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Hey, she told me it was worth it! Twice!

Also, if you complete the romance with her in ME3, she says it's okay to do it whenever you want now because she's adapted to your body or something. I was like.... okay, not complaining. XD


It's not like I pushed him off a cliff! I didn't understand the mechanics of the "Hold the Line" challenge, and he's always the first on the "Kill" list through that entire mission.

Plus... we all now know he would have died in 3 anyway.


Oddly enough, so did I.

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Jedi Master Tir-Jin Meteos, The Order of 66
PC GAMER - T.J. Hafer

It's interesting breasts were brought up as just fan service.

This is a bit of a meta argument but hey. Would people males in particular feel as strongly about Liara and Tali romance stories if they were flat chested ? Sure you can claim how anatomically unlikely it might be for aliens to have boobs but getting someone to invest into a story is about making them empathise, Its very hard to empathise with what is truely alien.

Replace Liara's graphics with a giant near formless slug your not going to get the same emotional investment even if the dialog and story is the same or even better. We're simple creatures us humans and we find it easier to get invested in alien stories where the aliens aren't that alien.

So no I don't think its fan service to slap a nice pair on some female characters I think its a story choice to increase the chances of getting people invested in the characters especially getting people to buy into romantic arcs.

there's a difference between just watching a romance scene and actually buying into the moment.

She developed an immunity to you after only two exposures? That seems...far fetched.


It's not like I pushed him off a cliff! I didn't understand the mechanics of the "Hold the Line" challenge, and he's always the first on the "Kill" list through that entire mission.

Plus... we all now know he would have died in 3 anyway.[/quote]
Yeah, but he goes out like a boss in ME3. Although, if not for the fact that it was Mordin advocating curing the genophage, I probably never would have gone through with it. Curing the krogan is a terrible idea.

That scene is such a gut punch. Mordin is one of my favourite characters. Not just in 'Mass Effect' but in, y'know, fiction. After watching his death, I had to put down the controller for a while and go for a walk.

Then I had to watch it again, because one of the dialogue options I selected at Eve's funeral resulted in Shepard claiming that "Mordin would be looking down on them," which is pretty similar to something Ashley said about her father in ME1, and I got to give her an incredulous look for believing such nonsense.

I'll probably write a post ranting about the excessive amount of religion in ME3 sometime soon.


They look like giant guinea pigs stole Tony Stark's designs!



I romanced Jack, and prior to her apparent...augmentation in ME3 she wasn't exactly busty. Also I'm the one complaining about freaky aliens running around with human breasts.


That's probably true for a large portion.

Though Garrus is popular enough that I imagine he'd come out on top if you were to hold a large poll to learn everyone's favourite 'Mass Effect' companion through all three installments, and turians are one of the most alien species in the game. It's his personality that people relate to. And apparently the developers were pretty shocked after ME1 to learn that a large segment of their female fanbase wanted him as romancable character in ME2.

The same is true of Tali, though with the wide hips and obvious breasts, it's easier to see how people could look past the fact that she's a three fingered space monster with chicken legs.

Were you able to better empathise with EDI after she got turned into a ridiculous fembot?


If creating an entire species of sexually available aliens that all look like attractive human females is not fan service, I don't know what is.

And yeah, all the ass shots of Miranada in ME2 were pretty ridiculous -- and I think the camera spent just as much time on her backside in ME3, even though she was in the game far less -- but it started with the Consort back in ME1.

Also, why was it only alien species we see female representatives of in ME1 were all, more or less, attractive. It's not 'til ME3, that we get to see female krogan and salarians. I'm kind of glad we haven't seen any lady drell, because I fear they too would be sporting breasts.

Finally, that raises the question as to whether or not it's necessary for human Shepard to be Captain Kirking his way across the galaxy. Does knowing that there are alien species that you can rub up against in a mutually pleasurable fashion at all enhance the story of 'Mass Effect'?

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Kyle Reads Alpha Flight - A distinctly Canadian look at comics' premiere team of Canadian superheroes. Also: swearing and dick jokes.

Well there's one thing I have to say on that. You are never forced to go down the romance paths you are simply given offers and you can always decline them. And its for that very reason that it adds to the story because your shepherd can truly be the celibate pious character that shuns sexual advances. If you weren't given the choice then it would take something away from people who choose to not go down that path just as much as those that do.

As far as the likelyhood of boobs on aliens quite simple they are no more of less likely than 2 arms 2 legs and a head

And that everyone has the necessary articulators to communicate in English. So, yeah, I'm with Vlade on this one.

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Jedi Master Tir-Jin Meteos, The Order of 66
PC GAMER - T.J. Hafer

That would still be the case if all the romance options were human.


...

I really hope that smilie is supposed to indicate that you're not actually serrious with that statement.

However! Considering that the function of evolution is optimize species for interacting with their enviroment as a whole, carrying forward beneficial changes through to subsequent generations and eliminating those which are detrimental to survival, the four limbs and a head model appears to be an at least somewhat successful model. Granted, if we were too look at the evolutionary tree of life, it's only a small segment of all organisms on the planet which have developed in such a manner.

Though, if we consider the sorts of traits necessary for a species to propagate to the point where they might develop the means of space exploration -- self awareness, pattern recognition, tool usage, higher communication -- it's not hard to imagine how the four limbs and a head model might be beneficial. I'm not going to claim it's the only possible configuration of life that will ascend to the stars, but there are some undeniable advantages.

However, within that four limbs and a head model which appears in a significant portion of the animal kingdom, only mammalia have developed mammery glands. And only species belonging to the genus homo have developed what we might colloquially refer to as boobs.

So, in summation, unless you can provide me with evidence that there were tits on the tyrannosaurus, don't try to tell me that chances are just as good that a being will develop breast as they will two arms, two legs and a head.

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Kyle Reads Alpha Flight - A distinctly Canadian look at comics' premiere team of Canadian superheroes. Also: swearing and dick jokes.

The codex states that they use universal translators. The hanar don't vocalize at all; their translators interpret the patterns of light they emit.

Which kind of raises the question as to why the quarians not only have accents, but have such a range. When the only representative was Tali, I assumed it was a representation of the fact that the quarian language software isn't updated as frequently as it should be -- one of the novels goes into how the batarians translators are falling behind since they left the Citadel species -- but it the introduction of other quarians, and other quarian accents is annoyingly inconsistant for two reasons.

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Kyle Reads Alpha Flight - A distinctly Canadian look at comics' premiere team of Canadian superheroes. Also: swearing and dick jokes.

Not so, having only human romance options means that Shepherd can't make the choice to be a racist bastard and shun all alien affection or alternatively embrace it.

I normally don't address individual points in a post but you've peaked my interest to do so in this case




Nope quite serious actually


Yeah ... kinda.... but its not as ordered as that, the DNA/RNA core we derive from will continuously throw out every combination possible old and new and keep throwing them out. Oddly enough the ones that "stick" can be both critical to survival and also completely irrelevant to survival.


Your assuming mechanical technology is the only path to space travel. Given the right planet e.g. low Grav a biological lifeform could eventually become suborbital and then orbital and then space faring with nothing more than base instinct. The may develop those higher function traits later but by no means are they essential.


What came first ? Boobs or higher brain function ? Boobs did. It a mistake to consider breasts are cosmetic they in many ways are the key to our evolution to self awareness. And no I'm not kidding.
What do breasts do ? They allow a mother to feed her young.
Why is that important ? because human young cannot survive alone when they are born.
Why can our young not survive alone when they are born ? Because they are born premature.
Why are they born premature ? because otherwise the head would be too big to squeeze out
Why are the heads too big to squeeze out ? Oh yeah our brains got big

What does years of child rearing do ? creates very strong bonds between parents and children
What does strong bonds create ? large family groups who want to stick together
What do large family groups lead to ? an environment where mental abilities can give you a true tangible advantage over others in the group thus creating an advantage for larger and more complex brains.

So in truth breasts played a key role in allowing us to develop larger brains, so I stand by my statement that breasts are just as likely as 2 arms to 2 legs and a head on an intelligent creature.


And what would tits on a Tyranno prove/disprove ? considering that it had a brain the size of a nut was an egg layer and died out more than 65 million years ago before achieving self awareness.

Consider this instead. Next to us which species are considered the 2nd and 3rd smartest ? Answer ? Apes and Dolphins. And what do both of these animals have in common ? BOOBS

Sexual attraction isn't really a determining factor in xenophobia.

There's a minor subquest in ME1 on the Citadel involving a hanar preaching illegally. You can display Shepard's ignorance / xenophobia by refering to it as a "big, stupid jellyfish." The other option isn't tentacle porn, because Shepard doesn't need to sex up everything in the galaxy to prove that he doesn't have a problem with aliens.

Now, I have no doubt that in the world of 'Mass Effect', there are humans that are sexually attracted to krogan, or turians, or volus, because in reality there are real life examples of humans who are sexually attracted to dolphins, vehicles, or statues. However, as those people are outliers of human behaviour, I don't think they should be considered examples of how to best foster positive relations with the galaxy at large.


Assuming for the moment that a being could evolve so that it could survive for a time in the vacuum of space -- which does seem plausible -- actually getting there is the real problem.

Your proposal of an extremely low gravity world doesn't work; such a planet wouldn't be able to sustain an atmosphere necessary for life to begin.


There are plenty of animals that nurse their young which haven't developed larger brains, and plenty of animals that form communal groups despite the fact that they don't nurse at all.

Nursing is merely any efficient means of providing nutrition to young. Communal groups are formed for survival. Our brains produce dopamine, oxytocin and some other feel good chemicals as rewards for engaging in behaviours that foster community, but we're not unique in that respect.

Unless you think that penguins like hanging out with each other for the scintillating conversation, and nearly kill themselves to incubate their eggs out of the goodness of their hearts.


Self awareness is an entirely different debate.

My point is that there are plenty of animals that walked in an upright fashion, have a head and four limbs, yet did not or do not have "boobs."


Apes and dolphins both have mammery glands, sure. Do they both have boobs?

One of these gorrilas is male, the other is female. It's actually not difficult to see which is which, though it has nothing to do with their bust line.


And I'm not sure what sort of cartoons you're looking at, but I don't believe that most people would refer to the mammery slits on either side of the female dolphin's vaginal slit as boobs.

My argument isn't that asari or quarians shouldn't nurse their young. My complaint is that giving them body types which were fairly obviously designed to be attractive to heterosexual males is blatant fan service.

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Kyle Reads Alpha Flight - A distinctly Canadian look at comics' premiere team of Canadian superheroes. Also: swearing and dick jokes.

going to forgo the quotes for this one, tis making my brain hurt
Interesting theoretical discussion by the way

1. Sexual attraction and Xenophobia
I'm a little torn on this one as you are correct that sexual attraction or lack is not the same as a xenophobic response and yet not having the option to embrace a species that your character Sheperd goes out of his/her way to save seems wrong to me. If you care enough to save them isn't it possible you could care more for an individual from the same species.

Put it this way if we encountered a vaugely humanoid species that shared at least some of our concepts, given a few hundred years of interaction the chances of mixed relationships would be almost certain. we humans are a curious bunch of weridos



2. Low grav world
low grav can still hold atmosphere's close to the surface , it would be a thinner atmosphere but dosen't preclude liquid water as a place for life to begin. In fact thin atmosphere worlds that are tectonically active could have incredibly high mountains that reach to sub orbital heights due to low erosion and gravity drag on material. Such huge moutains allow slow evolution up the sides in thinner and thinner atmospheres.

Of course low grav could have a thick heavier element atmosphere since the low grav would allow larger molecules to be vapourised in the atmosphere. Not carbon based life mind you but still the potential for adequate liquid and gasesous layers on a planet.



3. Nursing
"There are plenty of animals that nurse their young which haven't developed larger brains....YET"
Yes communal groups improve survival that's probably why they multiple animals developed down that path.
By the byproduct of that community is the increased probability of interaction within ones own species. So communication starts to become a useful thing to first have and then be good at. I'd venture any animal that is communal and is of a sufficient size to accommodate a human sized brain would be top on the list of next to evolve sentient thought. (assuming us humans left the planet completely to give them a chance in 50'000 years)

A beautiful example of this is that a human who grows up without any human interaction will have a less developed brain than a human who grows up around other humans, its the interaction that made us smart and continues to make us smart. and interaction only occurs in sufficient quantity in communities.

Consider that Crocodiles have had a hell of alot longer to evolve than we have, thier heads are sufficiently large to accommodate a human sized brain and yet not getting smarter than they were millions of years ago. they are solo predators with minimal interaction within their species.


4. Tyranno example
My point is that upright with 4 limbs is not enough to evolve sentient thought, it by itself dose not provide a drive to promote a benefit for larger and more complex brain.


5. What makes a boob a boob ?
Interesting you put up that picture of the female gorilla as there are plenty of adult women who have breasts no bigger than that. And we all know Man Boobs exist although we probably wish we didn't .

Why are human boobs more pronounced ? perhaps its a byproduct of female hormone production which gave them higher fertility rates. Perhaps visually larger breasts made a female more likely to gain and keep a mate resulting in more offspring and better survival chances. Who's to say in 50'000years ape boobs won't be the same.

If you believe the 2 arms 2 legs 1 head is a "good" desgin that could be found replaying itself in other species evolution then why not the placement and size of breasts ? with Nursing species having a higher chance of intellect and the assumed tendancy to carry offspring in arms where else would you put the boobs ?

So again I say the likelihood of breasts on an alien is just as likely as having 2legs 2arms and a head. Consider if a 2 legged 2 armed 1 headed alien didn't have boobs on the chest where would it instead have them for nursing young ? if it has none how would it nurse at all ?