I've taken issue with the absurd human dominance in this series for a long time.
It severely ruins the integrity of the setting imo.
I've always just interpreted all the naming as a translation thing. If you were to look at a Turian or Asari galaxy map (and could read their language) all the systems and planets would have names derived from their own cultures.
Maybe the Humans built/paid for most of it?
Yes, by all means, let's have the weakest, poorest and least developed Council race foot the bill for the other 11 races as well. Mass Effect's humanity is already the biggest mary sue race in all of sci-fi, so let's just open the floodgates and make them more powerful and able than the Q.
Well... I mean Andromeda... so...
I mean really, still missing the naked female/male chained the space rock, they gotta find a way to get that in at some point.
Might as well call the protagonist Perseus Ryder.
Yes, by all means, let's have the weakest, poorest and least developed Council race foot the bill for the other 11 races as well. Mass Effect's humanity is already the biggest mary sue race in all of sci-fi, so let's just open the floodgates and make them more powerful and able than the Q.
Yes, by all means, let's have the weakest, poorest and least developed Council race foot the bill for the other 11 races as well. Mass Effect's humanity is already the biggest mary sue race in all of sci-fi, so let's just open the floodgates and make them more powerful and able than the Q.
Eh, I think humanity in the Halo setting still has them beat, just barely though.
Eh, I think humanity in the Halo setting still has them beat, just barely though.
Hyperion?
Ooh, can Ryder get her own Loader Bot?
Probably a Claptrap instead. The only other unit that managed to escape Jack's wrath. 
Are there other races besides humanity in the Halo setting though? Races that aren't an enemy?
The Elites are supposed to be friends now, but then again MC sure has killed a lot of them over the course of the last few games.
I consider the Halo humans to be more of a Mary Sue than the Mass Effect ones because they can literally wipe out an entire regiment of Covenant with just four soldiers (Halo 5 opening cutscene), or even entire armies (if you count the novels). Plus the fact that all of the advanced tech left by the elder races only works for humanity; all the other aliens have to brute force their way into making use of it.
It actually looks like it's called 'Hyperion 1', which suggests that all of the arks (however many there are) are named in the format 'Hyperion #'.
Well... I mean Andromeda... so...
I mean really, still missing the naked female/male chained the space rock, they gotta find a way to get that in at some point.
Might as well call the protagonist Perseus Ryder.
It'll probably be Odysseus Ryder.
It does look like this and I thought so at first too, but if you look carefully, it looks like what resembles a 1 is just a metallic outline of the ship hull, and the "Hyperion" is set back into the hull slightly. At least, that's the way it looks to me.
I keep going back and forth. Sometimes I look at and think it's just an optical effect, other times it's like, yeah, that's a 1.
If it is a 1 it could be more general referring to the Ark itself and not the name. Like the Asari vessel could be Athame 3.
The Elites are supposed to be friends now, but then again MC sure has killed a lot of them over the course of the last few games.
I consider the Halo humans to be more of a Mary Sue than the Mass Effect ones because they can literally wipe out an entire regiment of Covenant with just four soldiers (Halo 5 opening cutscene), or even entire armies (if you count the novels). Plus the fact that all of the advanced tech left by the elder races only works for humanity; all the other aliens have to brute force their way into making use of it.
Off topic: Giving how the war had ended about 6-7 years prior and 23 billion human's were killed it'd be unrealistic for animosity between the elites and humanity to simply go away overnight. Also Spartans-II's are augmented super soldiers trained from childhood in order to be the ultimate solider so the feats they pull of are justified.
On-topic: 3-4 ark ships is already contrived, having 12 would make the writing for the Lazarus project seem brilliant in comparison.
Eh, I think humanity in the Halo setting still has them beat, just barely though.
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In the Forerunner Saga, the Forerunners were at war with a very advanced human society. They beat the humans almost to extinction but then, the humans were fighting a two front war. One of them was the Flood.... and they conquered the Flood or at least pushed it back way out into the fringes.
Also Spartans-II's are augmented super soldiers trained from childhood in order to be the ultimate solider so the feats they pull of are justified.
Not really (IMO). Four soldiers should not be able to consistently win against 10,000 to 1 odds, especially against an alien society that has more advanced technology than they do (or at least on par equipment), and are an organized militarily in their own right. Plus with the Spartan III's and IV's any Joe Schmo can become a god-like 1 man army (case in point Sergeant Buck).
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In the Forerunner Saga, the Forerunners were at war with a very advanced human society. They beat the humans almost to extinction but then, the humans were fighting a two front war. One of them was the Flood.... and they conquered the Flood or at least pushed it back way out into the fringes.
All that is doing is pointing to how big Mary Sues the Halo humans are.
We were sailing between the stars long before any of the Covenant races even lifted their faces out of the dirt. "Ha Ha Primitives!" We were also so awesome that we were winning a war between us and species that makes the Reapers look like tinker toys in comparison, and the only reason we lost is that we were fighting a foe on two fronts. Even then, we survived the massive galaxy wide purge, protected by the very species we were just kicking the crap out of (because we're that awesome). A species that literally let itself go extinct while keeping us safe. And then, in the modern timeline, we not only beat back the combined species of the Covenant, but the Flood as well. Every facet of the Halo-verse is saturated with humanity being front and center.
At least with Mass Effect there are some aliens present that we don't immediately shoot in the face and we allow to tag along with us.
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At least with Mass Effect there are some aliens present that we don't immediately shoot in the face and we allow to tag along with us.
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Doesn't bother me either way. A good story is a good story.
But, you pointed out something I never bothered to analyze. In Mass Effect 1-3, humans are the underdogs. Same with Andromeda.
Your last 7 words is interesting. Are you agreeing that the ARKCON project is an Alliance Initiative? ... 'cause, if so, I would be inclined to believe the project name would be Asarian or Salarian. I can't see the Turians envisioning such a project, never mind doing it.
Not really (IMO). Four soldiers should not be able to consistently win against 10,000 to 1 odds, especially against an alien society that has more advanced technology than they do (or at least on par equipment), and are an organized militarily in their own right. Plus with the Spartan III's and IV's any Joe Schmo can become a god-like 1 man army (case in point Sergeant Buck).
The Spartan-II's were few in number and couldn't be ever where at once and most battle's were ultimately won in space to which humanity lost the vast majority of those naval engagements. Also humanity needed to out number the covenant three to one in order to have a chance of victory and even then victory isn't certain. Also the very few naval engagements humanity did win were phyrric at best since they can lose several dozens of ships to only a handful of covenant ships. I could go on but this should be for another discussion and I won't derail this topic any further.
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Doesn't bother me either way. A good story is a good story.
But, you pointed out something I never bothered to analyze. In Mass Effect 1-3, humans are the underdogs. Same with Andromeda.
Your last 7 words is interesting. Are you agreeing that the ARKCON project is an Alliance Initiative? ... 'cause, if so, I would be inclined to believe the project name would be Asarian or Salarian. I can't see the Turians envisioning such a project, never mind doing it.
Well, from what we've seen so far it looks like an entirely human project; which of course would be incredibly annoying.
Three ARKs over Earth, all the focus on human exploration, and our drive to push boundaries etc. So far we haven't seen anything to indicate that humanity is NOT the only ones working on the ARKCON initiative.
And humans have never been the underdogs in the ME setting (IMO). Oh sure, the narrative might try and say that we are, but the fact remains that humanity has accomplished in less than thirty years what it has taken the rest of the galaxy hundreds if not thousands of years to accomplish. Plus, we more than match each alien's 'specialty' be it in warfare, biotics, scientific advances, economics etc.
Not really (IMO). Four soldiers should not be able to consistently win against 10,000 to 1 odds, especially against an alien society that has more advanced technology than they do (or at least on par equipment), and are an organized militarily in their own right. Plus with the Spartan III's and IV's any Joe Schmo can become a god-like 1 man army (case in point Sergeant Buck).
All that is doing is pointing to how big Mary Sues the Halo humans are.
We were sailing between the stars long before any of the Covenant races even lifted their faces out of the dirt. "Ha Ha Primitives!" We were also so awesome that we were winning a war between us and species that makes the Reapers look like tinker toys in comparison, and the only reason we lost is that we were fighting a foe on two fronts. Even then, we survived the massive galaxy wide purge, protected by the very species we were just kicking the crap out of (because we're that awesome). A species that literally let itself go extinct while keeping us safe. And then, in the modern timeline, we not only beat back the combined species of the Covenant, but the Flood as well. Every facet of the Halo-verse is saturated with humanity being front and center.
At least with Mass Effect there are some aliens present that we don't immediately shoot in the face and we allow to tag along with us.
I'm 100% positive that some Forerunners are still living in a satellite galaxy, pretty sure that they are the descendants of the ones that fought the Precursors to "extinction" there - but I might be wrong about the exact details. I do love Halo, but the lore is not nearly as interesting to me as mass effects.
I also vaguely remember that it's not like the Forerunners were like "herpity derp, let's fire the Halo rings and kill ourselves". If I remember correctly, they never intended to be present during the firing but Mendicant Bias forced their hand, and it was either fire the Halo rings immediately or risk the Flood ending all life as they knew it.
The lore of Halo biggest problem is that you only get all of this information by digging through mountains of tie-in material. If you happen to just play a game like Halo 4, and then (rightfully) go "where are all these characters and references to events from?" you get the whole 'This was all explained in the books' BS.
The fact that practically all the additional lore is more: 'Humanity! F**k Yeah!' is just icing on the cake really. 
The lore of Halo biggest problem is that you only get all of this information by digging through mountains of tie-in material. If you happen to just play a game like Halo 4, and then (rightfully) go "where are all these characters and references to events from?" you get the whole 'This was all explained in the books' BS.
The fact that practically all the additional lore is more: 'Humanity! F**k Yeah!' is just icing on the cake really.
I agree. I don't think they absolutely intended it that way though. Halo started as a mindless FPS but over time grew to include a depth of lore that rivals an rpg like Mass Effect. So I'm sure they were probably like "great, how do we tie all this **** into a new game when Bungie explained basically nothing by the end of Halo 3". There's no real good answer to that.
Although, maybe Halo 4 should have included a "Forerunner codex" that you could read through at your leisure. That probably would have solved the problem.
Very true.
Bungie SUCKS at presenting their lore for their IPs in any clear or concise manner. Destiny anyone?
It does look like this and I thought so at first too, but if you look carefully, it looks like what resembles a 1 is just a metallic outline of the ship hull, and the "Hyperion" is set back into the hull slightly. At least, that's the way it looks to me.
Very true.
Bungie SUCKS at presenting their lore for their IPs in any clear or concise manner. Destiny anyone?
Well, I could say that same thing about Blizzard. It's just like they've said, "Hey, I hear you like our games? Here's a bunch'a poorly edited and poorly written novels for you to learn the lore!"
So, great, just because I like one game, I'm surrounded by crap?
Yep. I didn't even bother with Destiny because of that. Bungie proved time and again that they just don't really care that much about that sort of thing.
343 Industries get a lot of flak, but honestly I much prefer Halo in their hands.
Time will tell for me.
I still haven't forgiven them for going "Its in the books" to any story criticisms for Halo 4. And I am still livid with them for removing the franchise's staple feature of split screen multiplayer for Halo 5, as well as injecting infuriating micro-transactions into the competitive play. Plus 343 seems just as human-centric as Bungie was; all I want to see is another game like Halo 2, one that tells the alien's side of things, but that doesn't look like it will ever happen with them.
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