I think it would be cool if BioWare had a species with extreme sexual dimorphism, to the point where one gender is little more than a non-seintient beast. It might not be very PC but I always liked alien species with such dichotomy to them.
For example, the Zuul of the Sword of the Stars universe have their females as massive, raging beasts. The act of reproduction for their species almost always results in all but the strongest of the males being ripped apart by the female. Realizing this, the Zuul commonly use their females as the first wave of ship boarding parties.
There's a billion billion stars. Endless possibilities.
yeah but they are relatively simple. Thats the thing, there are all kinds of ways to reproduce but the life forms with more complex anatomy and biology and with higher cognitive abilities reproduce a certain way. I don't know why but it seems to work for nature. but yeah, a lot of stars and quite literally billions of permutations that could end up creating nearly anything.
yeah but they are relatively simple. Thats the thing, there are all kinds of ways to reproduce but the life forms with more complex anatomy and biology and with higher cognitive abilities reproduce a certain way. I don't know why but it seems to work for nature. but yeah, a lot of stars and quite literally billions of permutations that could end up creating nearly anything.
That's the wonderful part of scifi.
Though many people still do like a grounded/hard scifi. We've seen with ME3 how they react to not just the more abstract/theoretical notions (which ME2 focused on imo), but even the 'space magic' beyond 'our understanding'.
Though many people still do like a grounded/hard scifi. We've seen with ME3 how they react to not just the more abstract/theoretical notions (which ME2 focused on imo), but even the 'space magic' beyond 'our understanding'.
Yeah, I get that but at the same time I dont like the really hard scifi. I like scifi which knows what it is and doesnt go left field out of nowhere and knows where to stop.
I think the biggest problem people had with the space magic in ME3 was because throughout the game nothing hinted at it. Literally until the last minute there were no hints that all the reapers were just puppets. The way they talked, the way they threatened. Their method of construction. Technically Harbringer and Illusive man were the main antagonists of the ME3. and then it gives us that they were just pawns and this holographic thing that suddenly offers us choices of killing all the reapers? Or creating hybrids out of everyone? The theme of Shepard's journey was survival, and for paragon shepard it was survival without compromising the values held dear by Shepard. So when the end gives you the choices, all of which go against that?
It was not just that they were badly done, it was also that they were a huge break in immersion of the game. I played the game to 100% from friday on its release day to the sunday night. I was utterly immersed in it right up the end. that was the large part of why so many of us hated the endings.
I just don't see why there couldn't be all male species. I guess people would wonder how they would reproduce but I don't think that is the problem. I think there can be various ways to do that. Those men could reproduce with women from other races and now that their technology is more advanged they could have created artificial wombs or they could reproduce with each other in some way. It doesn't have to happen in a similar way like humans or mammals reproduce.
I think the issue there is that the species would have to be able to reproduce naturally, without the aid of technology. While the species encountered in the games are space fairing and have all this amazingly advanced technology, they wouldn't have began their existence in that state. Much like us they would have evolved from primitive animal life and would have had their own versions of cave men & a Stone Age.
An all male species doesn't work because there is no one to either birth live young or to lay eggs. That requires anatomy that defines one as female.
Now you could maybe have a species that was hermaphroditic or completely asexual, or which is able to change it's sex (some species on Earth actually do that)...but an male species would be unable to reproduce. I think that one is an impossibility in nature.
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Yeah, I get that but at the same time I dont like the really hard scifi. I like scifi which knows what it is and doesnt go left field out of nowhere and knows where to stop.
I think the biggest problem people had with the space magic in ME3 was because throughout the game nothing hinted at it. Literally until the last minute there were no hints that all the reapers were just puppets. The way they talked, the way they threatened. Their method of construction. Technically Harbringer and Illusive man were the main antagonists of the ME3. and then it gives us that they were just pawns and this holographic thing that suddenly offers us choices of killing all the reapers? Or creating hybrids out of everyone? The theme of Shepard's journey was survival, and for paragon shepard it was survival without compromising the values held dear by Shepard. So when the end gives you the choices, all of which go against that?
It was not just that they were badly done, it was also that they were a huge break in immersion of the game. I played the game to 100% from friday on its release day to the sunday night. I was utterly immersed in it right up the end. that was the large part of why so many of us hated the endings.
Synthesis actually relates to the values of Full Genophage Cure and Rannoch Peace. Its the trepidatious attempt to live for more than survival. It is very optional.
And well this is where I get back on my crazy train and start thinking its a Reaper ploy to Ascend Shepard whether he wants to or not.
ME treads a fine line with the alien romances. One the one hand, they have to be just that, alien. On the other hand, they still have to have a species that one could proverbially 'stick their dick in'. Because when it comes down to it the sheer majority of the romance arcs are built up to a sex scene as the climax (pun not intended), and sexual dimorphism, or at least something close to it that we recognise as masculinity/femininity (such as the Asari), then becomes necessary. The emotional or attraction to personality is a secondary variable when creating these characters/arcs, which ironically, is what makes most players invested. Basically, they need to conform to human sexuality.
Garrus is arguably one of the more Alien squaddies, and has a considerable romance following, and possibly larger friendship following. The key here that although he is Alien in appearance, he is ultimately a heterosexual male. We recognise him as such, and thus some people pursue romance based on attraction to his gender, whilst others just see him as a pretty rad guy. Conversely with Liara, although Asari bear no consideration for sex or gender, we as humans do as reflected by the codex entry saying that they're an 'all-female race'. To us as a species, they are 'female' because they resemble human females so much even when they don't meet our expectations of gender (Aethyta).
Sexual compatibility isn't necessarily important, even between humans reproductively speaking, but the aliens would have to resemble something we can see as human/being a person. Now, I know there are some outliers such as pansexuality (attraction to sentience), and then on the opposite end of the scale, people who think that Babs the sheep is making flirty eyes with them; but when it comes down to it... would you bang an Elcor?
tl;dr Alien romances will in nature be human-like because we're attracted to human looking things.
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On that note I think that is also why Tali ended up considerably more human-looking than her ME1 era concept art. Once they made her a LI, I think it all but guaranteed that some alien features would need to be toned down or eliminated.
On the other hand I think Bioware went far too overboard with that, to the point that she now looks more human than alien, but that's another discussion.
On that note I think that is also why Tali ended up considerably more human-looking than her ME1 era concept art. Once they made her a LI, I think it all but guaranteed that some alien features would need to be toned down or eliminated.
On the other hand I think Bioware went far too overboard with that, to the point that she now looks more human than alien, but that's another discussion.
And I hate when someone says "well, maybe we just resemble them" as a defense to the photoshop. No, that is not a valid argument because I know what it took evolutionarily (I admit i'm no expert) to get humans to look exactly as we do now and I know what the most recent ancestor of humans looked like and it was not sexy. At all!
But that doesn't actually get discussed so much.
But i'd like to know why does a species that evolved on a primarily desert planet, like the drell did, and didn't have the exact same random extinction events that knocked out the dinosaurs, which I doubt dinosaurs would have evolved into a human with hair, look identical facially to us with hair like us. I haven't seen many large hairy mammals thriving in deserts. But apparently the same evolutionary processes that worked on earth and for some reason rannoch also did so on thessia- only asari have no hair, head tentacles (not seen a human with these), and a very unique reproductive strategy that no human on earth today can claim. I have, however, seen humans with deformities of the hands/feet/and calf bones, such that there where 3 or less fingers and toes and backwards bent/bowed calf bones.
I just miss the days when the species we encountered in the MEU looked they way the did to adapt to their homeworld, and thus why turians are covered in metallic plating to protect them from the harsh radiation of their sun. That though doesn't make sense when you consider Nyreen is without the rumored asari-like fringe on female turians (illium bachelor party convo). Her skull is just leathery skin which would not protect her noggin from skin-cancer/mutations/massive trebian sunburn.
My headcanon is only humans have hair and I am sticking to it! Why else do we get called filthy humans by the batarians. I bet it is because we get lice in their deplorable slave conditions.
One possible explanation for humanoid nature of many species in the MEU is quite similar to what many other scifi universes have used. After all during those cycles before there were other species who could have uplifted or modified some other species to become more humanoid. Protheans are and they have uplifted at least two species, hanar and asari. They have also visited Earth and were doing some kind of experiment on humans before reapers showed up(ME1 thing that doesnt appear in journal)
And since reapers have been trying to manipulate the galactic species to generally go along the lines that they have set out then it could be that reapers interfiere with evolution to some extent to produce humanoid species. After all Citadel is quite comfortable to humanoids.
Anyway, alien romance options do need some kind of humanoid component for most people to accept them. And the sex scenes are there because in real life a lot of us think that if we get involved with someone that sex is a kind of step into the next stage, a more intimate relationship. Conveys trust. Or low standards. Depending on a person.
I think the issue there is that the species would have to be able to reproduce naturally, without the aid of technology. While the species encountered in the games are space fairing and have all this amazingly advanced technology, they wouldn't have began their existence in that state. Much like us they would have evolved from primitive animal life and would have had their own versions of cave men & a Stone Age.
An all male species doesn't work because there is no one to either birth live young or to lay eggs. That requires anatomy that defines one as female.
Now you could maybe have a species that was hermaphroditic or completely asexual, or which is able to change it's sex (some species on Earth actually do that)...but an male species would be unable to reproduce. I think that one is an impossibility in nature.
Of course species would have to reproduce naturally first. The example about using technology to aid in it was just an example how reproducing could be done easier in the future if it's needed to be easier in the first place.
I think it's very restrictive if you only think about species on earth and how they reproduce. Of course the species in our world could give you ideas how many different ways reproduction can be done but it still doesn't prove that there can't be any other way to do it. For example all male species could live in a symbiotic relationship with other species or with plants which would aid this all male species to reproduce.
What is the actual problem with asexual reproduction with all male species? Because there are also other ways to reproduct asexually than just laying eggs.
I just chalk up the aliens with human-like bodies as being examples of convergent evolution.
We often tend to think of our own species as being weak compared to much of the animal kingdom, because unlike adult lions for example we aren't 300 to 500 pounds of pure muscle, and don't have fearsome claws or fangs or jaws that can crush another animal's spine. But humans are the ultimate land-based apex predator on Earth, and not just because of our big brains. Humans evolved to hunt by endurance rather than raw strength. While there are many species on Earth that are stronger than humans, there are few that can match us for sheer endurance. Before the invention of throwing weapons or bows, our primitive ancestors hunted by running down their prey. Running on two legs is more efficient for long-distance running than running on four, and sweat glands and the lack of fur meant we could run longer in the hot African sun than our prey, particularly when you factor in that humans have hands to also carry water. Our ancestors hunted by a strategy known as the persistence hunt, where prey animals are run down until they collapse from sheer exhaustion. (wolves hunt the same way...perhaps one of the reasons why they became the first animal to be domesticated) In short, humans are the marathon runners of the animal kingdom.
How does that apply to Mass Effect's aliens? We can guess that aliens with a similar build, like the Asari or the Drell, must have also evolved as persistence hunters in a similar enviroment. Otherwise they wouldn't be designed by nature to have a form so perfectly designed for long distance running.
The Turians on the other hand, with their greater bulk and fearsome claws, might have been ambush predators who wrestled down prey.
As for the hair on our heads...that serves to both protect our brains from the sun in hot climates, and to keep it warm in cold climates. Maybe the species that don't have hair evolved different strategies. With the Asari it could be that those crests serve some kind of function in either heating or cooling blood, as needed, and perhaps the Turians are protected from the plates that also ward against radiation.
I just chalk up the aliens with human-like bodies as being examples of convergent evolution.
We often tend to think of our own species as being weak compared to much of the animal kingdom, because unlike adult lions for example we aren't 300 to 500 pounds of pure muscle, and don't have fearsome claws or fangs or jaws that can crush another animal's spine. But humans are the ultimate land-based apex predator on Earth, and not just because of our big brains. Humans evolved to hunt by endurance rather than raw strength. While there are many species on Earth that are stronger than humans, there are few that can match us for sheer endurance. Before the invention of throwing weapons or bows, our primitive ancestors hunted by running down their prey. Running on two legs is more efficient for long-distance running than running on four, and sweat glands and the lack of fur meant we could run longer in the hot African sun than our prey, particularly when you factor in that humans have hands to also carry water. Our ancestors hunted by a strategy known as the persistence hunt, where prey animals are run down until they collapse from sheer exhaustion. (wolves hunt the same way...perhaps one of the reasons why they became the first animal to be domesticated) In short, humans are the marathon runners of the animal kingdom.
How does that apply to Mass Effect's aliens? We can guess that aliens with a similar build, like the Asari or the Drell, must have also evolved as persistence hunters in a similar enviroment. Otherwise they wouldn't be designed by nature to have a form so perfectly designed for long distance running.
The Turians on the other hand, with their greater bulk and fearsome claws, might have been ambush predators who wrestled down prey.
As for the hair on our heads...that serves to both protect our brains from the sun in hot climates, and to keep it warm in cold climates. Maybe the species that don't have hair evolved different strategies. With the Asari it could be that those crests serve some kind of function in either heating or cooling blood, as needed, and perhaps the Turians are protected from the plates that also ward against radiation.
Okay but like rakhana and rannoch, both desert worlds, the drell are hairless mammals and they would need the hair due to the harsher sun/heat on rakhana unlike the quarians. Thing is Thane is not a male LI, so he could afford to look less human and a species sans hair. The excuse for hair on quarians can be made for drell as well, but because a quarian was a male LI she became more human.
See our ancestors had more hair than us and would overheat in a desert-like world with a few shrubs to offer some shade, unlike our jungle/grassland dwelling great ape ancestors, we are losing that hairiness. Did chimpanzee or gorilla analogues, etc. roam rannoch prior to the quarians evolution, or would their ancestor be more like a drell's roaming large expanses of treeless desert to reach rivers that may or may not have dried up on occasion, and in such expanses of desert where body hair would be more oppressive than beneficial, and head hair not enough to protect the entire body of one's ancestors from radiation?
Did the quarian ancestors always have body hair, did some mutation result in hair to give us the quarian in the photoshop, or did their ancestors always look as the quarians do now for billions/millions of years with hardly any change? I'd ask the same for the drell who came from an environment more like the quarians than the humans.
If anything their hair should be shorter/stubbier and more bristly or harder cuticles than humans, which is more furrier/softer in texture.
I should add that while some furry animals live in semi-arid areas of earth (grasslands), rakhana and rannoch are classified as predominately arid. I just see drell and quarian being more alike than quarian and human.
There is also possibility that turians, asari and salarians didn't move into the harsher climates of their planets until much later. Or their climate could be more uniform than on Earth.
Also we have evolved as omnivores, we eat a huge range of stuff, we are not as easy to poison as some animals. Turians clearly are meat-eaters, the structure of their jaw and teeth shows clearly that they are made for tearing meat not chew. Asari are basically like us. Krogan teeth are also like ours evolved to eat a wide variety of stuff.
Also technology of the kind that allows travel between stars or even basic computers require highly dexterous manual handling ability. Without that a lot of technology could not be made. So species with fingers are more likely to have that. In that aspect I am not even sure how elcor do anything.
Well elcor are like turians having two toes and three fingered hands, they have two large fingers and a small opposbale thumb. They are just bulky and slouched over having adapted to a high gravity planet. I'm more curious about how and what they eat with those mouths. Anywho, I think we have enough human-like, in behavior and physique, aliens in the MEU what with 1-2% exploration of the Milky Way, it is getting really boring and predictable. Let's just hope the new alien species don't look human and are not romances.
As for the hair on our heads...that serves to both protect our brains from the sun in hot climates, and to keep it warm in cold climates. Maybe the species that don't have hair evolved different strategies. With the Asari it could be that those crests serve some kind of function in either heating or cooling blood, as needed, and perhaps the Turians are protected from the plates that also ward against radiation.
Presumably there are a lot of animals running around Rannoch with hair at the very least on their heads; otherwise plant life would be in trouble on a world without insects.
Yeah sure I bet a pic of Tali with a hairy ass, hips, legs, feet, and arms would sell well. Gotta pollinate them plants and those are the best areas with hair to do it...really thick and bristly hair growing inside and outside her booty, legs, arms, and feet. If that's what the hair is for then those are the areas it would most certainly be concentrated in and in more quantity than a human. And it would be short, coarse, and stubby like on insects (a better adaptation for accumulation and transportation of pollen/spores) not long or silky or flowing like on primates (pollen/spores are more likely to get stuck and hidden or entangled). That means those quarian ladies have lots of coarse hair in places most men and women would find. Maybe a thick, bristly mustache to pollinate when their human lips touch the fruits their ancestors ate. You can't do it ramming your head horizontally through the bushes. Maximum success on the lower reaches.
BTW you do realize that reptiles (hairless) can act as pollinators and are successful desert dwellers (drell are reptilian-like mammals). So you do not need hair to pollinate, but if your argument is that hair is necessary to be successful in an alien world with an arid environment and wide extensive deserts then look to the most successful haired pollinator on earth- the insects- having short, stubby, bristly hair on the lower reaches of the body particularly. In an arid place like rannoch (does it have ice ages??? I doubt it!) I would not expect long fur on any animal, especially larger, bipedal animals (and I assume the quarian ancestors resembled earth's primates in shape given the quarian body plan, but in rannoch's arid environment and ~118 degree fahrenheit surface temps., not with the long, silky excessive hair).
Edit: The plants most likely should have pollinated using wind/water, dropping seeds/spores and using the wind/river currents, as plant life is concentrated near water. Or another logical transport is the quarians poopoo'd and dispersed plant seeds. Quarians will most likely have hairless bodies to increase their hotness factor.
Her recent ancestor was a pollinator (with a cute Russian accent) can't you tell from her physiology-
But let's leave this issue to NeoGAF! And I hope ME doesn't start looking like WoW...what next Belf spore releasers from Silvermoon because their planet didn't have fungi. They recycle nutrients by being the decomposers of their planet, but a side effect is the spores are a potent aphrodisiac on any species, particularly humans.
Goddess I remember the rage about how human (tentacled head) asari were.
I think it would be cool if BioWare had a species with extreme sexual dimorphism, to the point where one gender is little more than a non-seintient beast. It might not be very PC but I always liked alien species with such dichotomy to them.
For example, the Zuul of the Sword of the Stars universe have their females as massive, raging beasts. The act of reproduction for their species almost always results in all but the strongest of the males being ripped apart by the female. Realizing this, the Zuul commonly use their females as the first wave of ship boarding parties.
That's like the Gazorpazorpians from Rick and Morty, who use fembots as breeding vessels so they never have to deal with the brutish, larger males that live outside of their society.
Alien sex. Lots and lots of alien sex. With a little bit of nudity.
Ok, now that I've said what we were all thinking about, I'm good with any kind of romance they do, as long as they're well-written and they're at least fairly attractive.
I'd rather they not be attractive (leave that to the humans and asari...which is more than enough) and exceptionally well-written, so well-written that we want to have that alien sex.
The thing with quarians I kinda hoped they looked better than humans, alien enough to be recognised as alien with their own species but still be close enough so that romance scenes we have seen in ME2 and ME3 are not invalidated by how alien they are.
And yes I am a huge Talimancer. The only reason I did a playthrough with Ashley that one time was because I wanted to see how it goes. Every other maleshep was with Tali. But I am doing a Miranda one this time.
And that is why she was given a model for her face. Unfortunately, in this game the human face and hair options (lack of body sliders) are lacking in many attractive qualities i'm sure the male/female ME fans wishes they could have. But I am having a hard time believing "looked better than humans" means alien.
Honestly, when I hear this it usually means a human with no flaws, and skin outside the human color spectrum, but identical facial proportions/and or hair to a human, T&A like a human, etc. That's not alien, it's sci-fi smut akin to star trek/guardians of the galaxy spacebabes tailor made to arouse a human because it is a human in a costume or skin paint.
I guess given how animalistic the alien dudes have looked up until now the gay/bi gents and bi/straight ladies should get a dude alien that looks "better than humans" as well - bigger muscles, bigger balls and d*cks (see that image in the "get rid of cleavage thread" and think of a d*ck bigger than that...i know ), excessive c*m, flawless faces and hair, scantily clad, and way smarter/stronger than any male human even the protagonist because they'd be alien and that's what an attractive alien more attractive than a human means. Their female counterparts, however, should be ugly, fat, and awkward because alien sexual dimorphism ... ya know it's science.
BW already fanserviced the male fans with the asari and consequently (more profoundly i'd argue) the lesbian fanbase as well. Perhaps, this more-attractive-than-humans alien should be strictly male for once.
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that doesn't actually get discussed so much.
Maybe a thick, bristly mustache to pollinate when their human lips touch the fruits their ancestors ate. You can't do it ramming your head horizontally through the bushes. Maximum success on the lower reaches.
on any species, particularly humans. 
