< Mass Effect

Mass Effect/Tropes E-L


Tropes A-D | Tropes E-L | Tropes M-P | Tropes Q-Z

  • Earth Is the Center of the Universe: Initially averted. Before Mass Effect 3, not one single event of any plot importance has occurred on Earth in the series. The only relevance it had to the current plot is that it's one of three selectable pre-service origins for Shepard. It's suggested that the Collectors will eventually hit Earth for the population density, but they never have the chance. Mass Effect 3 begins with a full-scale invasion of the planet by the Reapers, and the ultimate goal is the launch a final battle both on and around Earth. Earth is actually the second victim of the Reapers after Khar'Shan, and Shepard doesn't return until the very last section of the game. However, the Reapers seem to be awfully focused on Earth, and actually move the Citadel into the Sol System, for no other reason than forcing the final battle to take place there.
  • The Eighties: According to the Word of God, Mass Effect is an homage to 1980's sci-fi flicks, including the soundtrack (Blade Runner, and so on). Mass Effect 1 seems to harken to the early 80's, while Mass Effect 2 seems to harken to the latter part of the decade. One example of this influence is the music in the first game, particularly the more synthesized tracks on the Citadel, which are a great Shout-Out to Vangelis' music in Blade Runner.
  • Eldritch Abomination: The Reapers.
  • Elite Mooks: With the geth, 'Elite' overlaps with 'Giant'. The bigger they are, the more effective, though it works as larger units can house more software, which translates to smarter and more effective platforms.
    • In Mass Effect 3, each faction has their own group of Super Mooks. Aside from the aforementioned geth, the Reaper faction has Brutes and Banshees (huskified krogans/turians and asari, respectively). Cerberus has Phantoms and Atlas mechs.
  • Empty Shell: Victims of indoctrination.
  • Encyclopedia Exposita: The Codex, narrated by Neil "I know I've heard you before" Ross.
    • It's worth noting that a lot of little elements in the game are expanded on by the Codex. For example, Engineer Adams comments that "going to FTL blue-shifts our emissions." The mechanics behind why the emissions are blue-shifted are explained in detail in the Codex.
    • The Codex is also a literal in-universe encyclopedia, which means that it intentionally contains incorrect and falsified information. For example, in the second game Sovereign is listed as a geth warship, when it reality it was a sentient starship and the game’s true Big Bad.
    • In Andromeda, the codex is written up by SAM.
  • Endangered Species: The rachni, who are not quite as dead as the galaxy believes. It's up to you whether or not to finish the job. If you wipe them out in the first game, the Reapers make their own, but there's no way to save them... their Breeder will turn on you no matter what. The real Queen will help if given the chance.
  • The End Of The Galaxy As We Know It: According to legend, this rolls around every fifty thousand years with no explanation for what causes it. It's the Reapers, and guess what time it is!
    • The third game ends this way, regardless of which ending you choose.
  • Enemy Chatter: ...make it stop... *twitch*

"I WILL DEEESTROY YOU!"
"GO-GO-GO"
"ENEMIES EVERYWHERE!"
"Hold the Line!"

  • Enemy Civil War:
    • The original geth vs the Exclusively Evil heretic geth by the second game.
    • Cerberus vs. Cerberus renegades in the third game.
  • Epiphany Therapy: Averted on almost every occasion. Rather than getting people over their problems with a few helpful/tough words and maybe a slap to the face, Shepard instead tries to get people to acknowledge that they have a problem in the first place. And if they do, s/he then encourages them to see a shrink.
  • Eternal Prohibition: Drugs are still illegal. Alcohol is still legal, but only in certain places. It's implied that the laws are more fluid than what we're used to; drugs that are illegal are allowed on Illium, just heavily taxed.
    • There's large differences concerning attitudes towards drugs in different cultures: Turians for example tolerate recreational drug use more than humans, but only as long as it doesn't impede their duties. Illium is a special case, as its location puts it outside all interstellar legislation, and the only law recognised there is corporate law—anything you buy comes with a contract describing all the effects and side-effects of the product, and as long as it's fulfilled, there's no grounds for complaint. Illium also references a point of debate from real life: if a drug is entirely illegal, it will be brought in by smugglers.
  • Eternal Recurrence: The Reapers and their 'harvesting' of all space-faring species of the galaxy every fifty thousand years. The earliest evidence available is a mostly-dead Reaper. From thirty-seven million years ago.
    • The third game ultimately involves ending this cycle, and also reveals another: organic beings always create synthetics, always go to war with synthetics, are always destroyed by synthetics. The Reapers were created to end these cycles and preserve organic life.
    • The Leviathan of Dis found on Jartar was estimated at nearly a billion years old, and it was confirmed in the Bring Down the Sky DLC to be a Reaper. This pushes the earliest known evidence back from thirty-seven million years ago to almost a billion years ago. Sovereign once said, "We have no beginning. We have no end. We are infinite." It may not be true, but it's close enough that he could be forgiven for thinking it.
  • Eva Fins: The Geth Destroyer family of mooks sport these.
  • Every Bullet Is a Tracer: Justified, in that each bullet is actually a grain-sized pellet of metal in a mass effect field. All mass effect fields give off blue light. Without ammo mods, every "tracer" is blue.
  • Everyone Is a Super: An elevator conversation between Kaidan and Liara discusses how many asari tend to be naturally gifted with biotics to the point that they can actually choose not to serve militarily. Kaidan expresses his jealousy at that last point.
  • Everything Fades
  • Everything Is an iPod In The Future: Everywhere shiny, at least.
  • Everything Is Online: The entire concept of hacking. Possibly an aversion, though; see the page for details.
  • Everything's Better with Dinosaurs: It's not very obvious, but turians are very similar to dinosaurs: raptors, to be exact, though they also share many similarities with birds. Captain Anderson even mentions it in the novel. A sidequest in the third game involves finding an alien dinosaur fossil for salarians to clone dinosaurs from for krogans to ride as battle mounts.
    • There's also that skull you find on one of the uncharted worlds where a geth patrol lured you into an ambush with a false distress beacon. Your armor's HUD can't identify it.
  • Everything's Squishier with Cephalopods: The Reapers look a little like squids, with tentacle-like arms and elongated hulls. Justified, as they actually are shaped after a water-dwelling organic species that created them.
  • Everything Trying to Kill You:
    • The quarians; due to their immune systems, they can't go anywhere in the galaxy without being at risk, forcing them to wear environment suits. This is a source of some small Angst for Tali.
    • In a more traditional sense, Tuchanka; you thought the krogan were bad? Everything on their planet is carnivorous. Even the plantlife. And one of the minor predators is capable of completely destroying the ecosystem of any planet they're placed on.
    • Then again, Tuchanka is a nuclear wasteland thanks to krogan civil wars.
  • Evil Is Easy: Averted. Renegade paths aren't usually any harder, per se, but they tend to yield less rewards, and often trigger fights you could otherwise avoid. Which may have been your intention, of course.
  • Evil Is Petty: While Renegade is not technically evil, and is supposed to be a person who is sure I Did What I Had to Do, maxing out your Renegade meter will generally require you to be a bit of a dick, from being rather rude to shaking down money.
  • Evil Sounds Deep: Reapers in general have really deep voices.
    • The rachni queen in Mass Effect 3 also has a deep voice (though not nearly as deep as a Reaper's), but is in fact an ally assuming you don't kill her. Justified in this case though, as she's speaking through a bunch of krogan corpses.
  • Evil Twin: Morinth of Samara.
  • Evilutionary Biologist: Dozens of them, mainly working for Cerberus or ExoGeni.
    • In Mass Effect 2, the Collectors appear to be a whole species of this trope. And it's actually the Reapers, for whom the Collectors are just muscle.
    • The third game reveals that this was the Protheans' hat.
  • Exclusively Evil: The Reapers. Subverted with every other race.
    • Not so much even the Reapers, as it turns out. Their motivations are more in the realm of Blue and Orange Morality
    • The batarians: it's explained in the Codex that the reason you only run into batarian criminals, mercenaries, or slavers is that they're the about the only batarians who leave their home systems. And the batarian government is a caste-based fascist dictatorship that relies on slavery to survive. Really, it's a surprise one of the nicest people on the criminal-filled Omega is a batarian shopkeeper. There are, however, at least a few batarians on Omega who ultimately want no trouble. One of them needs you to save his life and thanks you in surprise if you do so; the others jump to conclusions about a man they thought had been spreading a plague that is dangerous for most races other than humans but are willing to listen to reason if you act honorably.
    • The vorcha are seen as universally aggressive and unpleasant; indeed, the only ones you meet are Blood Pack "mercenaries". This is fault of their biology and culture, they only live twenty years, they use combat as their main form of communication, etc. There are references to vorcha miners, settlers and brewers.
    • It turns out the geth that fought with Sovereign in the first game were a splinter group from the main geth, who in reality just want to be left alone to build their Dyson Sphere and achieve true unity.
  • Exotic Equipment: The asari's unique method of mating. And of course, the krogan's legendary quads.
  • Expanded Universe: A trio (that's right, there are only three of them) of books, a series of comics, and a couple of games for the iPhone. In something of a twist, though, the EU actually has less information and detail than what you can find in the games themselves.
    • The daily news updates are rapidly becoming probably the biggest contributor to the setting at large, fleshing it out with lots of running plotlines and even adding a new species to the Citadel.
      • The updates have also fleshed out some of the characters which were later introduced in the DLC (Tela Vasir in Lair of the Shadow Broker), or have been used to lead up to events of the DLC (Amanda Kenson in Arrival).
  • Exploding Barrels: These take the form of hazardous substance containers and power conduits. However, the containers only sneeze-explode if someone's rigged them on tripwires (the mission on the derelict freighter with the comatose guy and his whack-job girlfriend springs to mind). Exploding them under normal circumstances requires bullets.
  • Explosive Breeder: Formerly the krogan, as an adaptation to Tuchanka. At least before they got slapped with the genophage.
  • Explosive Overclocking: Certain weapons upgrades in the first game will render your weapon incapable of firing more than one shot before overheating. But damn are those upgrades worth it.
  • Expospeak: Reading the Codex at 2 a.m. half-asleep tends to leave one feeling dim, confused, and unwilling to find a thesaurus/dictionary.
  • Expospeak Gag: "Dr. Solus suggests Captain Kirrahe has a foreign obstruction in his cloaca." A few paragraphs later, "Dr. Solus suggests the foreign obstruction in Captain Kirrahe's cloaca is in fact his cranium."
  • Extreme Omnivore: Anything from Tuchanka. Especially krogan, who find just about anything, including burning corpses, appetizing.
    • Except ramen.
  • The Faceless: The quarians and volus, since they have to wear an environmental suit at all times.
  • Faceless Eye: The geth, with their infamous 'flashlight heads.' In the second game, they gain some movable flaps around those eyes to portray something like emotion, but the trope is still in full effect.
  • Facial Markings: The turians, who continue the practice of declaring tribal allegiance through facepaint, even though the tribes technically no longer exist. They even use the term 'barefaced' for someone who is deceitful (hint: anytime you interact with a turian, check out the face). Also some asari, though their facial markings are not explained.
    • Many asari are born with various facial markings. Sometimes these facial markings look like painted on eyebrows, such as Liara's, but they are not seen by the asari as such.
  • Fantastic Arousal: The Azure... revealed in Lair of the Shadow Broker to be a region in an asari's lower back near the bottom. Touching it gets expected results.
  • Fantastic Drug: The red sand mentioned, though never seen, in the games, which is refined eezo that gives users a high and temporary, somewhat weak biotic abilities. Withdrawal is described as being very nasty. The second game features Minagen X3, a red chemical which doesn't grant biotics but does enhance them. The more you take, the stronger you get. Until you OD.
  • Fantastic Racism:
    • Between EVERYONE and the krogan, humans and turians (and vice versa), and pretty much everyone towards the quarians. Humans in general tend to be a sore point for most aliens.
    • Inverted with the asari, who value mixed-species children and instead act horribly racist toward purebloods. Samara mentions that ardat-yakshi (an asari congenital neurological disorder which results in sterility, (occasionally) sociopathy... and the ability to steal Life Energy from their partners by putting them Out with a Bang) occurs almost exclusively among the daughters of purebloods, and wonders if that's where the stigma came from.
    • Even otherwise open-minded individuals consider the vorcha to be talking vermin.
    • Turians aren't that bad actually; they're getting along alright with humans since the First Contact War, which was kind of a misunderstanding anyway. It's really batarians that hate humans' guts. The conflict between the races is so strong, it shapes two of Shepard's possible backstories.
    • The Terra Firma Party has a platform of resisting alien influences on human culture. Naturally, this has led to much of its membership being complete xenophobes.
    • The kett, toward anything that isn't a kett, but they seem to have a severe hatred for AI.
    • Some angara towards aliens, thanks to eighty years of dealing with the kett.
  • Fantastic Slurs: With all the Fantastic Racism flying around, it's surprising that the most memorable slur is 'pureblood' for a child who has two asari mothers, only a few of whom are encountered in the games. Granted, one is a party member, but still.
    • Granted, this is because the asari consider it in the same way that we as humans consider incest: an unnecessary limiting of genetic diversity.
    • Another notable one is "suit rat" in reference to quarians. The volus also have "Clanless" as one of their anti-quarian slurs (conversely, sympathetic volus call them "Star Clan" or "Migrant Clan").
  • Fantasy Contraception: Asari apparently don't get pregnant unless they want to.
  • Fantasy Counterpart Culture:
    • The quarians are obviously influenced by gypsies and Jews.
    • It goes on and on. The turians are Space Communists/Space Romans influenced by Starship Troopers (the book, not the movie), for instance
    • Illium is basically Space Dubai. It’s also suspiciously similar to Noveria from the first game, which was also a corporate owned and run world that had an unbelievable level of corruption and crime.
    • We can also see (mainly from Mordin's dialogue) that salarian culture is influenced by India since they marry (or rather breed) out of convenience and believe in reincarnation and multiple gods (One salarian NPC says "May the gods bless you" when you accomplish his mini-sidequest).
    • The drell are most likely influenced by Greek culture, with their (dying) traditional belief of polytheism, belief of angel-/demigod-like beings, and separation of the body and soul. Very likely, seeing the choice in naming the one recruitable drell in your squad after the god of death (Thanatos) and the Greek word for the constellation Aries, the god of war (Krios).
    • The geth show signs of being Space Muslims. Feared and hated for a terrorist act that was committed by a minute strain of heretical geth, while the vast majority are peaceful, and really aren't as unlike the organic races (who tend to assume that geth have no use for anyone who isn't a cybernetic) as people think. Also, they get hassled by airport security. As Legion would like to remind you: "Geth do not intentionally infiltrate."
  • Faster-Than-Light Travel: The mechanics of Mass Effect FTL is one of the few bits of exposition they actually mandate the player sit through. No reason for that. Really. They even go into detail about why FTL drives cannot be operated for long periods of time, explaining the dependence on the mass relays.
  • Fate Worse Than Death: The Reapers are disturbingly fond of doing this to the people they don't simply exterminate. And, as it turns out, so is Cerberus.
  • The Federation: Both the human Systems Alliance and the Citadel Council in general.
    • Notable though for the Systems Alliance is that while it represents humanity, it does not actually govern humanity. The Codex mentions that while the Alliance is responsible for Earth's colonies, its navy, and what not, Earth itself is still divided amongst nations. At the very least Japan, India and the European Union all still exist as independent entities.
    • Well, the European Union seems to be a sort of The Federation since its members apparently have a joint colonisation programme rather than having various UK, German and French colonies.
    • In the Kasumi DLC, new info about politics on Earth is given in the Codex: apparently, a North American Union of sorts - the United North American States - was formed, but the addition of Canada and Mexico angered a terrorist group into destroying the Statue of Liberty, whose head can be found in Kasumi's mission. Also, China is apparently the Chinese People's Federation these days.
  • Fetch Quest: Lampshaded by Shepard when meeting Mordin Solus.

Shepard: Just once I'd like to ask someone for help and hear them say "Sure, let's go! Right now, no strings attached."

  • Feudal Future: Salarian government is split up into fiefdoms, baronies, duchies, planets, and marches (colonization clusters), in increasing order of authority, rather than states. Granted though, these are all human Woolseyisms to make sense of the incredibly confusing government system the salarians use.
  • Fighter, Mage, Thief: Or soldier, biotic and engineer (and a mix of any two of them). Done as well with the council races (fighter = turian/human; mage = asari; thief = salarian).
  • Fighting For a Homeland: The quarians have been exiled from Rannoch for about four hundred years now, and most of them are really antsy to go home. Others advise caution, alternate colonization, or even peace with the geth. During Tali's loyalty mission, shepard can influence them towards one of these goals.
  • Final Death: Every single squadmate who dies dies because of you. Including your choice between Ash and Kaidan. Likewise, every character who dies in the third game, and there can be quite a few.
  • Firing One-Handed: Occasionally pops up in cutscenes. In the third game, Eve does this with a shotgun.
  • First Contact: The backstory and prequel novel.
  • First Town: The Citadel in the first and third games, also the Capital City. The second game doesn't really have a First Town or a Capital City.
  • Fisher Kingdom: Feros, though this is revealed to be the fault of the Thorian. If you tweak your definition of 'place', the Reapers could count as well; almost everyone who stumbles across them mistakes them for ships.
  • Fling a Light Into the Future: The Prothean beacons actually contain a warning of the Reapers... one that never made it out in time. They did succeed in disabling the Citadel's giant Mass Relay and this is the only reason Shepard and the Council races have any hope of victory.
    • In the original Mass Effect, you can find a planet with ruins so ancient that they have all turned to dust, except for a giant column at the center. At the base of the column, someone scratched the words "Monsters from the Id", a Shout-Out to Forbidden Planet.
    • In the third game, Liara starts doing this, depositing archives everywhere the Normandy travels with complete records of the galaxy, the Reapers, the Crucible... and Shepard, in case the Reapers win. In the Extended Cut DLC, a fourth ending (Refusal) makes use of Liara's contingency plan: the Cycle continues once more, but the Reapers are finally defeated in the next one using the information Liara provided.
  • Fixed Forward-Facing Weapon: Magnetic railguns are the weapon du jour on Alliance ships. The Encyclopedia explains that every ship has its biggest gun mounted in the nose because that way, the railgun can run the entire length of the ship... and the energy you can put into a railgun projectile is proportional to the length of the magnetic rail. Smaller railguns are usually mounted in turrets and sides, but if you want to punch through somebody's shields, you're gonna need the nose-gun.
    • Not just the Alliance. The Geth Dreadnought in the third game has one so massive that the boarding party uses it to reach the drive core (avoiding the actual discharges, of course).
  • Foreshadowing:
    • The Reapers' name doesn't seem significant beyond a generic, cliché word for an all-destructive force, but it hints that the cycle of destruction is the species' reproductive cycle, and they literally reap what they sow. Along those lines, after you find this out and go back for a second playthrough, listen to all of the crazy batarian preacher's lines on Omega; one of them practically spells out what you find at the end.
    • When Ashley quotes Walt Whitman's "O Captain, my Captain" in reference to Shepard, the Commander states that the man in question dies at the end of the poem. Shepard doesn't do so hot either.
    • At the end of the first game, Saren's One-Winged Angel form is a hint of what really happened to the Protheans.
    • Dr. Manuel, the crazy researcher you find on Eden Prime. When you listen to him the first time, it seems like he's just spouting off nonsense. Then you go back through a second time, and you realize that he was right.
    • Speak to Ashley in the Citadel Council Chamber, and one of her comments is about how the layout of the stairs appears to be designed to make good defensive positions. As it turns out, for Saren's geth.
    • After the mission to Feros, during your debriefing with the Citadel Council, a Paragon Shepard can get the Councilors to question his/her decision to save the colonists. The salarian will call him/her on it, saying "sometimes you have to be willing to make sacrifices to get the mission done." Ominous, and somewhat ironic.
    • In one of Miranda's conversations aboard the Normandy, she says that "I'm still human. I make mistakes. And when I do, the consequences are dire." In the suicide mission, Miranda says she can maintain the biotic shield as well as Samara, or any other biotic. She can't, and one your squadmates is killed if you choose her.
  • Fourth Date Sex
  • Friendly Fireproof: Your squadmates seem to have a disturbing habit of ignoring all the ammunition you're putting into their back to get them out of your way. But it's okay, you're immune to their fire too. The fact that they love nothing more than running in front of you while you're trying to shoot the bad guys kind of necessitates it.
    • Somewhat averted in the sequel, as they will yell at you for shooting them... but you still don't actually do damage. Kasumi's shout of "What am I, invisible?" is quite amusing, considering what her special ability is. Makes this kind of a literal Stealth Pun.
    • Ditto multiplayer teammates in the third game.
    • At least your rounds are shown to be impacting on their shields rather than them. Makes things a little more plausible than "AWWW, DAMMIT, BILL!"
    • Somewhat averted with the Mako. The Mako takes damage from you and your teammates, but can't be destroyed if you aren't in it. If you're looking for a challenge, try finishing a driving section with a one-HP Mako.
  • Fun with Acronyms: Special Tactics and Reconnaissance. Bit of a stretch, but hey, it sounds awesome.
    • Hell, that's just the English translation. The original galactic/asari/whatever could be completely innocuous.
    • The Alliance ships' point defense systems are called GARDIAN: General Area Defense Integration Anti-spacecraft Network.
  • The Future: Yyyyyyyyup.
  • Future Spandex: Many uniforms and outfits throughout the series.
  • Futuristic Pyramid: Prothean architecture seems to vary between this and flavors of spires.
  • Galactic Conqueror: Aside from the obvious, humanity becomes this in the full Renegade ending of the second game. The third game reveals that the Protheans were this too.
  • A Galaxy Half Full: No matter how bad things get, the crew of the Normandy can pull through and save the day, making a difference no matter what the odds. Has the option of being subverted in the second game, but if you're playing right it's still absolutely straight.
    • Then shot to pieces in the third game. You can still make a difference, but no matter how you slice it, the death toll across the galaxy will be astronomical.
  • Gateless Ghetto: The Citadel may be the political, economic, and cultural center of the galaxy, but you can only visit the embassy, the Citadel Tower, a market or two and a couple of clubs.
  • Gender Is No Object: Played straight with most species, notably humans and quarians ("On the flotilla, we can't afford the luxury of sexism"). Justified subversion with krogans and salarians; fertile krogan females (or any salarian females) are rare enough that they can't risk them in combat, or even off of core planets. This is purely about practicality: several krogan in Mass Effect 2 mention Shiagur, a female warlord who continued fighting even after the genophage, from whom many still claim descent.
  • Gender Neutral Writing: Wholly averted, though not often; because most conversations are with Shepard, not about them, his/her gender isn't brought up much. But when the occasion arises the writers do not shy away from it. Most of the romances are gender-unique, and there are several other gender-unique scenes as well. For example, in the second game, there is a scene where a merc recruiter calls female Shepard a stripper. Bad idea.
  • Gender Rarity Value: The krogan, having few females capable of carrying children to term due to the genophage, fit this, as do the salarians who have a nine to one gender ratio of males to females. This results in breeding becoming a very complicated process of negotiating contracts.
    • Salarian females tend to be the ones who hold political power despite being greatly outnumbered, which is why you don't see them on non-salarian worlds.
  • Generation Fleet: The Flotilla, traveling with the eventual hope of either getting their homeworld back or finding a new place to live.
  • Generican Empire: The Systems Alliance.
  • Genetic Memory: Used against the Rachni Queen, to extract from her mind the coordinates of a relay she never saw herself.
  • Genocide Dilemma: With the rachni and the krogan. The Council seemed eager enough to wipe the rachni out, but tried to avoid outright genocide with the krogan, settling for the genophage. However, ignorance of krogan psychology has essentially led to delayed genocide. However, you get the chance to bring the rachni back into the galaxy, and it's looking like you can at the very least partially undo the genophage's effect in the future... In the third game, Shepard holds the fate of the krogan, quarians, and geth in his/her hands, and must decide whether these species live or die.
    • Not to mention the fate of the Reapers.
  • George Lucas Throwback: Space Opera has been out of the picture for a while, but BioWare decided to throw it back into the mix.
  • Ghost Planet: Ilos.
  • Ghost Ship:
    • Several missions, mostly in the first game. Although kind of samey, they manage to be very creepy.
    • Creepiness gets turned Up to Eleven in the second game when you get to the derelict Reaper. Making your way through the hulk of an Eldritch Abomination, surrounded by recordings of the science team that came before you as they slowly lose their minds while husks literally come out of the walls at you.
  • Giant Space Flea From Nowhere: Meeting the thresher maws for the first time (in both games). Raise your hand if you saw that coming.
    • Averted in cases where the player chooses the "Sole Survivor" background, where Shepard is the only person to come out of humanity's first encounter with thresher maws alive.
    • Thresher maws actually sorta ARE Giant Space Fleas. Their spores can travel through space until crashing on a planet, at which point they burrow into the ground to feed on anything they can grab.
  • Global Currency: Credits, which are used on every single planet throughout the galaxy. Justified; several planets, including Earth, continue to maintain their own currencies from before their integration into the Citadel. Credits are used alongside them so that a unified and standardized medium of exchange exists for interspecies commerce.
    • The volus, a turian client species, basically manage the galactic economy because it's so complicated having to deal with the historical currencies of every alien race on top of the common galactic currency. Their talent for such things is why they became a client race for the turians.
    • Explained in the Codex: all banks in Citadel worlds are required to keep exchange rates between the local currency and credits. The Global Currency is really more an economic lingua franca.
  • Goggles Do Something Unusual: Garrus's eyepiece in the first game. He always has it, no matter what armor you give him, and it's never explained what, if any, benefit it grants. Second game comes around and, yup, he's still got it. But now you can buy that same eyepiece for yourself, to discover that it gives a headshot bonus. Nice. The third game offers a few different sets of goggles for sale.
  • Going Through the Motions: Shows up a lot. The end-of-conversation "turn and walk away" that is used by practically everyone you meet comes to mind.
  • Golden Snitch: Somewhat averted. The big decisions are made at the end of the first game, yeah, but your actions throughout the whole of the game still affect the outcome somewhat. And in the second game, the obvious big choice is made at the last second. But that's not what's really important. What's really important is if you helped your teammates enough and upgraded your ship throughout the entire game to have them survive. That's the really important part. Played straight in the third game: if you laid the groundwork for the war effort in the previous two games, you'll have a much easier time in the third, but even so, your actions in the third game are the most important.
  • Gondor Calls for Aid. Mass Effect 3, especially for Paragon Shepard, who may have made some very powerful allies, some of whom are trying to make up for past galactic transgressions. Shepard has to rally everyone since the Reaper's first action is to attack earth.
  • Gonna Need More Trope: Shows up here and there.
  • Good All Along: Well, maybe not 'good', but definitely 'not as xenocidally insane as everyone thought all along.' This applies to both the rachni and the majority of the geth.
    • The third game implies this may be the case for the krogan: they only turned uncontrollably violent and anarchistic under the effects of the genophage, and under strong, far-sighted leadership, can and will once again be the heroes who saved the galaxy.
  • The Greatest Story Never Told:
    • Most of the time when Shepard does something heroic, there are civilian witnesses, so the story usually gets around fast. However, due to being a Spectre and taking on very... sensitive missions on a pretty regular basis, there are a great number of fantastic things that go down and no one ever hears about. Or, alternately, they know basically what happened, but not the real truth.
    • In a much bigger sense, this also applies to the Protheans' Heroic Sacrifice to give the next generation hope against the Reapers.
    • The multiplayer characters in the third game: strike teams of human, turian, asari, salarian, quarian and krogan commandos launching daring raids deep behind enemy lines to keep the enemy tied up and busy while buying Shepard time. A glance at class skills reveals that these faceless, nameless heroes include Alliance officers, salarian STG operatives, asari justicars and more. The multiplayer expansions even throw geth, batarians, vorcha and Cerberus defectors into the mix.
  • Green-Skinned Space Babe: The (blue-skinned) asari were originally designed (as stated in the art book) to be "a race of beautiful 'green alien girls'", as much of the game's universe is nostalgically built upon the familiar sci-fi tropes of yesteryear. And, thanks to a delayed reaction to exposure to the Thorian's spores, one of them turns green for the second game.
  • Green Aesop: The drell backstory: uncontrolled industrialization altered their already-dry homeworld's climate and started to cause mass extinction. Most of the surviving drell were rescued by the hanar over the course of ten years and brought to the hanar homeworld. The drell homeworld is now called a cemetery world, with only a few thousand survivors eking out a living in the arid wastes.
    • Not so green if you talk to Thane. Because the climate of the two worlds are so different, practically all drell on Kahje will eventually suffer what amounts to a slow drowning as their lungs fill up with moisture and rot. Plus, the drell are in a species wide indentured servitude (with no end in sight) to the hanar including being assassins and soldiers. Thane says the drell are happy to fulfil their obligation but if the ME universe has anything to say about it, he's merely generalizing and ignoring the many who do not see this as fair.
    • The krogan backstory: they blew their homeworld to an irradiated desert. Then the salarians gave them spaceflight and were surprised when they did the same to other worlds.
      • And averted if you talk to Mordin, really. He suggests that it wasn't the nuclear weaponry and such that was the problem. The problem was that the krogan simply weren't mature enough as a species to handle the technology.
  • Green Lantern Ring: The omni-tool. Essentially, it's a portable computer which can hack locks, bank accounts, computers (including ones in enemy weapons and armor) and slaughter people by activating tech powers...
    • They're also useful for playing computer games like Alliance Corsair.
    • Also, in Mass Effect 3, it can stab people despite being just 'light'. And can be electrified or set on fire.
      • ...and kinetic barriers. That can shoot fire and ice.
      • The Hard Light blade is justified by it not actually being the light that does the damage. The light just tells you where the transparent, nearly diamond-hard Razor Floss blade is.
  • Green Rocks: Element Zero, or "eezo", which makes everything run, from guns to spaceships to artificial gravity to Baron Harkonnen harnesses for the hanar. It is, however, extremely well-defined.
  • Grey Goo: One planet has seas made of silicon which screw with probes that are launched onto it. The extranet has spawned a conspiracy theory that labels the 'seas' as advanced alien nanobots, which every government flatly denies.
  • The Greys: The salarians. Basic physical similarity, most of them tend to be scientists (or infiltration specialists), very energetic, lacking sexual drive yet quite interested in its manifestations in other species.
  • Guest Star Party Member: One in the beginning of each game, per BioWare tradition. They tend not to last long.
    • Also appears in Lair of the Shadow Broker, where Liara joins your party temporarily.
      • And Arrival, where Amanda Kenson joins you even more temporarily.
    • Admiral Anderson at the beginning of the third game, though he doesn't die at the end of Earth: he simply takes up leadership of the Earth resistance and sends Shepard off to get help.
  • Guilt Based Gaming: If you make the wrong decision in some of the more emotionally torquing sections of the games (and trust me, it will happen), the other characters will rip into you for it. More than that, though, the way they talk is not just aimed at Shepard, but you. Also, certain decisions (such as exposing Tali's father as a war criminal at her trial) will have not just in-game characters but EVERYONE online who finds out about it calling you a monster. Fans get very emotionally invested in this series.
    • The final scenes of the krogan and quarian/geth arcs in Mass Effect 3 really push the limits of this.
    • There is a certain scene in the second game where during Tali's loyalty mission, when you find the body of her dead father, she starts crying and a Paragon interrupt comes up to hug her. Not taking the interrupt is considered by most (if not all) players, even the full-Renegade ones, to be the most soulless thing one can do.
    • Dear God you can do some nasty things in the third game, and people will call you out on it. Sometimes violently.
  • Hacking Minigame: All the time. Necessary to get equipment and money in the first game; arguably more so in the second, because it's one of the only ways you can make any cash apart from end-of-mission rewards.
    • Averted in the third game. Your omnitool (or EDI, in a few cases) does all the hacking, no player input required.
  • HAD to Be Sharp: Krogans. This explains why they have secondary and even tertiary organs, and why they are Explosive Breeders.
  • Hallucinations: Apparently a side effect of Reaper indoctrination; almost everyone mentions hearing strange whispering in the background. And on the mostly-dead Reaper, one of the unfortunate researchers mentions seeing... something come through a wall. Something other people in the room can't see.
  • Hand Behind Head: A standard character animation for some who's uncomfortable... or lying. Shepard him/herself does it a few times, when forced to come up with an explanation or cover story on the spot.
  • Handguns: The favorite weapon for characters to use in cutscenes. Justified somewhat, because most situations where they need a weapon in a cutscene, they need one now, and all other guns need a few seconds to fully deploy before being usable.
    • Also because Handguns are the only class of weapon that all characters and classes can use, therefore allowing the Player Character and all of the members of his/her party to be able to use the same, or similar, animations. There are cutscenes that are character-specific however, which allow party members to use other weapons, mainly for characters who do not carry a pistol (such as Garrus or Grunt).
  • Hard Light: Subverted. Every single instance where you think you're looking at classic sci-fi holograms that act like physical objects, you're actually looking at something completely different. Holographic keyboards and computer consoles are shaped and projected light, but tactile response comes from subdermal implants or gloves. Free-floating holographic barriers like the Sentinel's Tech Armor are just projected mass effect barriers. The attack drone used by the Engineer is just a micro-manufactured flying device surrounded by mass effect barriers. The omniblade in Mass Effect 3 is a solid monomolecular, transparent blade that is created by the omnitool on demand and broken down after use, the hologram is just to make it visible to the wielder so they don't accidentally poke thei own eye out or something.
  • Has Two Mommies:
    • A definite possibility for any asari, since they mate through genetic tweaking as opposed to actual sex. As long as the other mommy isn't another asari. That's a big no-no.
    • The third game alludes to this being very possible for humans, and Miranda's origins confirm that human technology is capable of it. Samantha Traynor, if romanced, certainly talks about raising a family with a female Shepard after the Reapers are defeated.
    • Due to their societal norms, angara have multiple mothers (Jaal has five), but only one true mother.
  • Have You Tried Not Being a Monster?: The stigma among biotics in human society seems to lean closer to this than Fantastic Racism, since virtually anyone exposed to Element Zero could possibly be born a biotic, regardless of race.
    • Ardat-Yakshi among the asari. They're extremely dangerous, but the third game reveals that quite a few ardat-yakshi are perfectly happy to spend their lives in a monastery where they can't hurt anyone.
  • Healing Factor: One of the natural abilities of the krogan and vorcha which makes them so freaking hard to kill. This also seems to be one of the standard genetic tweaks that Alliance soldiers are given.
    • Including Shepard as of Mass Effect 2. Mass Effect 3 scaled it down a bit, however, splitting the health bar into four segments. Once fully depleted, segments can't be recovered without medigel.
  • Hearing Voices: Victims of Reaper indoctrination (those who are still free to speak, at least) often talk about whispers in the back of their minds which slowly but steadily grow more coherent. By the time you can understand them, it's too late.
  • Heartbeat Soundtrack: Picks up in all games when you're heavily wounded. See also Critical Annoyance.
  • Heavyworlder: The elcor, whose high-gravity planet has made them slow, cautious, conservative, and incredibly strong. These traits make them wonderful diplomats, negotiators, bouncers, and mobile heavy weapons platforms. Also the volus, but other environmental factors take precedence in how they're described in the setting.
  • The Hecate Sisters: The asari, whose life cycles involve a "maiden" stage, a "matron" stage, and a "matriarch" stage.
    • One of the asari religions involves worshiping a triumvarite of goddesses who fit this trope as well.
  • Helium Speech: The salarians' (normal) voices sound like this.
  • Hell Gate: The Council treats every unopened mass relay as a potential one of these after that little incident with the rachni. The Citadel, being the welcome-home gate for the Reapers, definitely qualifies, as does the Omega-4 relay which the Collectors come out of every once in a while to kidnap some people for their experiments.
  • Helmets Are Hardly Heroic: Whether this is played straight or averted in the first game is up to the player; you could customize whether the helmet stayed on or off whilst on missions (except for Tali, of course). Unless you're in a hostile environment; then they're on and stay on until you're inside.
    • In the second game, there are several different helmets and other types of headgear, which you can wear or leave off at your discretion. If worn, they add armor or other bonuses, depending on the type of gear, and the character is visually shown wearing them, even in cutscenes. So this trope is, in fact, averted where the main character is concerned. The other two crew members who wear armor and could conceivably be expected to don matching helmets are a turian and a krogan: both species with naturally armored heads, slightly justifying their decision. That said, turian and krogan helmets do exist and are worn by some characters. In that respect the trope is played somewhat straight with these two supporting characters.
    • In the third game, you can turn helmet graphics off while retaining the bonuses.
  • Henchmen Race: The Keepers and Collectors, after the Reapers finished with them, mentally and physically.
    • In the third game, the Reapers themselves are revealed to be this.
  • Heroic Neutral: The vast majority of the geth, as it turns out, though they appear to be willing to help the rest of the galaxy if that's the best way to beat the Reapers. Mostly though they just want to be left alone.
  • Hidden Depths: Every single one of your squad members. Every. Single. One.
  • Hidden Elf Village: No less than three: the quarians, the batarians, and the geth. The game deconstructs some of the issues with hidden elf villages; since the only representatives of those species that the average person meets are the outcasts and criminals that get thrown out, they tend to form somewhat unflattering opinions of the race as a whole.
  • Higher-Tech Species: The Protheans, all the way. Even taking into consideration the fact that the mass relay system wasn't made by them, their custom technology is still pretty incredible, and they did build one prototype relay of their own before being destroyed. Also, the Collectors, and the Reapers, who were the ones who made the mass relay system. And the Collectors get their technology from the Reapers.
  • Highly-Conspicuous Uniform: Phoenix-series armor is white and pink. White and pink. One of the (female) party members starts the game with it, but you can give it to anyone. Krogan in pink is hilarious. A few others, particularly the ones designed by Devlon Industries, are highly visible outfits. Then again, the Pheonix series is apparently designed for medics, and the Devlon series of armor is designed for construction and utility work in high-risk areas, so it makes sense that they wouldn't be camouflaged.
    • All three of the major mercenary groups in Mass Effect 2 wear obvious uniforms, with the Blue Suns wearing, well, bright blue and white armor, the Eclipse wearing yellow and black armor, and the Blood Pack wearing bright red. Justified in that members of these groups want to openly declare their allegiance to outsiders and rival factions.
    • Shepard's armour can be customized in the second game, which can lead to some hilarious cases of this. It can be a bit silly, though, running around looking like a Collector with no one ever commenting on it.
    • In the third game, no one's going to mistake Cerberus troops for anything else.
  • Highly-Visible Ninja: In the second game, the Geth Hunters are this gameplay-wise. They can activate invisibility which turns them almost entirely transparent except for their brightly glowing blue eye, making it fairly obvious where they are. Fools the NPCs at least. Kai Leng and Cerberus Phantoms in the third game, too, complete with the invisibility cloak.
  • Hive Caste System: The rachni. We've got workers (small exploding suicide bugs), soldiers, (bigger acid-spitting bugs), brood warriors (even bigger acid-spitting bugs with biotic powers) and the queen (freaking huge bug, combat capabilities unknown, whom we very fortunately do not have to fight).
  • Hive Mind: Two confirmed, one creepily ambiguous, depending on how stringent your criteria are.
    • 1. The rachni, who "sing" to each other to communicate. It makes running their society much easier, but has the added disadvantage of making it hard to communicate with other races, and therefore ruling out diplomacy, which led to their downfall.
    • 2. The Thorian, uses telepathy to control the people it's taken over. But the role is one way, and passive. Basically whenever a human thinks something that the Thorian doesn't want it to, they feel massive pain.
    • Not definite, but still implied: when the Cerberus researchers on board the Reaper are being slowly indoctrinated, they start to be able to recall each other's memories, to the point of not being able to tell whose is whose. Never explained. Very creepy.
    • And, of course, the Geth. Intentionally, in this case. And they actually like it that way. It's also combined with Mind Hive, since there are multiple geth programs in each physical platform.
  • Hollywood Atheist: Mostly averted. Ashley clearly indicates that her religiousness is unusual, and that most people consider it at least eccentric. Some aliens express religious beliefs, and apparently some turians, for example, embrace human Confucianism, since it fits so well in their species' mentality. It's never explained with most characters if they actually believe it or if it's simply a linguistic artifact (such as some asari making references to 'the goddess') though.
  • Hollywood Hacking: They explain the mechanics well, but it still falls victim to this.
  • Holographic Terminal: Every computer interface in the galaxy seems to be made of Hard Light. Justified in that regular users wear special gloves which allow for their use and provide feedback sensations; heavy users get sensory implants in their fingertips to avoid the hassle of cleaning the gloves all the time.
  • Homosexual Reproduction: The asari, by virtue of being a One-Gender Race.
    • Implied to be possible for humans via genetic engineering in the third game.
  • Horde of Alien Locusts: The rachni and the Collectors' Seeker swarms, which paralyze colonists for easy collection.
  • Hostage Situation: Shepard has to deal with more than a few throughout both games. How they go is up to you.
  • Humanity Is Superior: A common trend among Renegade options.
  • Humanoid Abomination: Husks and Thorian creepers in the first game. You could make an argument for the Reaper fetus in the second.
  • Humanoid Aliens: Pretty much all of the sapient ones, really, except for the hanar and the elcor. Some in the game idly wonder whether this is more than just coincidence. According to the third game, it isn't coincidence.
  • Human Outside, Alien Inside: The fairly humanoid Asari can literally mate with anything that has DNA to produce viable offspring.
  • Human Popsicle: The 'stasis' variant used by the Protheans. Not that it saved them.
  • Human Resources: Mass Effect 2 implies that Reaper reproduction requires a lot of this.
  • Humans Are Average: Neither the most short or long-lived, neither the weakest nor the strongest, et cetera. But they are very inventive, adaptive and a powerful force.
  • Humans Are Flawed: Rather hypocritically used by various non-humans as arguments for why they shouldn't be given special status.
  • Humans Are Leaders: Subtler than most works, but still a present undertone throughout the series.
  • Humans Are Morons: The batarian government tends to think every other alien race is beneath them because tradition dictates that having four eyes, coincidentally the number batarians have, makes one more intelligent, but they're especially resentful towards humans given the political history.
  • Humans Are Special: Despite being a relatively new race to the galactic scene, mankind has left quite a mark on the galaxy. Harbinger calls your teammates genetic failures, but when it comes to the humans... he uses them to make a new Reaper.
    • It's noted by Mordin and EDI that humans have far greater genetic diversity than any other sapient species in the galaxy, one fact that makes them useful as a control in cross-species experiments, and also possibly explains why the Reapers have chosen humanity to make the next generation of Reapers.
    • More accurately though, humans are just the newest special race. Before them there were... well, most of the other major races. The turians beat the krogan who beat the rachni who beat the asari...
    • Samara also says this:

Samara: You are more individualistic than any other species I have encountered. If three humans are in a room, there will be six opinions.

    • Liara also voices this opinion. She admits when she first met humans, she thought the assessment that humanity bullied its way into galactic politics was rather accurate. Since she's been on the Normandy, she come to realise that its due to Humans having a natural drive to set goals and the tenacity to actually carry them out, calling them "indomitable".
      • Shepard humbly suggests this is because compared to races such as the asari, who routinely count their age in 4 digits, humans only get 150 years at most, so they strive to do all they can.
    • Renegade Shepard can even invoke this when solving a problem for an asari in the Citadel:

Shepard: "When you want a problem shot, ask a turian. When you want a problem talked to death, ask an asari. When you want a new problem, ask a salarian. When you want a problem solved, ask a human."

    • This is savagely Deconstructed in the second game. Humanity is pretty damn awesome and everyone knows it, too. Which is why our race now has the attention of the ageless machine devils lurking in extragalactic space. They're impressed, and want to help us ascend. Actually Justified because Shepard is so Badass, and also human. In the first game, Reapers didn't pay any special attention to humans. Now that the Shepard (and by default, humans) have managed to destroy one of theirs, the entire human race now has their attention.
  • Humans Are the Real Monsters: Usually averted in favor of Humans Are Special, but Cerberus and many Renegade path options are definite examples. Ambassador Udina demonstrates bastard traits even if you're a Paragon and choose the Renegade path at endgame.
  • Humans Are Warriors: Just about every other race is quietly scared of humanity's ability to mix it up with the turians despite having only a small fraction of our population currently serving in the military; the term "sleeping giant" is used, as in, "If all these naked apes ever got really pissed off all at once they could conquer the entire galaxy." Two of the three endings prove it.
    • A short summary of the First Contact War: Humans, ignorant that there are any other intelligent species in the galaxy, violate the Citadel Council laws by opening any and all dormant Mass Relays that they find. The turians, aware of the dangers and a member of the Citadel Council, attack and destroy a human merchant convoy they come across activating one such relay. A survivor flees to the human colony of Shanxi, which gets conquered by the turian fleet who subsequently occupy the planet. They are then surprised when a Systems Alliance fleet returns to liberate the system, following a more flexible military doctrine as compared to the turians. When the occupying forces are defeated, the turians mobilize their armed forces for large-scale actions to crush the Systems Alliance, but the Council intervenes and negotiates a peace before the offensive can be mounted.
    • About the only species that aren't scared of humans are the ones that are almost universally violent themselves, like the vorcha or the krogan.
    • The Mass Effect Wikia says that if the Alliance and turians had gone to full-scale war, the conflict would have wrecked a significant portion of the galaxy.
      • Especially when the Alliance's kneejerk reaction to the turians was to send out a ton of space probes into turian space... armed with nuclear bombs as a form of DRM.
    • There's an in-universe joke that the rest of the races are glad that humans and turians can't mate. Because, they reason, their children would be unstoppable.
    • And then there's Commander Shepard. Shepard is one human. If aliens think we might have a few more people like that hanging around who are thus far lacking only the call to kick some serious ass, no wonder they're concerned about the entire human race.
      • Pointed out by Legion, who says that the geth view Shepard as very important, due to him/her being the most crucial in killing a Reaper.
  • Humans by Any Other Name: The volus refer to humans as "Earth-clan", but otherwise averted.
    • This may just be a Shout-Out to David Brin's Uplift series.
    • It also may be an artifact of the volus language (not that this invalidates the aforementioned possible Shout-Out). At least one volus merchant refers to his species as the vol-clan, and the asshole volus on the Citadel in the second game refers to quarians as "clanless" (Tali does not take kindly to this seeing as quarians do have a clan based society and take great pride in it). This may be a Shout-Out to the general tendency in sci-fi franchises to name alien species after their planet of origin.
    • Another (more polite) volus revers to a quarian as "migrant-clan", so that's pretty much confirmed.
  • Humans Through Alien Eyes: One of the things your alien companions can talk about is how they, or their race as a whole, sees humanity.
  • Humorless Aliens: The turians, the elcor, and the geth, in different ways. See the trope page for details.
  • Hyperspace Arsenal: Justified in the first game: you have access to hundred of different weapons, armor, and various mods for both while on the run. However, you're just carrying electronic blueprints and a few specific components: when you actually use them, you break down whatever you currently have into omni-gel and use it to make whatever it is you want.
    • Averted in the third game. Carrying extra weapons is heavy and slows you down, and most items you recover are picked up by the Normandy and stored in the cargo hold.
  • Hyperspace Lanes: The Mass Relays.
  • I Did What I Had to Do: The turians and salarians never apologize for anything they did with the Krogans. In Mass Effect 3, "Those were desparate times" is almost becomming their Catch Phrase.
  • I Do Not Speak Nonverbal: The elcor's subtle body language is the reason why they have to clarify everything they say.
  • I Found You Like This: In Mass Effect 1, Shepard collapses from an overwhelming amount of visions being given to him or her via a Prothean Artifact. S/he awakens in the Normandy's medical bay.
    • In Mass Effect 2, Shepard is thrown out into the vacuum of space with a punctured space suit and begins to fall into a nearby planet's atmosphere. Cerberus collects what remains of Shepard's body from Liara and use experimental technology to bring him/her back to life. Shepard awakens inside a Cerberus facility.
      • Better yet, Cerberus found the body after Shepard fell through the atmosphere, likely burning up, hitting the ground at terminal velocity, and to top it off, frozen (since the planet is completely covered in snow and ice with a surface temp of -22C). No wonder it took 2 years for Cerberus to rebuild Shepard.
  • If You Know What I Mean: A Running Gag, mostly sexual context.
  • Ignored Expert: Rather a lot of scientists in both games, particularly people who believe in the existence of the Reapers. There are also the scientists who think that maybe resurrecting a dead race of insects that tried to wipe everyone else out while at the same time making a biowarfare superweapon just may be a bad idea. Although the first decision may not have been such a bad idea after all, even if that wasn't the original intention of the resurrectors.
    • Shepard could be considered The Ignored Expert of the series. The Council doesn't believe Shepard's initial warnings of Saren being a traitor, the threat of the Reapers, and that they must get to Ilos to stop Saren. Shepard even lampshades how many more times they have to prove they are telling the truth before the Council will actually listen.
    • If you convinced Tali and Legion to put aside their differences in the second game, then Tali becomes this in the third game to the rest of the Migrant Fleet.
    • Garrus also becomes this to the turians between Mass Effect 2 and Mass Effect 3, though they do give him some token resources to prepare.
  • Immortality Begins At Twenty: Averted by the asari. They leave childhood at the age of forty, and are considered mature at the age of eighty. That's forty years of puberty. Played straight by the krogan.
  • Immortal Procreation Clause:
    • The asari are long-lived and enjoy sex as much as humans do, but thanks to Fantasy Contraception they can't get pregnant until they actually want to start a family, so asari population stays fairly consistent.
    • Krogan, on the other hand, live longer than asari do, and krogan breed like rats. Granted, this is because their homeworld is so hostile only one out of a thousand survived to adulthood anyway, but once they moved off-planet, this became a wee bit of a problem. Which is why they made the Genophage!
  • Impaled with Extreme Prejudice: What you do to make Husks. Also how a few characters can die in the second and third games.
  • Imported Alien Phlebotinum: The mass relays, along with a few weapons in the sequel.
    • The Crucible in the third game, along with several weapons noted to be of asari, turian, salarian, geth, and Prothean design.
  • Improbable Age: Completely averted. Most crew members are the age they should be to hold military jobs or achieve the accomplishments you're seeking them out for. And the ones who are pretty young are established to be rare cases of genius while still being at the very least twenty-one (or their race's equivalent).
    • Ashley Williams reached the rank of Gunnery Sergeant by the age of 25, although this age doesn't make her serving as a special forces soldier improbable. This is, however, made up in gameplay, where she is the combat specialist, dealing out direct damage only rivaled by Shepard.
  • Incest Subtext: There is a strong taboo against Asari mating with other Asari and a strong stigma associated with Ardat-Yakshi, Asari suffering from a genetic disease that is believed to be connected to being born as a "pureblood". However, there are still a number of pureblood Asari in the games, including Liara and Samaras daughters.
  • Incredibly Lame Pun: In a series swimming in deadpan snarkers, is this really a surprise?
  • Individuality Is Illegal: Rare heroic case with the geth. The conservative geth are the ones who want to stay a collective, resist the Reapers, and make peace with the galaxy. The individualistic geth are the ones who want to worship the Reapers and force the rest of the geth to do the same by means of using a "mind-control" virus on their own people.
    • Until the third game, where you get the option to grant individuality to all geth, at the cost of the first true individual you meet.
  • Infant Immortality: Averted in heart-rending fashion at the start of the third game.
  • Insectoid Aliens: The rachni, Keepers and Collectors. Considering that two of these races were genetically altered by the Reapers, I'd say that the Reapers sure like bugs.
  • Insignificant Little Blue Planet: Earth really has no importance in the game. Then again, neither does any other race's homeworld.
    • Except Tuchanka.
    • The quarian, turian, salarian and asari homeworlds (Rannoch, Palaven, Sur'Kesh and Thessia, respectively) all appear in Mass Effect 3.
    • Possibly justified in Earth's case, as the System Alliance operates out of the Arcturus Station. This is because the Arcturus Relay has several relays in the vicinity that allow for rapid fleet deployment, but conversely doubles as the only relay leading to Earth.
  • In Space Everyone Can See Your Face: Teetering between playing it straight and aversion; the second game heads more into straight territory though.
  • Instant AI, Just Add Water: And they don't like you. Ever. So much so that actually creating an AI is prohibited by interstellar law. A few are made by accident, including the geth and the VI controlling the moon base on Luna.
    • the latter of which, when augmented with Reaper tech, becomes EDI, who does like humans, especially Joker.
    • And the former get a bad rap due to the actions of about 5% of their members. The vast majority just want to be left alone.
  • Insufficiently Advanced Alien: Everyone except the Protheans, whose technology the rest of the galaxy is stealing. Though it turns out they stole it from guys before them.
  • Intergenerational Friendship: Between some of the older members of the crew.
  • Interspecies Romance: Many examples both in party and with NPCs.
  • In the Future, Humans Will Be One Race: Not quite yet, but genetic studies claim this will be the case a few hundred years down the line.
  • Intrepid Reporter: Emily Wong.
  • Intrigued by Humanity: If they don't hate you, they're curious about you.
  • In Vehicle Invulnerability: Justified by the Mako and Hammerhead's constant use of gravity-altering mass effect fields.
  • Inventory Management Puzzle: One of the biggest complaints about the first game, right after the elevators and the vehicle sections. Completely gone in the second game, leaving behind a stunned group of RPG fans mouthing how they wanted the feature fixed, not axed.
  • Invulnerable Civilians: Everywhere except the part with the Thorian-possessed civilians in Mass Effect 1.
    • This gets averted to an almost sadistic degree in Mass Effect 3.
    • And there's a sidequest in the first game where you have to infiltrate a research base that's been taken over by biotic extremists who have drugged the researchers inside so that, instead of running away from the inevitable firefight like any sane person would do, just walk through like nothing's going on. Your task is to take out the extremists while keeping as many of the researchers alive as possible.
  • In Working Order: Partly played straight, partly averted. The mass relay system is still working perfectly after thousands of thousands of years of nobody knowing how the hell they work, but considering how the Reapers intend for no one to know, they probably built them to last. Maybe do some maintenance when they're done liquefying the other sentient species. Also, this seems to be the case on Ilos, but when you stop to look around, you realize that everything is barely functioning, on its last legs, and in fact shuts down soon after you leave the planet.
  • Irrelevant Sidequest: The games do a good job of getting you to take quests that Shepard would actually be interested in (profit, moral grounds, advancement of mission, etc), but the inane quest slips in every now and then.
    • One of these, about a couple's child from the first game, is lampshaded in the second:

I don't know. Maybe we should ask random people on the street what they think.

  • Judge, Jury, and Executioner: No matter how ruthless or forgiving they may be, Spectres epitomize this trope. They can quite literally do whatever the hell they want, heedless of laws, as long as they do what the Council wants done. Asari Justicars also fit this.
  • Just a Machine: Used to justify the Fantastic Racism of the setting towards AI.
  • Karma Meter: Less "Good vs. Evil" and more "Idealism vs. Cynicism". Do you cooperate with people or do you coerce them with threats?
  • Killed Off for Real: Any squadmate who dies in a cutscene. Lots of characters, some major and some minor, in the third game.
    • Specifically in Mass Effect 3, there's only one major death that can't be avoided no matter what you do: Legion is either dissolved to upgrade the geth or killed by Tali. Everything else depends on previous actions you've taken: if their loyalty missions weren't completed in Mass Effect 2, Grunt, Miranda, Kasumi and Zaeed will be killed during the course of various missions. If you spared Morinth, she'll be waiting for you as a Banshee on Earth. If Wrex and Mordin are both alive when you visit Tuchanka, only one of them will make it out: Wrex attacks you if you kill Mording to sabotage the cure, and Mordin dies if you let him finish the job (you can convince Mordin to sabotage the cure if Eve is dead and Wreav is in charge). Finally, if you can't convince Kaidan/Ashley of Udina's guilt, you'll have to gun them down too.
  • Kinetic Weapons Are Just Better: Weapons in the game aren't traditional Energy Weapons, rather, they are loaded with a block of metal, and when fired, a piece of the block, about the size of a grain of sand is loaded, and fired using a mass accelerator.
    • Personal energy weapons have an advantage simply because kinetic barriers can do nothing whatsoever to stop them; it's just that nobody aside from the Reapers and their slaves have figured out how to make them work on small-scale.
  • Kleptomaniac Hero: You'll probably feel terrible if you loot the wall safes of abducted colonists, such as those on the worlds of Freedom's Progress and Horizon or of slum residents (not to mention their ATMs and gambling machines) in the second game. You don't get Renegade points for doing this, though. The same applies to some extent to the first game.

Conrad: Sometimes I poke through crates too. You know, for extra credits.

  • Large and In Charge: Played straight by the geth: the biggest models always seem to be leading the others when you encounter them. Justified when in the second game, you discover that the bigger the geth, the more programs it houses. The more programs it houses, the smarter it is. So the biggest models are the smartest ones.
    • The Shadow Broker. Dear God, the Shadow Broker.
    • In the third installment, this seems to hold true for Reaper ground troops, as well. The bigger they are, the more damage they can deal and the more punishment they can take. How else do you explain that Banshees appear to be 8 feet tall?
  • Late to the Party: The whole freaking galaxy. Repeatedly. Nobody's managed to survive yet.
  • Leaked Experience: BioWare's standard method for fighting Can't Catch Up.
  • Leeroy Jenkins: Richard L. Jenkins. He's the first one to die because of it.
    • You also can't take his helmet off.
    • This is actually a subversion, as Shepard orders Jenkins to take point, which is justified as Jenkins is a Soldier and specializes in direct combat, and the only other people available are Kaidan, who is a tech and biotic specialist, and Shepard themself, who is the commanding officer.
    • In the second game, there's Prazza on Freedom's Progress. Though he's not playable.
  • Leitmotif: In the second game, each squad member has their own distinctive leitmotif except for Zaeed and Morinth.
  • Limited Sound Effects: See Most Annoying Sound in the YMMV page.
  • Linear Warriors, Quadratic Wizards: Mass Effect 1 and Mass Effect 3 play this mostly straight. Mass Effect 2 averts it on higher difficulties, where the direct damage dealers (Soldier and Infiltrator) become more useful.
  • Living Relic: Javik in the third game.
  • Living Ship:
    • The mysteriously missing Leviathan of Dis.
      • Revealed to have been a Reaper corpse in the third game.
    • The Reapers are revealed to be this near the end of the second game. While they're assumed to be purely synthetic constructs, it turns out that they are actually a hybrid of synthetic and Organic Technology.
  • Lizard Folk: The krogan and the drell, who play perfectly into the first and second types respectively. Oddly, the drell remind most people of fish, not lizards despite the fact that they have an inevitably fatal lung condition caused by exposure to too much moisture.
  • Loads and Loads of Characters: This series currently has seven different character pages.
  • Loads and Loads of Races: Oh yeah. Seventeen sentient races at last count, even more non-sentient. The third game can... reduce this number.
  • Location Theme Naming: Of a sort. All Alliance ships are named after significant places, events, or people on Earth, each class of ship getting a specific kind of landmark to be named after. So, dreadnoughts are named after mountains (Kilimanjaro, Everest, Shasta), cruisers are named after cities (Cairo, Tokyo, Warsaw), carriers are named after people (Einstein), and frigates are named after battles (Agincourt, Iwo Jima, Normandy).
  • Long Game: The Reapers and their master play a very, very long game. One that depends on the development of galactic civilizations. And that they've been playing for tens of millions of years at the very least'.
  • Look on My Works Ye Mighty and Despair: A cryptic carving on the ruins of one of the random scannable planets in Mass Effect 1. The planet doubles as a Shout-Out to Forbidden Planet.
  • Lost Technology: That the entire galaxy runs on. And does little to no research into copying for themselves. Just the way the Reapers want it.
    • Until, that is, the Crucible, which turns out to have been passed down through various extinction cycles.
    • Averted with the Protheans who succeeded in making their own mass relay before going extinct. It's the only reason there is a Mass Effect 2. Or a Mass Effect for that matter.
  • Lovecraft Lite: Most can't decide this and Cosmic Horror Story.
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