HANAR MASTERPOST - A post so long it forcibly became a series (7/?)
This [series of] post[s] will list literally everything I can find on the hanar in the Mass Effect canon. I will be repeating facts that are well-known, and adding some that I could find. The purpose of this post is to serve as a reference for every single canon element about the hanar.
Thank you to everyone who recently liked and (especially) reblogged my previous post on hanar courtesy in the canon material, it’s your appreciation that keeps me making these posts !
INDEX :
Where are they from ? - Kahje, its star system, where it is, and salarian protection
Hanar biology, communication and expressions of emotion.
Hanar courtesy and hanar names
Hanar religion
Other aspects of hanar culture
Hanar in galactic entertainment and galactic society
YOU'RE HERE : The hanar and the drell
How exploitative is the Compact ? How wealthy can drell get ? How illegal is the relationship between hanar and drell in light of Citadel law ? Can a hanar and a drell fuck ?
All that, and more, below !
The hanar and the drell - the Compact
Early in the 21st century ("almost two centuries"), as the death spiral of Rakhana, the drell homeworld, concluded, the hanar managed to evacuate "375,000 willing drell to [their] homeworld, Kahje", over a period of "ten years" - by all appearances ending in "2025 CE" with a "massive population crash" as the billions of drell left died.
As a result of the hanar's actions, "[nearly] all drell demonstrate tremendous loyalty to their famously reclusive saviors". To quote Thane in ME2 : "We rely on each other." On an individual level, the "intimacy" of the hanar-drell relationship can result in "extremely close personal relations in which some drell actually learn hanar Soul names." On a social level, the result was the Compact.
The Compact, described as a "formal sociopolitical alliance", is another expression of the "loyalty" and "intimacy" inherent to the drell-hanar relationship, as the drell wished to "repay their debt" to the hanar. That agreement states that "the drell would assist the hanar with tasks the hanar cannot physically perform" "even with mechanical aid (Source : ME2, Thane)".
Among the ways the drell can "help their saviors" through the Compact, "some assist hanar off-world as envoys, researchers, co-investors, wayfarers, assassins or otherwise" (See the next post for the role of the drell in the hanar military). "Today, high-ranking hanar are often inseparable from their drell attendants" and "[for] a century, galactic wisdom has held that behind any high-ranking hanar hides a resourceful and fanatically devoted drell."
According to Thane in ME2, it is an "honor for [a drell's] family" to have the hanar ask a drell to assist them through the Compact - up to and including a six-year old who has to be trained to become an assassin. "Anyone can refuse to serve. Few do. We owe our existence to the hanar. We are proud to repay the debt."
Much like drell can refuse to serve, apparently a drell can ask to be released of their Compact duties at any time and have that request granted easily - even a huge "investment" like Thane.
Suggesting that the Compact is exploitative will lead to a rare outburst from Thane ("Don't insult me, Shepard.") ; the drell are "proud" and "eager", and are not in any way comparable to slaves (according to him). The belief that the drell are "junior partners, if not actual servants" of the hanar is actually common among "outsiders and even some hanar", but the Codex is quick to contest this attitude, as "drell have integrated themselves into every level of hanar society as respected productive citizens", on par with the hanar.
Per Thane in ME2, many drell "have had their eyes genetically modified to perceive [a hanar's] higher frequency flashes." [Note that this would be in breach of Council policy on genetic engineering, which rules against granting abilities to individuals that didn't evolve naturally.] Such drell "can't tell the difference between a dark red and black, but … can see ultraviolet light as a silver color."
Hanar die from contact with drell venom ; sexual relationships are therefore impossible between individuals of those species (Annihilation, p.238).
The drell on Kahje
Most drell today "reside on Kahje, content to coexist with the hanar", with off-world drell being either Compact agents or "adventurers" (numbering in the "thousands") "scattered across the galaxy" and seeking out alien species other than the hanar, "adopting that species' culture and rarely returning to Kahje."
"On Kahje, the hanar afforded the drell every opportunity to thrive." This contradicts Anax Therion's description in Annihilation (see the first post) of the drell as an exploited underclass - as does the mention of drell "co-investors", which implies that some drell are very wealthy.
The "leading cause of death among [drell] on Kahje is … Kepral's Syndrome", which is caused by too much moisture. The "fatal" disease is but one of many ("…drell face serious illness on the hanar homeworld, especially Kepral's Syndrome…") and would have been apparent as soon as drell refugees settled on Kahje. Kepral's Syndrome had become untreatable "[within] a generation of the drell's arrival on the planet". As the leading cause of death among drell, Kepral's would have a lot to do in the average drell life expectancy being "85 galactic standard years" (over 92 Earth years).
There is no known disease that affects both hanar and drell (Annihilation, p.125).
Despite the severity of the situation, the hanar have only been "[funding] a genetic engineering program" to "adapt" the drell "for a few years" as of 2185. (Source : ME2, Thane) Meanwhile, Kahje "[proves] tolerable only when the drell [stay] inside a climate-controlled dome city", with most drell apparently finding the idea of leaving Kahje and the hanar unthinkable, if Thane's any indication in that regard.
Many drell today worship the Enkindlers or embrace "the asari philosophies", especially the "younger generations", with a diminishing number of drell believing in "the old [drell] ways", including Thane's pantheon. (Source : Thane in ME2) This is in line with the mention of the Illuminated Primacy being "tolerant of other creeds" (see the next post).
HANAR MASTERPOST - A post so long it forcibly became a series (1/?)
(Like, seriously, it got so long I was forced to split it into several parts. Tumblr just can't handle me.)
This [series of] post[s] will list literally everything I can find on the hanar in the Mass Effect canon. I will be repeating facts that are well-known, and adding some that I could find. The purpose of this post is to serve as a reference for every single canon element about the hanar.
In this post : the likely names of the hanar home system and home star cluster, where they are in the galaxy, how the hanar apparently are in a close military alliance with the salarians vital to the salarian strategy. Among other things.
Principal sources include the primary canon of the Mass Effect original trilogy (OT), and several entries in the secondary canon, especially Cerberus Daily News, the comic Mass Effect: Homeworlds #4, and the novel Mass Effect: Andromeda: Annihilation. It will also draw from semi-canon sources which nonetheless remain relevant in canon ; this includes partially cut content and the in-universe Systems Alliance ONI report on the estimated danger every alien species poses to humanity.
A note on Annihilation : while it provides a lot of exquisite lore about the hanar and the other "secondary" species of the OT, there are several lore continuity mistakes in the book ; as a result, all information from Annihilation is credible unless and until future lore from the primary canon eventually emerges and takes precedence. Page references to Annihilation are in the original edition.
Kahje - the hanar homeworld
We actually know fairly little about Kahje, as it is never seen in-game - in fact, it's the only homeworld of a major species to never be seen on the Galaxy Map. We don't know what type of sun it orbits, or the star's name (but see below), how far it is from the sun, how long a Kahje year lasts, what the average temperature, atmospheric pressure and gravity are. That being said -
In the Codex entry for the hanar, Kahje is described as having "90% ocean cover and [orbiting] an energetic white star, resulting in a permanent blanket of clouds."
This fits with what we get from the planet Proteus, which is explicitly described as fairly similar to Kahje, confirming that Kahje has "more than 90% oceanic cover", that "the incredible heat thrown off by [its sun] raises global humidity to 100%, creates constant cloud cover, and powers colossal typhoons that rage across the surface year-round." We can therefore fairly say that Kahje is "[h]ot, humid, and storm-wracked".
Regarding the oceanic cover, the world-spanning ocean of Kahje is known as the Encompassing (Source : ME2, Thane : "But if you could see [the hanar] in the Encompassing - the oceans of Kahje - you would see them differently.")
The Wiki states on Kahje's page that the planet's atmosphere consists primarily of "oxygen, hydrogen and nitrogen, similar to that of Earth", though it contains "traces of ammonia" ; it is nonetheless described as "perfect for life". I can't find the source for this, and there are discrepancies with what is, well, real (the actual atmospheric make-up of Earth is 78% nitrogen gas, 21% oxygen gas, and trace amounts of carbon dioxide and other gases, including an infinitesimal amount of hydrogen gas). I think we can agree that the atmosphere of Kahje is perfectly breathable to everyone in the OT bar the volus, since no one ever complains about it.
We're also told by the Wiki that Kahje's land area "consists solely of small islands", which I also can't find a source for ; but this seems probable, as the amount of water and the violent weather would erode away any land unless it is renewed by volcanism ; and we know Kahje is tectonically and volcanically active thanks to Mount Vassla (see below).
Regarding Kahje's weather, Thane tells us in ME2, when he remembers the funeral of Irikah, that "It rains. It always rains on Kahje." and that the rain is "[w]arm". (See also, during his first conversation aboard the SR-2 : "It's very humid, and rains every day.")
"There are many Prothean ruins" on Kahje. To our knowledge, this is the only homeworld with Prothean buildings on it. Those ruins are the reason the hanar "worship" the Protheans. In Mass Effect: Homeworlds #4, Liara, who by her own admission has seen many Prothean ruins, says that she has never seen ruins like the underwater shrine she visits on Kahje. If Homeworlds #4 is any indication, some of those ruins are not open to the public, and the enclosed shrine Liara visits has its own defense system (torpedoes included).
Beside the shrine complex mentioned above, another major Prothean ruin is Mount Vassla, which - according to the drell guide Quoyle in Homeworlds #4 - has as many artefacts and is just as impressive as the shrine Liara finds herself in. At the time of publication, Mount Vassla had already been mentioned in Cerberus Daily News (08/28/2010) as "an underwater volcano at the heart of one of the oldest Prothean ruins on Kahje" as well as the center of the celebrations of Nyahir, a major hanar religious festival (see below).
The only known examples of Kahje fauna are the striped dartfish, one of the fish you can acquire for your aquarium in ME3 ("Millions of dartfish school together for protection in Kahje's oceans.") and the mindfish, a hallucinogenic fish which is the hanar equivalent of alcohol.
The only example of Kahje flora we know of is lerian, pale, bioluminescent sea ferns with pods, used as decorative plants by the hanar (Source : Mass Effect Andromeda : Annihilation, p.36, p.227).
Beside the hanar, most of the drell galactic population ("a few hundred thousand" of drell, according to Thane in ME2) lives on Kahje. The drell of Kahje live in "climate-controlled dome [cities]", as briefly depicted in Homeworlds #4.
One such city is called Cnidaria, or Cnidaria City (Source : Mass Effect Andromeda : Annihilation). It is described as the only place on Kahje drell can live without getting Kepral's Syndrome, resulting in a city packed with drell, many of them empoverished to the point of being beggars. (Source : the same, pp.109-110 ; however, we should note here that as much as I love Annihilation, it contradicts here lore established in the games ; for example, there are several drell cities where it should be safe to live, and Thane and the lore texts go out of their way to stress that the drell are not second-class citizens. This discrepancy might be explained, from a Watsonian perspective, by the fact most drell facts we get in Annihilation come from a highly unreliable narrator.)
Kahje's orbital planetary defense network is largely automated, which is a major plot point in the minor ME3 sidequest "Hanar Diplomat".
Kahje's star system and galactic location
Officially, the names of the hanar's home system and home cluster, and their location, are unknown. But…
Kahje's sun is likely meant to be called Kanala. I found that out by chance : the word "Kanala" appears only in ME3 for the Presidium shop/company "Kanala Exports", with no other mentions in the OT. An internet search turned out the fact that modders found in the ME3 game files an unused cluster with a single system, Kanala (and no assets), likely meant to be the hanar's home system for a variety of reasons (in keeping with the ME3 trend that we get to see the home system of every major species, at least on the Galaxy Map). (Mod here) (Source 1) (Source 2)
Kanala is described as "an energetic white star" (see above ; "energetic" is also used for Proteus's star). Now, the phrasing suggests that Kanala is a larger, higher-energy star than our Sun, whose spectral class is G2V - so anything between a G1V and an O-type star. That being said, the word "white" suggests Kanala is fairly close to the Sun (a highly energetic star like an O-type star would be described as "blue"), suggesting anything between the "yellow-white" F-type stars and the "bluish white" A-type stars. As this Wikipedia article suggests that "[the] appropriate spectral range for habitable stars is considered to be "late F" or "G", to "mid-K". This corresponds to temperatures of a little more than 7,000 K down to a little less than 4,000 K (6,700 °C to 3,700 °C); the Sun, a G2 star at 5,777 K, is well within these bounds", this suggests to me that Kanala is likely to be a "late F". To give you an idea, an F7 star is slightly more than twice as bright as the Sun ; Kanala, for all know, may be even more energetic.
The presumed hanar home cluster is called the Olyn Protectorate (which is a surprising name but we'll get to it in a bit). Elements in ME3's actual canon suggest it branches off the Horsehead Nebula (where Noveria is) : 1) the hanar home system is listed as being in Inner Council Space in ME3's Galaxy At War ; 2) "The Horse Head Nebula is key to the southeastern front at the edge of human space, as the relay located there is the bridge between the human Exodus Cluster and the hanar homeworld of Kahje. Should the nebula fall, the Reapers will inflict massive casualties on the nearly defenseless hanar." ; 3) which has previously led me to conclude that it's overwhelmingly likely that the hanar home system and home cluster are in the small, barely visible enclave to the upper left of the capital "E" in "Earth Systems Alliance" on the ME3 galaxy map.
But what about it being a "Protectorate" ? This is surprising terminology, as a protectorate is not a fully sovereign polity. IRL, a protectorate is a country whose limited colonization means it has no diplomatic existence and is defended by the suzerain colonizer who makes all foreign affairs decisions, while still being largely free to direct its own internal affairs as it sees fit. The major protectorate in the ME canon is the Vol Protectorate, with its defense assured by the Turian Hierarchy ; but it isn't completely similar to a protectorate IRL because the volus retain at least a measure of sovereignty and diplomatic representation : for example, they retain their embassy and ambassador on the Citadel.
A major difference between this "Olyn Protectorate" and the protectorates I just mentioned is that, whereas the Vol Protectorate is an entire nation, the Olyn Protectorate is just a single cluster, i.e. only one part of the territory of the Illuminated Primacy. No mention is ever made that the hanar systems strewn across the galaxy (e.g. in the Relic system) are defended by a foreign power - unlike the volus (e.g. Boro). So the exact nature of the protectorate and of the relationship between the hanar within this territory and the "suzerain" is likely to be unlike what we know on Earth, and even looser than the Vol Protectorate (if only because we don't ever hear about it outside of those snippets of lore).
So the questions about the Olyn Protectorate are : a) who is protecting it (and why) ? ; b) what are the terms of the treaty ?
No idea about the terms of the protectorate situation, but we actually know who is in charge of protecting the hanar home cluster : in ME3, should you choose not to take Diana Allers aboard the Normandy, then listen to the largely inaudible news stories in the Spectre Office on the Citadel, you will hear the following : "In the next hour: Victory on Noveria. Spirits are high as a Reaper capital ship goes down. Salarians and humans fight side-by-side, holding the enemy back from the planet Kahje. Is this a sign of future cooperation, or are the salarians just guarding their protectorate? Diana Allers reports from the SSV Shasta, so stay tuned for 'Battlespace.'"
So at the very least the salarians have a treaty with the hanar putting them in charge of the defense of the Olyn Protectorate ; we don't know what they get in return, but it may simply be that the salarians are basing their fleets around the strategically crucial Horsehead Nebula to defend their own territory : "Further, Noveria's mass relay is the stop between the humans' Exodus Cluster and the beginning of salarian space. It is a safe bet that the salarians will defend their borders to the utmost." The most benevolent interpretation (and my favorite) is that the hanar negotiated for salarian protection in exchange for letting them operate their military in this cluster.
This is supported by a comment Jondum Bau can make in ME3 : "… their territory buffers salarian space, which would be vulnerable otherwise." ; or by Hackett when you ask him to update you on how the war is going for all the races during the second half of the game : "[The hanar and drell's] luck is holding. For now, the Reapers have avoided a direct invasion of that sector. Though we've heard drell wetwork teams are mobilizing fast to shore up their border with the salarians."
The hanar are a species resembling Earth's jellyfish and are one of the many non-bipedal Citadel races. Hanar are known for their intense politeness when speaking, and their strong religious beliefs regarding the Protheans, whom they refer to as "the Enkindlers". They love jokes and they’re all gay.
theflamingnymph replied to your post “Bobbit worm anon back- yeah, they live in the sea. But watching their...”
They could be like the underwater iguana. Land versions are omnivorous and can get quite vicious, but the underwater version is a strict vegetarian despite being almost 5 foot long vs. It's land counterpart.
Ah, that’s great, thanks.
As much as I love the scary version like “UNDERWATER MISSION GONE WRONG”, I love the idea that the drell and the hanar are friendly with the underwater thresher maw. Maybe those thresher maws protect them from bigger predators.
Bobbit worm anon back- yeah, they live in the sea. But watching their hunting and hiding patterns just made me think of the Maws. Which brought me a terrifying idea: underwater Maws on Kahje.
This would be so cool though
I mean, terrifying, but so cool. I love everything about underwater creatures and stories like that. You could do a scary story where a team is hunted by one of them, or you could have a sweet story where those maws on Kahje are not that dangerous but the drell don’t know it yet when they first arrive on the planet.
