Mechanized Mass Effect

A page dedicated to my love for mass effect and my journey throughout the ME universe.

[drizzlesdoodles]

Sorry, not sorry

[gammaraydeath]

deeply in love with shepard

[rachasakawa]

Last week was Shepard birthday so here's a new photo from this cosplay to celebrate <3

Miranda by me Shepard by @rayarink Photo by @ronaldoichi

[anna-antoshchenkova]

Iris - faith, hope, heroism, fearlessness and nobility

[corvusblanche72]

Just another colored sketch of Liara and Shepard having a post mission patch-up.

[miladydewintcr]

Found out the Mass Effect tapestry existed, made some icons using the ladies' romance tile art <3

Feel free to use! No need to credit me (although likes/reblogs are appreciated!), I just replaced the background & bopped a psd over the top (this psd to be exact!)

[continuous-spec]

POV: You’re Shepard about to get your ass blasted into Rannoch’s orbit.

[leadjockey]

My Mass Effect Triptych is finally complete :)

[refinedstorage]

Samara Saturday

[drizzlesdoodles]

Sometimes it's necessary...

[lady-z13]

✧ Illium

Mass Effect Scenery Porn [x]

[i-dream-of-illium]

[sunwingsunset]

MASS EFFECT ↳ Scenery

[jubberry]

kiss.

[isabeaudargyll]

Mass Effect 2 —> Loading Screens

[fishik]

[crapeaucrapeau]

Mass Effect geopolitics

Hey Mass Effect nerds, a question : is there any indication as to what are the mutual obligations of Council species in times of war ?

On the one hand, all Citadel species are bound by the Citadel Conventions, which dictate, among other things, what weapons they can use, or whether mercenaries are allowed on the battlefield, so there are at least some Rules of War ; but that's clearly only to a degree, since we know of at least two Council polities - the Systems Alliance and the Salarian Union - who each retain their own discrete way of conducting legitimate wars : humans declare wars before prosecuting them, whereas salarians consider that naive and never do.

On the other hand, each Council species is clearly required to handle matters that concern only them without any help (see also : the reason the Council does not consider helping the Alliance during the Collector crisis something they have to do). But there isn't a strict cujus regio, ejus religio ("you don't tell me how I deal with my problems, and I won't tell you how you should deal with yours") situation either : after all, the reason the Alliance doesn't get curb-stomped by the turians in 2157 is because the asari and salarians step in and negotiate a stop first to hostilities - "forcing a truce" - then to the war itself. In other words, there are some standards - whether formal or informal - to which all three Council species are held which can decide whether a war is allowed or not.

I'm asking because I'm considering whether the conflict between the Alliance and the Hegemony - kickstarted by Shepard's shenanigans in the Bahak system and which was about to start when the Reapers arrived from left-field and killed everyone - would have involved other species. I'm guessing that is not the case : the potential conflict in ME3 is described as strictly a matter opposing the humans to the batarians. At the same time, the reason I'm asking at all is that the Turian Hierarchy seems perfectly willing to signal that it stands ready to assist the Alliance against the Hegemony in at least some circumstances.

The batarians themselves go to great length to always attack the Alliance while maintaining at least a measure of plausible deniability (the Skyllian Blitz and the Asteroid X57 attack nominally being done by independent actors) ; the Alliance isn't fooled, but is the reason the Alliance doesn't go to war against the Hegemony that they don't want to go to war, that they are afraid they might lose the war (Joker in ME3 names the batarian navy as one of the heavy hitters of the galaxy, though that's obviously been widely overstated), or that they do want to go to war and think they can win it but need a casus belli to justify their position to their Citadel allies ? If the Batarian Hegemony had openly invaded the Systems Alliance in a war of aggression, could we have expected the turians to intervene immediately to defend the Alliance ? In which case, the destruction of the Bahak system by an Alliance officer would provide a casus belli to the Hegemony, making the intervention of the Hierarchy or any other Council power on the side of the Alliance scandalous at best ?

In other words, is it a matter of individual alliances between interstellar nations or - even likelier - ad hoc decisions dictated by the circumstances and public opinion ? Like, does it all depend on what your allies think is a "legitimate" war ?

What do you think ?