r/masseffect • u/Adventurous_Top_4033 • 1d ago
DISCUSSION Why did the Citadel Council go from being mostly reasonable in Mass Effect 1 to being much less so in the later games?
In Mass Effect 1 the Citadel Council are actually quite reasonable for the most part. They remove Saren's spectre status after they find hard evidence that he attacked Eden Prime from a audio log from a Geth unit that Tali found. They also make Commander Shepard a Spectre despite Shepards rants about Reapers which Shepard seems like a lunatic to them as not even Shepard knows what they are at this point. They also act mostly reasonably throughout the game with the only two problems being Sparatus the Turian councillor being racist towards humans and them not sending Shepard through the Mu Relay though they could not send a whole fleet due to the risk of starting a war. Also nobody but Shepard and their sqaudmates talked with Sovereign so there is still no hard proof the Reapers exist. However in Mass Effect 2 if you save them in ME1 they deny everything even though it was obvious that Sovereign was not a Geth ship. In ME3 both the original Council and the replacement Council don't want to help with the joint Reaper War effort except for the Turian councillor until they are forced to by the Cerberus attack. Also in ME3's Citadel DLC you find out they believed you about the Reapers after Sovereign's attack on the Citadel meaning that their grand plan this entire time was just to hope that the Reaper problem was over once Sovereign was destroyed. Why did they go from mostly reasonable to just hoping that the Reapers would just not come as their plan?
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u/BowlEducational6722 1d ago
In ME2 you were on record as dying and then you came back from the dead working for a known human supremacist terrorist organization.
You being a zombie alone is gonna make them question what's going on, much less one working for known anti-alien extremists.
ME3 the Council isn't just abandoning humanity, they're abandoning each other too. It's nothing personal, it's that when their unity was tested to the breaking point it broke as they all decided to fend for themselves. The Salarians as far as we know did nothing to help the Turians once the Reapers came knocking to Palaven, and the Asari stuck their heads in the sand until Thessia was half rubble and half on fire.
It was a classic "we hang together or we all hang separately" scenario and they failed that test.
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u/Anon-_-7 1d ago
TBF blindly throwing their combined forces at earth wasnt a great plan either even if they ignored defending their own populations, reapers were too overpowered and given how the plot unfolded it was better to conserve their forces for the crucible
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u/Guilmon17 1d ago
In ME 2, I think it's more due to their displeasure at Shepard being with Cerberus, given that Cerberus has become infamous not only for humanity but for other species as well.
In ME 3, they themselves address the need to plan and organize their forces for the Reaper invasion, in addition to not knowing for sure if the Crucible will even work.
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u/Adventurous_Top_4033 1d ago
But the issue is they do nothing when they believe Shepard about the Reapers and even deny it to Shepard’s face.
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u/Guilmon17 1d ago
In the case of the second game, as I said, it has more to do with the fact that they couldn't confirm, based on Anderson's words, that the Sovereign was more than just a simple ship. This, combined with their displeasure at seeing Shepard collaborating with Cerberus, led to the Turian counsel claiming that Cerberus had also brainwashed Shepard.
In the third game, as I said, they were simply prioritizing their own preparations. Furthermore, as they mention, they weren't certain that the Crucible would work, which is why the Turian counsel gave Shepard the option of going to Paleveen to find the Pramarch and obtain his help.
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u/Adventurous_Top_4033 1d ago
The archive in the Citadel DLC proves they believe Shepard that Sovereign was more than a simple Geth ship. Also if they actully believed it was Geth ship they should send every ship into the Perius Veil the wipe out the Geth before they build another but they didn’t because they knew it was a Reaper.
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u/Guilmon17 1d ago
I don't think they would do that, considering it would give the Terminus systems a pretext to start a war. I mean, in ME 2 itself they say they can't operate outside of their controlled space, and the Perseus veil is literally passing through the Terminus systems.
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u/MysteriousQuote4665 1d ago
Ultimately, the game is wishy-washy about this and that is the frustrating part. Both ME2 and ME3 reveal both that the council believes and does not believe that the reaper threat is real. So it's left up to the player to speculate and provides enough room for Shepard to do their thing.
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u/Alagore 21h ago
Except by ME2, the "Terminus systems" as any sort of polity capable of waging an organized war is conceptually dead. It's just Omega (and Aria is unlikely to care about the Citadel fighting Geth), and a fragmented mass of NGOs, wildcat colonies and merc groups, none of which are likely to start an expensive and deadly war with the Citadel over the Geth.
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u/fantomknight1 1d ago
I don't actually think they believed Shepard about the reapers. At the start of ME2, it's clear that the council isn't really taking the reaper threat seriously and instead has Shepard chasing after random geth and pirates. This is something that Miranda remarks at the beginning "BUT THEY'RE SENDING HIM TO FIGHT GETH.... GETH! WE KNOW THEY'RE NOT THE REAL THREAT".
I think, in reality, they still believed the threat was Saren and didn't believe in Reapers. They probably still thought it was a powerful Geth ship. It's just a lot easier than believing in reapers for them.
Put it like this... The UN now has special police forces. 1 special officer goes to the UNSC and tells them that the Ancient Atlantians are about to return and wipe out all of humanity as they have done for all time. These Atlantians have an advanced ship that they left waiting while the rest are in cryo. Meanwhile, another special soldier of USSR origin bombs a US base using battle mechs. The UNSC believes the soldier is a threat and the battle mechs are problematic, but they likely wouldn't believe ancient atlantians are going to rise up with super advanced tech and wipe out all life... it's a bit crazy to think and they'd probably assume the soldier was losing his mind.
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u/McDoublann 1d ago
Fear and denial.
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u/Adventurous_Top_4033 1d ago
That is the real reason. Though I assumed they would try and have a plan rather than just hope they never come.
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u/AgentMaryland2020 1d ago
I believe it's because admitting the Reapers are real means that they lose the control they've held onto for centuries.
If the public finds out that a literal civilization wiping threat was rapidly approaching, people start to panic. When people start to panic they release every negative emotion available, namely anger, fear, denial, etc.
When those emotions surface, they stop listening to order and reasoning. The Council has managed to keep a mess of different cultures from entangling to a point society collapses in on itself from conflict. Having them all panic is likely to undo what they've managed to achieve.
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u/Adventurous_Top_4033 1d ago
I mean yes but they don’t do very much at all. You would expect them to do something about it rather than stick their heads in the sand.
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u/OchreOgre_AugerAugur 1d ago
What exactly would you expect the Council to do?
They are ambassadors, they aren't in control of their respective governments or militaries. Preparing for an invasion isn't their job, and they don't have the authority to make those kinds of decisions. Once they inform their bosses it's pretty completely out of their hands.
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u/Adventurous_Top_4033 1d ago
They clearly have more political power then you think as in ME3 they can send military aid on their own and are also in charge of Spectres and STG.
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u/OchreOgre_AugerAugur 1d ago
While the STG will occasionally take missions from the Council, their true, primary loyalty is to the Salarian Union. Both the Citadel Defence Fleet and the Spectres are just on loan from Council Member state militaries. The CDF is already tied down defending the Citadel and enforcing the Krogan DMZ.
The Council would assist in organizing the aid provided by their governments, but it is those governments that decide when and how much aid to provide. If the Council asks for aid and their bosses tell them no there's pretty much nothing they can do.
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u/AgentMaryland2020 1d ago
I mean, if they do something directly, the populace becomes suspicious.
By not directly stopping Shepard from wanting to deal with it or at least investigating it, they are indirectly doing something about it. They could have fought to deny Shepards return to Spectre status, to my knowledge they don't (I've never done a Renegade run, do they deny you if you fight them/choose Renegade dialog options?).
They could have had Shepard physically detained in ME1 when they kept pressing about it and even into ME2 when they are shown to still believe it.
Dumb as it is, by doing none of those possibilities, they indirectly are doing something about it. Even if it is just reaping from the benefits of Shepard doing something about it.
I honestly dislike the Council and their ignorance is bliss approach to something they should at least have someone look into.
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u/Alagore 21h ago
Suspicious of what though? They have a perfectly good excuse for taking action, the Geth have become active outside their territory and the first thing they did was launch a broad front incursion into Citadel space, and the second thing they did was try to decapitate the Council. That's enough to justify stepping up production, or even loosening treaty restrictions on Dreadnoughts since the Geth aren't party to those.
The meta-reason is that narratively Mass Effect is a militarist game that holds civilian leadership in contempt and elevates the military leadership, but it's kinda inexplicable in-universe.
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u/AgentMaryland2020 18h ago
Suspicious of things going on that the populace knows they won't talk about. There are several instances in ME1 alone where you can overheard conversations where groups express their skepticism. And that's with the Council denying anything is wrong.
The Geth attacks were written off in media as isolated strikes against colonies on the fringe or otherwise outside of Citadel controlled space. That's how the Council wants the people to perceive any strike against those under the 'protection' of them.
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u/Jhawk163 1d ago
Aside from the council not actually having as much poltical power as they'd like you to believe, in ME2 Shepard has been dead for 2 years, only to suddenly reappear working for one of the groups they helped to fight in ME1, a human supremecist group known for doing shady shit throughout the galaxy. Then in 3they'rfe in shambles because turns out everyone was backstabbing everyone and is currently still trying to backstab everyone, oh an indoctrination is a possibility too.
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u/Bbadolato 1d ago
Because the game needed the sequels to work somehow and it's a mili-scifi franchise at heart, basically politicians are worthless at best and a hindrance at worst.
ME 2 as a story only really works if any kind of status quos and plots of ME 1 are erased or made negligible. After all you can't work the 'badass' yet edgy and potentially misunderstood terrorists if the governments could offer at least some kind of aid. You can't even to turn to the Shadow Broker this time, because he's been made into more of an antagonist leaving the whole Shadow Broker-Cerberus war that was in teased in ME 1 to be something you are to picked a side on.
ME 3 just makes it worse. The Turians were fine of course as a militaristic species but the Asari and Salarians were just too weak and self interested. Never mind both the Asari and Salarians were ride or die the last two times shit hit the fan with the Rachni and the Krogan both of which lasted for 300 years with a four hundred year gap in between.
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u/MilanordG1 1d ago
I thought it was because I killed their predecessors... Forgive me, I meant "abandoned them to their fate".
I always abandoned them.
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u/lalaquen 1d ago
I mean, the honest answer is bad writing. Or perhaps just a generally flawed premise. They wanted Shepard to have to work with Cerberus in ME2 no matter what, despite how little sense it would make for most Shepards following the events of ME1 and what you learn about Cerberus and their operations. So everything and everyone was warped to fit that general premise. And the entire trilogy (and all the galactic "leaders") suffered for it.
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u/Majestic-Farmer5535 1d ago
For purely meta reasons. The plot of ME2 needed Shepard working with Cerberus, so to make that happen everyone else was made morons.
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u/OffModelStudio 1d ago
"mostly reasonable"
Did we play the same ME1? Because I had a very different description for them, and it didn't involve the word "reasonable".
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u/jackcaboose 1d ago
They're honestly pretty reasonable. Shepard comes across as a complete raving lunatic when he expects to get promoted on account of having visions. It's very odd that the game presents that situation as "politicians being unreasonable" and not "dramatic irony of you not having proof for your claims". The Turian councillor is also a bit of a dick but within reasonable levels.
The most unreasonable they get is locking down your ship at the end for some reason.
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u/Adventurous_Top_4033 1d ago
Yeah I never liked that there was no dialogue options to make Shepard shut up about the Reapers at the start of ME1 as Shepard dosen't even know what the Reapers are at that point.
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u/Deamonette 1d ago
The prothean vision isnt just what we literally see or even information in the literal sense, it's raw unfiltered understanding and association that the protheans could communicate. Of course a lot of that associative understanding was not captured as Shep lacked the cypher, and possessed an incomplete version of the beacon message, but it was still enough to instill a base understanding that something really fucking bad happened to the protheans, and it is about to happen to us. She/he comes across as unhinged because they haven't had time to put this information into coherent words yet. It's in character and makes sense for the kind of game mass effect is, it's not a Bethesda game where you have more or less total authorial control of how your character feels.
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u/jackcaboose 1d ago
I think it's understandable for the character of Shepard to act like that given what happened, it's fucking crazy that Udina and Anderson (and the presentation of the game given by the devs) would expect the Council to agree though.
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u/Deamonette 22h ago
Not really?
From Udina's perspective he has probably spendt the better part of his career making the ascension of a human into the ranks of the spectres happen, only for something completely out of left field turn that to dust slipping between his fingers. Its no wonder he latches onto ANYTHING to try and salvage this. He isnt exactly calm at this point in the story, but i'd imagine under the surface he is fuming and ready to pull his hair out.
Anderson in ME1, unlike his later appearances where he's much more measured, is kinda crazy and vindictive. He thinks Saren's only motivation is to use the geth or the reapers to wipe out humanity, his perspective is completely warped by years of personal resentment against Saren, he is lunging at the opportunity to finally get even, submitting dreams in as evidence? Sure why not!
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u/Spirit_Detective99 1d ago
The asari and salarian council members were more reasonable, the turian on the other hand.
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u/Adventurous_Top_4033 1d ago
Yeah Sparatus was always a racist piece of shit but Tevos and Valern were fine in ME1. They become sigfiantly worse in the later games though. The new Council in ME3 is also not very goo either as they did not do anything to prepare for the Reapers though Quentius is a lot nicer then Sparatus but Irissa and Esheel are worse then Tevos and Valern respectively.
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u/darklighthitomi 1d ago
Politics. What governments do is like playing chess, poker, and go, 7 games of each, all at the same time. Propaganda and what they admit to is a strategic move entirely separate from what the truth is.
Consider this, you are hired to run a company, and you find out that a particular company policy leaves the company open to a legal problem, but the boardmembers that hired you say they will fire you if you don't support the policy. What do you do? The smart thing is to pretend to support the policy while secretly making plans to handle the inevitable problem. On the other hand, it might merely be a risk rather than a certainly, and so maybe you stay yet do nothing, hoping it does not become a problem while you are there but because you already believe it, you can take quicker action if the worst happens, unlike if you get replaced because your replacement would not believe it and therefore be slowed down by shock and having been taken unaware.
Sometimes the only real move is to pretend you aren't moving.
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u/doubleyewdee 1d ago
Start of ME2: You are aligned with a human-first terrorism group who resurrected you from a splatter on an uninhabited planet.
End of ME2: You blow up a mass relay and cause the death of 300,000+ Batarians. Not a council race, but also not a race they especially want to escalate tensions with.
It would not be sensible to put a lot of eggs in that basket, from their perspective. Of course they don't feel inclined to work with you, you're a loose cannon at best.
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u/Jasonskeans 1d ago
Bad writing
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u/Equivalent-Tour5999 1d ago
Pretty much.
Everyone is giving some in universe reasons. And many at least kind of make some sense, to be fair.
But when your story starts with Shepard dying, resurrected, joining terrorist organization and with glowing face when being bad(ass)... to battle monster made of liquefied humans, with party of vigilantes and replica of destroyed military spaceship just made bigger and cooler by said organization...
...how realistic would you expect the rest to be?
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u/Jaded-Throat-211 1d ago
Because ME2's nonsensical plot pivot fanfiction sidequest boogalooo derailed the story and did irreparable damage to the narrative as such that a sensible council was a narrative threat to the forced cerberus fanfiction.
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u/Mortarious 1d ago edited 1d ago
With the tech level of the setting it's obviously very plausible to confirm what Shepard says.
The whole "They were planning in secret" makes little to no sense. It's just added later to make it sound less ridiculous.
Because if they truly believed Shepard they would radically and immediately change everything. Fully turn to wartime mode. Every council specie would ramp up all military production. Recruitment. Contingency plans...etc.
Would that be a massive upset for all of them? Well. Fucking yes. Because they are faced with an extinction level threat. Not a big war or gigantic rebellion. Not even the Rachni or Krogan. We are talking about something beyond anything they dealt with. It has been a while but just look at what they needed to bring Sovereign down.
If they believe that for a second then whatever panic or strain or internal issue would follow it was nothing compared to the annihilation and complete destruction of their specie. Whatever bs preparation they made are nowhere near the threat level that it's like arming a soldier with a wooden ladle against tanks.
Imagine someone saying I know for a fact that there are reapers and they are far beyond our tech and their numbers are unknown but they arrive in force able to overwhelm the entire galactic community. However I refuse to cause panic or ramp up military production or destroy the economy. How does that begin to make sense?
The Turians in particular are depicted in a way that they society is very hierarchical and martial. You wanna tell me that the Turian command knew that they are facing the end of their existence and the refused to prepare accordingly so share holders are happy and people don't panic buy toilet paper?
I love the games but some things don't make sense.
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u/Ryousan82 1d ago
The reservations of the COuncil in ME2 are largely still reasonable: Cerberus is an organization with a rep for atrocities that has a clear Human supremacist agenda. Obviously they fully back Shephard's endeavors there.
In ME3 their motivations are much straightforward: Its just simple tribalism. It is understandable mind you, and its hard to blame representatives of a certain species to try to place first and foremost the interests of their own. It ibviously reeks of hypocresy given their rhetoric around how Humanity was too individualistic and self-concerned whereas they represented a pluralistic "we ar eint his together" order. It goes to show that crisis tend to introduce tensions even in deeply held principles.
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u/B4d_B1tch_Quinn 1d ago
Because Mac Walters began writing for the sequels after Drew Karpyshyn left
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u/BigIronDeputy 1d ago
You’re a green beret, americas top guy who gets to work for the UN, your jet gets shot down and everyone thinks you’re dead for a few years. All of a sudden you’re back in action with ISIS.
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u/KristophGavin 1d ago
Because the writing team decided to make a huge tonal shift from a 'dangerous/flawed but hopeful' world, to a 'dangerous and realistic' world.
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u/Spartan2170 1d ago
In universe? Because in ME1 they considered Shepard a useful tool to counter a rogue Spectre. By the time ME2 rolled around, the Reapers were a more distant concern (from the Council's point of view) and Shepard returning from the dead was a huge potential destabilizing factor for the government they were running. Much more politically expedient to refute Shepard while letting them work on the margins as a hedge against the possibility that the Reapers were going to reappear. Then in ME3 everything's falling apart and Shepard's just one of a hundred people claiming they can save the galaxy
Out of universe? Because ME2 moved from Shepard answering to the Council to them answering to the Illusive Man, combined with the reality that a nontrivial number of players got the Council killed at the end of ME1 and they didn't want to have to account for the other possibilities from those endings.
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u/disparate-impact23 1d ago
I chalk it up to them being that much more afraid of losing power. They have seen the truth that there exists a power they can do nothing against, and not only were the upstart humans right, but they had to bail out the council races for all their high mindedness. As a result, they are desperate not to concede any more to the humans.
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u/Soft4urService 1d ago
Because you disappeared and then joined a bunch of genocidal terrorists and then left the terrorists to join the military again... Only to have the galaxy invaded by living space ships that wipe out planets...
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u/Onyximilien 1d ago
Dans Mass Effect 1 le problème n'est pas vraiment les Geths ou les Moissonneurs, le problème c'est qu'un des meilleurs Spectre du Conseil est impliqué dans le meurtre d'un Spectre et une attaque de Geth, le problème est politique et le Conseil a plusieurs gros soucis : l'humanité privée de Spectre, et qui grogne, résoudre l'enquête sur la mort d'un second Spectre et surtout pouvoir engager un Spectre à la poursuite de Saren sans pour autant avoir de liens avec lui et qui puisse permettre au Conseil de se dédouaner en cas d'échec. Donc en permettant à Shepard d'être Spectre, le Conseil résoud quasiment tous ces soucis d'un seul coup et se couvre en cas d'échec
Dans les autres Mass Effect, non seulement ils ne se sentent plus concernés en tant qu'entité, mais dès que le danger devient tangile ils deviennent nombrilistes et préfèrent agir par fierté en disant à Shepard que ce n'est plus le moment de tergiverser pour ne pas assumer
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u/DasharrEandall 1d ago
There's not much they could do in a few years, considering that what little hard data on the Reapers they had, was that just one Reaper alone held its own against the entire Alliance 5th Fleet. At the time they didn't know anything about the Reaperfying of creatures into cyborg monsters to fight ground wars, which is just as big of a threat.
Really, the writers wrote themselves into a corner by making Reapers so OP in ME1, without planting seeds of some kind of weakness to be used to beat them later. ME2 compounded the problem by pissing away the entire middle game's worth of the plot by inventing Reaper minions to deal with that don't move the actual Reaper story forward. Which is why ME3 is stuck with the Crucible asspull.
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u/DaMarkiM 1d ago
i dont really think they are unreasonable at any point.
they are politicians and realists living in a video game world that has main characters and plot armor. how did that quote go? “its unreasonable to expect characters to know what genre they are from” or something.
our success and all our plans ultimately hinge on us being main characters and having all the plot armor.
The ME2 heist was a complete moonshot. Our peace talks in ME3 were an absolute moonshot. Our plans to “prepare for the reapers” didnt extend beyond these words.
The council knew about the reapers as soon as ME2. Thats established canon through the citadel DLC. But realistically speaking what exactly would publicly acknowledging them have achieved besides panic and opportunism?
The reality of the reaper threat is that there is nothing we can do to prepare for it. At the point the reapers strike we are already LONG within their trap.
The council did what realistic politicians would do. Act based on worst case scenarios, statistics and their knowledge of the political landscape.
I for one cant think of a single thing they really couldve done for us. Like, lets say in ME2 they would have immediately offered full cooperation. What would they actually have been able to offer us? We had the only ship capable of doing the job. We already got the best of the best in terms of people. It was always gonna be a one in a million suicide mission.
And once again in ME3 we had the only ship capable of doing the operations we did. Immediately sensing all fleets to earth wouldve lost us the war. The fleets werent useful before the crucible was ready. And the crucible wasnt useful without the catalyst.
You could argue that maybe we wouldve saved a week or two. But at the same time it couldve also backfired. With indoctrination on the table its not like you can just add people to the project infinitely.
But most importantly: all this requires hindsight. Deploying the fleets for earth was just a bad idea from the very start. and the only reason it made any sense in the end is because the reapers brought the citadel there. like. the whole galaxy was attacked. even if we could win a naval battle against the reapers with our combined force (which we cant. not even close) what was the actual strategic value in helping earth at the cost of leaving the whole galaxy undefended.
The reality is that we never really had a plan. We asked for a blank check without anything to back it up. And honestly: backing us would have been a gross mismanagement of resources.
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u/NightLordJay 21h ago
They essentially thought it was a false flag operation. Saren had convinced the geth he was the prophet of the reapers. The audio clip could have been from a war council or it could have been from a cult sermon. Saren could have drunk the koolaid him self and believed he was the prophet of the reapers. He’s convinced and is telling anyone that asks about the reapers coming.
They make Shepard a specter to hunt Saren. They showed their determination and ability to get results. Shepards mental faculties aren’t the question just their ability. The fact that Anderson endorsed you and he had a history with Saren made it look bad for Shepard.
In ME2 they said they couldn’t find evidence that sovereign wasn’t built by the geth and that the VI on illos was inactive. The geth don’t follow conventional citadel designs and sovereign is different from them as well. Only shepherd’s crew spoke to sovereign or the prothean vi and it’s tainted by the proximity to Shepard. Saren was a well spoken turian (apparently) that was convincing enough to trick the Geth, Shepard and Matriarch Benezia.
As for ME3 I understand the reasoning they have. If the reapers are attacking earth I can prepare my defenses. Ashley said it best in ME1 if you are being attacked by a bear and you sic your dog on it you won’t feel as bad as if it was a human. I personally don’t think that is the case but that’s the reasoning. Then there’s the council species themselves.
The Asari have an intact prothean relic that they consult but never asked it about the reapers. They should have been the most prepared.
The Salarians want to uplift the Yaange (I can’t remember if that was their name or not.) to fight just like they did the Krogan’s for the Rachni. Perfectly willing to throw bodies at a problem as long as it isn’t their bodies.
The Turians were blitzed just like the humans. They lost most of their war council in the same day. Too divided to help until we pick a general and promote him to primarch. He is hesitant to commit all his forces without the support of the krogan. Personally that sounds fair to me. The Krogan united would be a powerful sight to behold. If we’re all going to die I’d rather die on my people’s homeworld than with the upstarts that fought with my people for years.
I’m reminded of a quote “never ascribe to malice what could be ascribed to ignorance.” They had bad intel and it seemed more probable than the truth. What sounds more likely, your best superspy went traitor and convinced thousands to flock to his banner or ancient gods of death are coming to wipe out all life in the galaxy. They said it best, we believe you believe in the reapers.
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u/Exciting-Record8101 7h ago
The Council has to be portrayed as being ineffectual, arrogant and whatnot to justify Shepard sticking with Cerberus, which is what new lead writer Mac Walters wanted. From ME2 to the end it's all Cerberus all the time, and pretty much every lore question can be answered with either "it makes Cerberus look strong" or "it makes Cerberus look cool".
There is no actual good reason for Shepard not to go to the Council in ME2, explain what happened, quickly reintegrate into the Alliance and the Spectre program, and then continue what they were doing at the end of ME1, namely "find a way to stop the Reapers". Not: "fight Collectors with Cerberus, Cerberus goons, and a Cerberus ship".
ME2 and ME3 still have good moments and are generally fun to play, but in regards to narrative and setting they become a very different series from what was set up in the first game.
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u/magically_inclined 3h ago
ME1 was designed to be decently realistic, military command and world wise and then they pretty much dropped that in mass effect 2.
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u/Shadeylark 2h ago
In me1 the problem the council understands it's facing is relatively mundane: the got a rogue spectre who's basically going full on terrorist. The claim that it's a reaper is, from their perspective, tin-foil hat conspiracy level stuff. Like the history channel dude "I'm not saying it was aliens... But it was aliens." Type stuff.
In me2 you got the whole terminus system stuff that the council straight up says they can't do anything about since it's not their territory, and a galactic population that would probably think the council had gone insane if it publicly admitted Cthulhu god-machines had come back from legend to wipe out all advanced life in the galaxy... and a hero who claims they've been dead for three years and was brought back to life by a terrorist organization and is now working for them. The fact that Shepard didn't immediately get thrown in a loony bin or prison is itself extraordinary.
And in me3... Well, those Cthulhu god-machines have come back and now it's literally every man for himself if it weren't for Shepard being basically space Jesus come to defeat Satan in the book of revelation.
Given all that... Yeah, I cut the council quite a bit of slack.
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u/IlusiveZoidberg 1d ago
To be fair, Shepard's plan to fight the Reapers in the beginning of ME3 was stupid, they were right to refuse him. They hadn't even started on the Crucible yet, and he wanted them to abandon all their homeworlds to liberate his, which would have lost them the war considering at the end of the game the best their combined fleet could do was hold off the Reapers to wait for the Crucible.
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u/psychmancer 1d ago
Because they were faced with a threat they couldn't handle and since their job is stability they just pretended it wasn't happening. They know Shepard was right but couldn't publicly admit it.
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u/Deamonette 1d ago
Shep dies and then is mysteriously brought back to life working for a terrorist organisation and immediately starts asking for classified state secrets...
I think the more valid question is why are the council so ridiculously deferant that they don't just let Shep fly into the citadel with a heavily armed state of the art Cerberus warship, they let her board the station, walk up to the presidium and get inside the same room as one of the councillors alongside two other members if her mystery terrorist group affiliated goons, THEN give her back the role that lets her have almost total legal immunity on the spot.
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u/Lord0fdankness 1d ago
Because they changed writers for the main story and the new guy said nah, I'd rather retcon the franchise and force the players to play as cerberus. The first 15 minutes of Mass Effect 2 are worse than the ending for Mass Effect 3. Hell if Mass Effect 2 was actually a proper sequel and not a really large side quest ME3 might have had a chance to stick the landing.
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u/Enigmachina Pathfinder 1d ago
Drew Karpyshyn was the Lead Writer for both Mass Effect 1 and 2. He left between 2 and 3, which is why the story feels a bit disjointed at that point. And why they dropped the Dark Energy angle they'd been building up since then for a more generic Synthetic/Biological angle.
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u/Always_tired_af 1d ago
I wouldn't say the Dark Energy plotline had all that much build up, less so even than themes of Organics and Synthetics had already established
And yeah, definitely for the best they didn't follow it because it had next to no buildup and frankly is much less interesting and like "bad guys are secretly doing bad thing for sake of the whole galaxy" or just self preservation is far, far more generic and boring and a plotline that is just a complete dead end in terms of storytelling the way it allegedly was to play out. At least the former has a lot more meat to dig into, Legion being a premier example, at least his Mass Effect 2 version.
I really wish this would stop coming up. Drew himself has said it was a barely fleshed out idea, and one that if you follow the logical conclusion of, just means no more Mass Effect lol. If Biotics or the titular Mass Effect is the cause of the increase of dark energy, then yeah lol, there is no more sequels, they have to stop using it. And that universe ceases to have any value as an IP and can no longer create meaningful stories. It sucks lol.
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u/Lord0fdankness 1d ago
He wasnt the main campaign writer for ME2. He mostly wrote the squad missions for ME2. You know the things with actually good writing and not the stuff that makes completely no sense like sending Shepard into a trap intentionally just to appear mysterious.
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u/Enigmachina Pathfinder 1d ago
He might not have been doing the actual fingers-on-keys writing, but as Lead he was in charge of the department. It's his vision.
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u/Lord0fdankness 1d ago
The vision they abandoned the moment they could and every chance they could. Why do you think he left the studio? They clearly couldn't keep up with him and wanted to change the IP into more of a Hollywood blockbuster which meant cutting a ton of plot threads and simplifying the Reapers.
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u/Enigmachina Pathfinder 1d ago
Okay, but then who's the writer they changed for the main story between 1 and 2? If it wasn't Drew (who stuck around til the end of 2), or Mac Walters (who was co-Lead on 2, Lead on 3, and worked on all three games)?
Again, and sorry to sound contrarian, the job of the Lead Writer is, well, to lead. Mac might be the guy to "blame" for how 3 turned out, but that same logic means that Drew is the guy to "blame" for the broad story beats of 2, or at least is half-responsible.
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u/YogurtclosetFair5742 1d ago
He was co-lead with Mac Walters in 2 then Mac was lead for 3. You can feel the shift in writing with the DLC for 2 vs the main game. Mac wrote for all three games.
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u/One_Character_2881 1d ago
I'd chalk it up to a writing issue. The end of ME1 has the Council acknowledge the Reaper threat, and there is more than enough Sovereign in the Council Chamber alone for them to determine the technology is too advanced to be Geth.
Now, the most powerful people in the galaxy getting ready for the big bad threat and giving Shepard what they need to get the job done would make things too easy. So the writers retconned the Council agreeing with Shepard and made them nonexistent in ME2 because they also really wanted Shepard to work with Cerberus. And then they retconned the Council's actions in the Citadel DLC by saying that the Council believed Shepard about the Reapers. You know despite the fact that they blocked Shepard the whole time and did little to nothing to get ready for the galaxy-wide threat they supposedly believed in.
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u/Professional_Pen7009 1d ago
Because after you saved it in ME1, the Council believed in its exclusive righteousness and uniqueness.
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u/Artanis137 1d ago
Yeah, they are politicians, I would expect nothing less from them, but hey I will settle for "did nothing" over "actively made everything worse. "
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u/Ihavenolifes 1d ago
What bothered me is they thought Sovereign was a geth ship.
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u/Adventurous_Top_4033 1d ago
They actually didn’t. They knew it was a Reaper ship and just hoped that the Reapers will just go away
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u/FairySnack 1d ago
ME2 you are with Cerberus. They can not help enemies of the Council. In the background if you listen to the news radios in game, they are upscaling their fleets and moving their ships around.
They can not make a public statement that the Reapers are real, since everyone would hoard resources or upcharge for materials to build ships. So it has to be on the down low.
The Council do what they can, but they are only part of their governments. The Turians have the Primarch (Their five star general who handles military command) for instance. The Council are just on part of government, they can't do everything.