95 réponses à ce sujet

[Sylvan_Moon]

 

Some peoples logic:

A whole bunch of non-human sentinent species that look humanoid, have human like emotions (with expressive facial features like eyes to boot) and act entirely human? Well that makes perfect sense I guess.

But them being attracted to humans? Whao, that's were it crosses the line into being unrealistic.

I mean, seriously? 

I never played Femshep in ME2. I've heard bad things about Jacob. And good things about Thane and Garrus.

 

Why does it seem unrealistic that non-human species can be attracted to humans? The second post above practically proves that even if you're human (like Jacob), you can still be downright boring (which was the primary reason Jacob was unpopular as an LI). His personality was simply uninteresting for most players to consider him an LI. So, even though he was human, he's not that attractive to us. I think it's the same for aliens. They may not help being attracted to a human (in this case, Shepard) simply because of what he or she's like as a person. That confidence and dedication is bound to attract anybody, human or not.

[congokong]

I've only romanced Liara so I never had to really consider the more controversial love interests like Garrus the dinosaur, Tali living in a metaphorical bubble, or Thane the Creature from the Black Lagoon. With Asari they at least give an explanation of how their mating works.

[DaemionMoadrin]

No sciene fiction or fantasy ever stands up to in-depth analysis, which is why you usually need suspension of disbelief to enjoy it. The question here isn't "how does this work?" but "Is the given explanation good enough?".

 

Few of the alien sexualities we heard about would be possible.

 

Salarians don't have a sex drive, instead they broker deals about procreation. A species tends to need a sex drive and generally doesn't develop an economy first, so if Salarians were real, they'd be extinct.

 

Asari mate through connecting their nervous system to that of their partner. Which makes no sense at all since the nervous system has absolutely nothing to do with procreation. From what I understand, Asari basically use their partner as a random number generator to change the DNA of their offspring. The child has no biological connection to the partner.

Even better: According to lore, pure Asari (both parents Asari) tend to become Ardat-Yakshi with the risk increasing every generation. Which kind of puts a damper on any relationship if she kills every partner. Even if she managed to get pregnant through that act, her daughters would be Ardat-Yakshi, too. After a while there wouldn't be any other Asari alive. How did the species manage to survive until they made it into space and got to seduce some aliens? They lived on Thessia for thousands of years and could only mate with other Asari. How is that species not extinct yet?

 

Turians are basically humans, except biologically. Same behaviour, same sex drive... if only they weren't space bugs. At least as a species they'd do well.

 

Krogan were explained well in ME, except they left out that they are cannibals. But that has nothing to do with sexuality, so ...

 

Elcor sex is something I will not consider even as a thought exercise, there is not enough brain bleach.

 

Same for Volus, really.

 

Let's not even mention the Hanar.

 

Which brings us to the Drell... who are lizard people. And aside from their memory tick and terminal illness they seem very human. Shave your head and get some body paint and you could almost pass as a Drell. Attraction towards humans make a little sense.

 

The Quarians are supposed to be beautiful, even the Protheans commented on that. Thanks to the Getty stock photo of "Tali" we know that except for their hands and feet Quarians look similiar to humans. Which would explain a certain amount of attraction between the species... if humans ever got to see Quarians outside their suits. Totally incompatible biology though.

It does explain why Tali is hetero though... male Shep is close enough to a male Quarian to be attractive to her, while female Shep is not.

[bunch1]

No sciene fiction or fantasy ever stands up to in-depth analysis, which is why you usually need suspension of disbelief to enjoy it. The question here isn't "how does this work?" but "Is the given explanation good enough?".

 

Few of the alien sexualities we heard about would be possible.

 

Salarians don't have a sex drive, instead they broker deals about procreation. A species tends to need a sex drive and generally doesn't develop an economy first, so if Salarians were real, they'd be extinct.

 

Asari mate through connecting their nervous system to that of their partner. Which makes no sense at all since the nervous system has absolutely nothing to do with procreation. From what I understand, Asari basically use their partner as a random number generator to change the DNA of their offspring. The child has no biological connection to the partner.

Even better: According to lore, pure Asari (both parents Asari) tend to become Ardat-Yakshi with the risk increasing every generation. Which kind of puts a damper on any relationship if she kills every partner. Even if she managed to get pregnant through that act, her daughters would be Ardat-Yakshi, too. After a while there wouldn't be any other Asari alive. How did the species manage to survive until they made it into space and got to seduce some aliens? They lived on Thessia for thousands of years and could only mate with other Asari. How is that species not extinct yet?

 

Turians are basically humans, except biologically. Same behaviour, same sex drive... if only they weren't space bugs. At least as a species they'd do well.

 

Krogan were explained well in ME, except they left out that they are cannibals. But that has nothing to do with sexuality, so ...

 

Elcor sex is something I will not consider even as a thought exercise, there is not enough brain bleach.

 

Same for Volus, really.

 

Let's not even mention the Hanar.

 

Which brings us to the Drell... who are lizard people. And aside from their memory tick and terminal illness they seem very human. Shave your head and get some body paint and you could almost pass as a Drell. Attraction towards humans make a little sense.

 

The Quarians are supposed to be beautiful, even the Protheans commented on that. Thanks to the Getty stock photo of "Tali" we know that except for their hands and feet Quarians look similiar to humans. Which would explain a certain amount of attraction between the species... if humans ever got to see Quarians outside their suits. Totally incompatible biology though.

It does explain why Tali is hetero though... male Shep is close enough to a male Quarian to be attractive to her, while female Shep is not.

Salarians don't make money for nothing, the sole point to them making that money is to get a mating contract.  Is that really so different then human males making money to get nice things to attract women?  No, they just take all the romance out of it.  But that dosen't mean that Salarians have no desire for sex, on the contrary they make it so that prostitution is how they breed.

 

Asari reproduce via self-cloneing.  The fact that they can choose to have a child whenever they want means they do have some control over their own celler growth so the fact that they connect through their nervous system or some vulcan mind meld isn't about the phisical conection but simply seeing what their dna looks like and then change a few of their own strands to match.  I doubt it's done on concious level but without outside influnce they would have started to decay from celler breakdown by now.  And not all pure bloods are Adart Yakshi, but all Adart Yakshi are pure blood and in the past when the Asari were limited to 1 world they were more common and worshiped even and still are on remote asari worlds which likly have fewer aliens.  On a side note there was nothing stoping the ancient asari from bonding with any of Thessia's wildlife for genetic diviersity.

 

Elchor sex is much like an elephants I would assume.  How that works I have no idea but I'm sure it's slow and carfull.

 

The funny thing about the Volus is we don't know what they look like except that their short.  Their large suit are inflated to help keep them pressureised since their homeworld has much greater pressure at the surface then most worlds.  For all we know those little fat aliens are actually quite skinny and attractive.

 

And when you get down to the interspcies attraction then you have to accept that ratinol thought isn't always going to be their for everyone.  If I asked you who would you rather have sex with, an Asari or a dog which would you choose?  How about a sheep or Drell?  Horse or Turian?  Because there are plenty of human through history that have had sex with dogs, sheep, horses, and all manner of other animals and to assume that other races wouldn't have their own diveants is giving them to much credit.

[von uber]

Mmmm.. scaly..

 

[Jukaga]

I'm not sure I call it a mistake. I usually have the same reaction  as James regarding the Femshep and Garrus sex scenes: "I don't really wanna know" but of all romances I've seen, Garrus/Femshep seems like match made in heaven. Particulary if you are going with a renegade femshep.

But otherwise I agree. The asari had a well built lore excuse but then suddenly every alien was sexually compatible with humans. 

 

Hopefully the next ME has some younger human roguish type for 'Renegade' femNotsheps. A younger Zaeed type would be ideal. When your choices are beween a preachy goody two shoes who tells you to f-off for the 2nd game, a bug-eyed fish lipped lizardman, a metallic bipedal dinosaur, a two-timing 3rd game no show, and a casual fling with a airhead yeoman is it any wonder that I go with Liara or Traynor with every femshep?

 

That said I completely support non-sexual LI's. A Garrus-Femshep one built on mutual respect, admiration, deep friendship and platonic love could have been truly great, as the seeds are there in 2 and 3.

[aoibhealfae]

Unfortunately, I always see Thane as a married man who is faithful to his wife, Irikah and he was a terminally ill man so I never had the heart to make my Shep fall in love with him. But sure, he's really gorgeous. He's like Mass Effect version of Fenris. Oh Fenris....

[78stonewobble]

I definitely like more ME because of the romances.

I think if ME would become more like a romance simulator then the risks are that there would be also negative sides of the relationships available such as cheating and I'm not really interested in that. Although female Shepard has suffered from that already. I was lucky that I didn't romance Jacob and I could predict what would happen with Thane so when he died it wasn't that horrible.
 

I'm not sure did you mean with a third party or alone but nevertheless those are ways how they can handle the situation. Anyway I would still prefer that they could work things out so that they can have a good physical relationship with each other. I don't see it as some kind of a weird thing with an alien but more like a way to show your love to your partner. I haven't really think about how they could actually make it work but I'm happy if there is a way to do that. I don't have to know all the details. It's ok to me that my Shepard knows the details

 

Yeah, I agree. With pretty much all of that. 

 

I meant, via a third party or alone... Just thinking of examples here of people taking care of ie. very ill spouses for years and besides that not everyone is monogamous. 

[Abelas Forever!]

Yeah, I agree. With pretty much all of that. 

 

I meant, via a third party or alone... Just thinking of examples here of people taking care of ie. very ill spouses for years and besides that not everyone is monogamous. 

Yes. I agree. I think those people in those relationships (ill spouse etc) can only answer is it all worth it but I believe that there are people who think it is. Those relationships aren't any less than any other relationships.

[KaiserShep]

Asari mate through connecting their nervous system to that of their partner. Which makes no sense at all since the nervous system has absolutely nothing to do with procreation. From what I understand, Asari basically use their partner as a random number generator to change the DNA of their offspring. The child has no biological connection to the partner.

 

I like to think of the nervous system thing as tele-dirty talk. With Ardat-Yakshi, a neurological snu-snu-grade donkey punch.

[xtorma]

Jayne is the man.

[Abelas Forever!]

I honestly felt that Thane's marriage was failing prior to Irikah's death because Thane was a workaholic, and not because the family was hard up for money either. Initially maybe! But since he was the top assassin in the galaxy I assume he did not come cheap, and after so many years and being away from home so much I assumed that, unless Thane or Irikah were really greedy and needed to live in the poshest of settings, the reason he worked so hard was to maintain his reputation as the best of the best; considering I always saw Thane as mildly arrogant and prideful about his work this is not too far of a stretch for him to do.

 

I also thought that Thane's marriage was over before Irikah died. However I never thought that he worked so much because he wanted to maintain his reputation. He just did it because it was his job. Maybe he realized too late that he should have taken care of his marriage more. Anyway I believe that if Irikah wouldn't have died they would have divorced if Drell do that kind of thing.

[paramitch]

This is an interesting topic because I think it shows the divide between the rational/scientific and the emotional. 

 

I normally tend to be an analytical and scientific person, but the funniest thing happened to me when playing ME1. I played a Femshep who was annoyed at Liara and her "instant connection!" and who had a hopeless and unrequited crush on Joker. But I also surprised myself by getting a little crush on Garrus, too. His VA is just wonderful, and I loved the character.

 

Then I played ME2, and suddenly a romance with Garrus was possible -- and my Shep would've probably gone there, but she'd already fallen flat for the gorgeous Drell. Yes, Thane is a Creature from the Black Lagoon. But a drop-dead gorgeous and sexy one. I had no trouble believing there would be a physical attraction there between the two of them, and my Femshep was all in.

 

Meanwhile, as the game went on, I still found Garrus adorable as well, and while my Femshep didn't quite ever fall for Liara (although LotSB did make me finally warm up to her), she had a total girlcrush on Aria. And -- funny thing -- Nyrene, too. When we first met Nyrene, I thought she was much more stark and alien-looking than Garrus, but by the end of the Omega DLC, I thought she was elegant and weirdly beautiful. I saw what Aria had seen in her.

(Or on a similar note, look at the Charr and his "Blue Rose" -- in ME2, it was played for laughs, but somehow in ME3, that final message of his to her was just so sweet, and her reaction so genuinely sad, that it really got to me.)

 

So I think the fun of ME, for me, is that we're presented with a universe in which sentience and maturity are all that's required for love between even the most different of beings (especially in a universe in constant danger of ending violently). A Hanar is a sex symbol and action hero! (It still makes me laugh...)

 

But it's not a bad message, and one thing the ME universe does well is that it reminds us of how inconsequential human homosexuality or bisexuality is, for instance -- especially when compared to the crazy human/alien potential pairings in the ME universe. The game also reminded me of how much of attractiveness can come down to unexpected things like eyes or voices (I love both Thane's and Garrus's voices and think their VAs are outstanding).

 

 

I honestly felt that Thane's marriage was failing prior to Irikah's death because Thane was a workaholic, and not because the family was hard up for money either. Initially maybe! But since he was the top assassin in the galaxy I assume he did not come cheap, and after so many years and being away from home so much I assumed that, unless Thane or Irikah were really greedy and needed to live in the poshest of settings, the reason he worked so hard was to maintain his reputation as the best of the best; considering I always saw Thane as mildly arrogant and prideful about his work this is not too far of a stretch for him to do.

 

 

My impression of Thane's marriage (at least for my Femshep) is that he fell in love with Irikah, but that it was doomed from the very beginning. They met as antagonists and while he was drawn to her fierceness and goodness, and she eventually accepted and loved him, to me the implication was that she wanted to change him. I always rationalize that he was away so much because he knew that to stay home was to hasten the end of a marriage that had already died, so he just immersed himself in his work, losing his way bit by bit, and stayed away until it was too late and she was actually murdered because of him (adding even more guilt to the equation), and he had lost the chance to raise and know his own son.

 

What I liked about Thane's story was that it was complex and messy in a way that felt real to me. He had aspects of nobility and kindness (I always love how courtly Thane's speech is), but he was also a guy who was not only an assassin (however he rationalized that), he had abandoned his wife and child and felt tremendous guilt over that. He avenged himself brutally on those who killed his wife but it also seemed to me that he was seeking an absolution he would never get.

 

I like the way Thane is presented as trying to make amends for his mistakes -- it's a classic and fascinating character approach -- and I do think that his unexpected romance with Femshep is both cruel and kind, as he has discovered the love of his life only at the end of his.
 

[aka.700]

I didn't even know I could date Garrus until the option came out in front of me in ME2. I didn't date him at first. Then I tried but decided that I liked him more as my faithful friend and brother. I only date Kaidan. The second option can only be Garrus though I don't think of it much.
Sure they can be attracted to humans; I don't see a problem there though I'm not, in that way.

[Goodmongo]

So what is the maximum number of partners you can have in the trilogy as a male/female Shepard?

 

I think a female Shepard can go with:

 

ME1 - Liara

ME2 - Pre Shadow Broker go with Thane and then add in Liara once again with Shadow Broker DLC.  This might even allow both at the same time.

ME3 - Samantha or maybe Kaidan and then James/Jarvik with the DLC?  NOt sure if you can pull this off or not.

 

And isn't it possible to have Thane in ME3 and another LI after he dies?

[TygerHeart]

In ME 1, I tended to stick with Liara. Kaiden seemed like a bit of a doofus, and Ashley was a bit hostile. (Though I did lead her on a few times for the interaction between her and Liara.)

 

In 2, Garrus seemed like taking advantage of a student. Jacob not much better, and Thane just creeped me out. Miranda and Jack were different ends of psycho. Tali seems to grow a bit more organically, but the sex scene just seems to go against everything else they say about Quarian suit integrity throughout the game. (Until I consider that the Quarians might exaggerate it.) Since Liara gives you the brush off for most of ME2, and in ME1 was open to Shepard being in another relationship, it's hard to hold on to her. (Though I usually did in carry throughs to ME3.) Kelly... isn't so much a relationship as a 'lets take a tumble'.

[Broganisity]

Meanwhile, I'm the strange knight on the neighborhood who only has one question:

"When our forefather's forefathers first crept forth from the sea. . .what position did they first do it in?" No seriously, I want to know this. There's this part of me that needs to know this before I have any real interest in partaking in the activity. . .I'm a strange man and all my attempts at intimate relationships have failed since I can't get an answer to this question and it leads me to sabotage said relationships.

---------------------

I'm getting sidetracked, the point is that, amongst animals that reproduce sexually, I've learned that I think its safe to say that its not exactly just 'stick thing here and move for X amount of time, then finish when Y happens'. We stick our things in places they technically aren't supposed to go, not to mention take other things and then stick them in places they don't belong in. Then there's the whole concept of reproductive incompatibility with one or multiple partners of the same sex.

. . .then you apply all of this to species who we all assume reproduce the same way:

- Asari, Turians, Drell, and Quarians all give birth to live young. I presume Batarians, elcor, and humans (hue hue) do as well.
- Krogan reproduce sexually, but also lay eggs.
- Salarians don't have a sex drive in comparison to humans. and lay large clutches of eggs at a time that are fertilized eternally.
- No idea in regards to Hanar and Yahg. I assume the later breeds sexually, whether they lay eggs or not I do not know.

Of these races, only one is confirmed not to reproduce in that way. . .not sure why one would then express interest in having things stuck into things that they do not belong in. . ."If wanted to try human, would try you." Up the cloaca, Mordin? *shudders*

As to the logistics of attraction. . .? Not always a purely physical matter. Temperament and personality are also things people seek in a partner, after all.

[Goodmongo]

Sex does not have to be reproduction.  The 'sex' in the series is more 'romance' or a love interest.  But if you want to get kinky then a male Shepard can have sex with anything that has a hole and a female Shepard can have sex with anything that has an apendage or tongue I guess.

 

So why not a female Shepard and a Salarian?  I hear they used to lick their eyes!