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Article at Vice, real world parallels to Mass Effect Universe


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#26
straykat

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I haven't found any linguistic or historical references to Roma. I think people simply connect the two in modern terms because of the whole generalized nomad thing and accompanying racism (which the Jews obviously experienced more of during the diaspora, as well), but there's actually not any real similarity apart from the nomadicism (and you could just as easily connect the same stereotypes to Bedouins, Dom, etc. as they are fairly universal attitudes toward peripatetic societies). A big difference is that Roma are not refugees, but nomads by choice, and have no cultural desire to return to India.  Historically, their place in the social strata is a bit different, too (though similarly disparaged). Roma tend to work in low skilled manual labor jobs, and are culturally and technologically archaic compared to the larger societies they inhabit (they still practice bride kidnapping, for instance, whereas the quarians are specifically noted to be less sexist than other ME societies on at least one occasion). The quarians are the opposite, noted for working in technical fields.

The Jewish historically were just as if not more advanced than the other cultures they worked in too, and took skilled professions that others in their societies couldn't or wouldn't  (Jews were disproportionately represented in financial services due to Christian/Muslim prohibitions against lending on interest among other things, Quarians tend to do AI programming and research which is heavily regulated and discouraged in Council space). 

I've also seen comparisons to Muslims, though that seems almost entirely based on comparing the female garb to a hijab (actually, according to ME1 art books the hood was supposed to look like religious iconography of the Virgin Mary) and the "pilgrimage", which in the quarian case is exogamous rather than endogamous, so bears little similarity. It's a bit more similar to the Mennonite/ Amish Rumspringa (similarly used as a rite of passage into adulthood, for instance). 

 

I think you're giving them a bit too much credit now. I don't think it's that detailed either. They're painting with a wide brush. Even Ash Sroka has mentioned gypsies.



#27
dorktainian

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i think it is easy to forget that real  life is not all sunshine and rainbows.  normally games don't bring you into a place where everything happening around you is catastropic and there really is no way out. ME3 accomplished that in spades and should be congratulated.  I dunno if i buy the religious comparisons tho.  Maybe Mass Effect is just a Sci Fi game set in a Sci Fi Universe in the future?  Read too much into things and you normally end up in an endless logic loop.


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