12 réponses à ce sujet

[Mister J]

I guess we're all aware that given the way biological evolution works it would be statistically impossible for two races like the humans and asari to evolve seperately and end up so similar to eachother. I guess the developers knew that too and just didn't care. I don't care about it either, I just accept it that Mass Effect is not on that level of realism. It's a thing that every Star Trek watcher has done for years...

 

But still I came up with this idea: the similarities between humans and asari could be explained if the asari were an alien genetic experiment. Some race (could be protheans, but preferably another one from an earlier cycle) took some human genetic material and mixed it with some other to create the asari. If they mixed it with their own DNA then I would imagine that race to be kinda squid-like, with the tentacle headcrest, blue skin and a thousand or more years lifespan. It could be a deliberate goverment science project, but I think it would be more exiting if it was just the work of a squid doctor Frankenstein.

 

As a result of this, I would say, the origins of the asari have always been a bit of a mystery. Asari scientists at some point discovered the workings of biological evolution in Thessia's animal and plantlife, but there was never an animal species that was as similar to asari as apes are to humans, and few reproduce in an asexual way. That led many asari to believe that while other lifeforms on Thessia have evolved, the asari themselves were created by their goddess.

 

Well that's the story that I would make up around it...

 

The discovery of humans caused a huge shock in the asari scientific world and the research of some biologists and archeologists eventually led to the remains of the squid race were they would discover the truth about their origins. This would cause fanatical asari creationists to pick up arms and start blowing things up, a situation that only not-Shepard can solve...

[Vazgen]

Javik implies that the Protheans meddled with asari evolution. It might even be possible that the Protheans planned to use the asari as some kind of genetic distiller to create perfect soldiers or something like that. Thessia has a lot of water so their aquatic origin is quite plausible. As for their human-like appearance, it is indeed very impropable. Just as every other race having two legs and three fingers. Few races don't fit that definition and they are not major (elcor, rachni, hanar). I remember reading a theory that the galaxy is a large lab where Reapers run tests on different species.

[Rusted Cage]

It's hard to say whether similar traits can evolve separately on different worlds, but I figured the writing team just went with the convergent evolution theory, which seems to make a lot of sense.

 

I like the theory but wouldn't it be the other way around, that to create humans asari dna was added? I thought asari evolved before us is all.

[Loufi]

Javik implies that the Protheans meddled with asari evolution. It might even be possible that the Protheans planned to use the asari as some kind of genetic distiller to create perfect soldiers or something like that. Thessia has a lot of water so their aquatic origin is quite plausible. As for their human-like appearance, it is indeed very impropable. Just as every other race having two legs and three fingers. Few races don't fit that definition and they are not major (elcor, rachni, hanar). I remember reading a theory that the galaxy is a large lab where Reapers run tests on different species.

Hmm... I don't know, bipedy offers some advantages from an evolutionary point of view, as fingers to manipulate the environment. I personally tend to think that this model (two legs, two arms and several fingers) has a high probability to be quite common. Differences in planets gravities may however have a big impact on the size of the various races, what Bioware covered with the voluses.

[Mister J]

@Rusted Cage: Well sure, convergent evolution I think can very well create a creature somewhat like us, with two legs, two hands, and all the senses located around the mouth so it can see and smell what it eats; many of those things evolved the way they are for a reason and the laws of nature are the same everywhere in the universe. That is why I think Salarians and Turians are very plausible alien designs, even though some people think they're too humanoid... But to have a facial structure that is identical to that of a woman and the exact body shape? That seems statistically impossible to me... (again, not that that bothers me, I'm just saying...)

 

Well I figured that asari would have been created from humans and not the other way round because on earth there's a fairly good amount of apeman fossils showing that mankind didn't come from a petri dish. As far as I know nothing was said about asari apewomen or whatever they would have evolved from... Also it seems more likely to me that the squid doctor Frankenstein would take a sexual reproducing species and make it monogendered than the other way round. Asari civilisation evolved earlier than humanity's but I don't think anything was said about the species themselves...

[Vazgen]

Hmm... I don't know, bipedy offers some advantages from an evolutionary point of view, as fingers to manipulate the environment. I personally tend to think that this model (two legs, two arms and several fingers) has a high probability to be quite common. Differences in planets gravities may however have a big impact on the size of the various races, what Bioware covered with the voluses.

Sure they do. But why only three or five fingers? That reminds me

Spoiler

Different atmosphere, different gravity, different planet landscape and geological history... There are a lot of factors to count for evolution and I don't think it's very likely that so many species will end up with such similar traits. 

[Alamar2078]

Does the codex, in-game experience, or some other 3rd party canon go into detail concerning the genetics on Thessia??  While I wouldn't be surprised at all that some genetic manipulation has gone on with the Asari I believe it would be interesting to see how different they are from other developed life forms on their home planet.

 

Assuming any tampering was done at all I wouldn't be surprised if MORE THAN ONE species tampered with Asari development.  Protheans are one choice obviously but I wouldn't necessarily be surprised that a nudge by the reapers or some other pre-Prothean race would be involved.

 

Because of my experience with "live action SciFi" and theories of convergent evolution I'm not worried by 2 legs, 2 arms, 5 fingers, and a "face" of some variety.  What seems odd is the Asari are attractive to virtually all sentient specie; their method of reproduction is somewhat unique for the sentient species and lends it self surprising well to the "attractive to any sentient"; and the whole embrace eternity thing is also surprisingly Proteean-like and fits so well with the other

 

As for combining DNA with humans I tend to doubt that was done.  If anything some race may have tweaked appearance but using human DNA likely wouldn't have been the first / best option.  Manipulating the existing DNA to get the results you want would be the more likely way to handle something like this.

[Mister J]

@ EntropicAngel: I said could be protheans, but preferably another race. If the latter was the case and they used their own DNA then I would imagine them as squidlike, since all the non-human traits of the asari would come from that other race, including the tentacles.

[StarcloudSWG]

Time scale. Evolution doesn't happen overnight. For Asari and humans to be genetically related, the genetic material would have had to have been shared about, oh, several million years ago. Maybe three million, maybe five million.

 

What Javik was talking about was, on that scale, a minor tweak to the existing capacity of the asari to use biotics, 'unlocking' their ability so that they didn't need amps to use biotics effectively. The Protheans did not give the asari biotics. The asari already had biotics from having evolved on a planet rich in eezo. In fact, I wouldn't be surprised if the Protheans were responsible for the Ardat-Yakshi syndrome because they miscalculated and made errors.

 

As an example of the asari already having biotics before Prothean meddling, I point out the Varren that Jack adopts, the one that shows up during the Citadel DLC. It was born and raised on Thessia, and it has a little ability to use biotics. I would also point out that human babies that were exposed to eezo in the womb also have a good chance of having usable biotics if they are lucky enough to avoid the health and development problems associated with eezo exposure. Given that, it's pretty ridiculous to believe that asari didn't have biotics during the millions of years of their evolution and only got them from the Protheans.

 

My point is, there IS such a concept as 'convergent evolution.' Asari look much like humans because asari had the same ecological niches over millions of years. They bear live young. They had a tribal phase. They are mammalian. They were endurance hunters. and on and on.

 

Plus, the one really sci-fi oriented writer was pushed off the team by a hostile work environment, which is why ME 3 reads so much more like Star Trek than the original Mass Effect did. So there's not enough exploration of how and where the asari are really alien. They look human. But that doesn't mean there aren't a thousand little differences that make them distinctly not-human.

 

For instance, it's very doubtful the asari have to suffer the linings of their wombs being flushed from their bodies every month. The ads on Illium talk about a syndrome called 'biotic itch' which seems to be a condition like tinnitus, just for biotics. etc. etc.

[Han Shot First]

Personally I'd rather Mass Effect avoid going the Star Trek route, and not have similarities between alien species explained as them having a common origin. I'm particularly against it if humanity is used as the template that some ancient aliens seeded the galaxy with. It just adds to the humanity is special trope, which we got too much of as it was in ME2 and ME3. It is better in my opinion to just have any similarities between humans and Asari be exampled as an example of convergent evolution. Having the Asari evolving in a similar enviroment on Thessia as our African ancestors, and as persistence hunters would require less suspension of disbelief in my opinion than an ancient alien race seeding the galaxy with life.

[in it for the lolz]

all this talk about messing with the Blueskins DNA got me thinking...

 

.... what happens when you have a Blueskin mate with a Chaos spawn!  

 

For those of you who dont know what a Caos spawn looks like here's a pic of one. Enjoy!

[SNascimento]

The Asari were the Protheans' playthings.