefore we do not see woman from their species because we already have nothing against them and they have nothing against us. The powerful species which hate, do not like humanity, or are at least not friendly to humanity are the Batarians, Turians, and Salarians, and in that order. We have not seen any females from their species because they still haven't warmed up to humanity, when they do, I'm sure we will.

The species we have seen woman from are the Quarians and Asari, both militarily potent, both friendly to humanity. The fact that we see woman is symbolically a relaxant, to make our tensed, ready for battle muscles ease up when we see the woman from that species, and interpret them as friendly from that alone. Seeing the fairer side of a species causes us to put more trust in them. I do not want to sound sexist, as though woman are just symbols for peace and goodwill, but in fiction this is often the case, and in Mass Effect I think it certainly is.
 

LarenzoAOG

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stormcrow5 said:
There are females in the diffrent races, just because they dont have tits do not make them any less female. Female hanar maybe have shorter tentacles or something.
Or one less tentacle. HEY OH!!! (Couldn't help myself)

Filler so I don't get a warning.
 

Zachary Thornburg

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This has to do with most of the other races being non-mammals, the developers didn't want to make them because it brought up the question of should the have mammary glans
 

DarthAcerbus

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FuzzySeduction said:
personion said:
I don't see why radically different aliens need genders that we can understand, but since they all are humanoid, and for some reason not only have the tongues to speak English but CAN speak, so hey why not. I find the aliens in mass effect are really unoriginal, so if they need genders then why not. I guess Elcor would be asexual, only 10% of salarians are female, so that's explained, I just disgusted myself by thinking about a female batarian, I don't imagine female vorcha going anywhere or doing anything, but besides that I can't think of any excuses.
A translator is being used. When talking to Thane once, a word that cannot be translated comes up, and Shepard is momentarily confused.
Hanar and Elcor also have a different way of talking, but in order to blend into the galactic community better, they have developed alternate methods with dealing with those not of their kind.
That pops up when Samara mentions the Ardat-Yakshi, too.
 

Dr Jones

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Loop Stricken said:
xFreekill said:
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!
Erm.. Tali Zorra? One of the main companions?
 

poleboy

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Maybe it's because aliens don't give a fuck about human gender politics.

Just a thought.
 

Little Duck

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Because Budgeting I believe. They didn't have the time in the first one nor money, and neither in the second. I think I've seen a female turian drawing somewhere over the rainbow from bioware. But that's about it. I also know there's a female krogan in the next game.
 

KyuubiNoKitsune-Hime

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You do actually see female turians in both of the games currently out, you just have to actually notice them. Since female and male turians are very similar looking it takes a bit of practice to start spotting them. But the stand out difference is that turian females lack the developed crest that the males have. I don't think I've ever heard one of them speak though. Also who would want to see female vorcha, batarians, or yahg. One could count the geth as entirely female as they are synthetic and many non living objects are referred to as female.

Citation for Turians: http://masseffect.wikia.com/wiki/Turian#Biology
 

1nfinite_Cros5

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Dr Jones said:
Loop Stricken said:
xFreekill said:
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!
Erm.. Tali Zorra? One of the main companions?
The sarcasm there went right over your head.

OT: It would be great to see different genders of aliens in the 3rd game, but they should be there just to be there, if you know what I'm saying. Every unique character should be there to help server the plot or expand the universe regardless of gender.
 

M920CAIN

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May 24, 2011
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OP should listen to these words carefully: What has been seen cannot be unseen! be careful what you wish for.
 

Cyrax987

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The Devs have already mentioned this since the beginning with Mass Effect 1. They pretty much were just too lazy and didn't have time to pretty much model and voice female turians. Why they still haven't done it for 2 and most likely 3 is probably they just thought it wasn't a big deal to work on it.

I would like them too since I'd be interested to see how a female turian plays out.
 

Quala

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I do remember seeing ONE female salarian in the first game. She was some random unimportant NPC labeled "Salarian Businesswoman".

I was also going to say that krogan on the homeworld, but it seems that was a male.