Commander Shepard is the customizable player character in the Mass Effect video game series. Players can choose Shepard's appearance traits like gender and skin tone, allowing for diverse representation. The games take place in the 22nd century after humans discover Prothean technology enabling interstellar travel. As Commander, players navigate galactic politics and shape diplomatic relations between species while pursuing romantic relationships. The games include themes of gender and racial diversity but also stereotypes. The Krogan were uplifted by the Salarians then subjected to sterilization by a genetic weapon when they became too numerous. Mass Effect explores issues of diversity, oppression, and what it means to be human in a science fiction setting.

1. WARNING SPOILERS: if you ever plan
on playing the Mass Effect Series read
another final project as this will likely
contain spoilers.

2. if you ever plan on playing the Mass Effect
Series read another final project as this will
likely contain spoilers.
Andy Wong
RRS 280
Final Project

3. Race
Gender Roles
Human Sexuality
Biotechnical subjugation
Connections to reality

4. 
Mass Effect is a science-fiction action game developed by Bioware, in which the player
creates his or her own character (male or female) and will be named Commander
Shepard, for storytelling and gender neutrality purposes. The player will be given many
options to choose from which can directly affect the lives of an entire species or your
dear comrades.

The story of Mass Effect game series takes place in the year 2183 CE, a few decades
after humans discover technology on Mars from an alien species capable of space travel
called the Protheans. This discovery dubbed The Mass Effect accelerated human
technology hundreds of years in a few mere decades allowing for “faster-than-light”
(FTL) travel. The humans also discovered the Mass Relays which is a network of
devices scattered across the galaxy which can allow starships to travel between relays
instantaneously, the travel time using FTL travel would take years or more. This
technology is also supposedly made by the Protheans.

5. 


Commander Shepard
As far as being the main character goes, the player is allowed to
customize how your character looks from a wide array of values such as
skin tones, gender, hair styles, jaw lines and more.
This allows for very equal portrayal for race and genders. Especially
when the astonishing statistic for video games being: 73% of playable
main characters male, 12%female and 15% non-human. This is a statistic
found in “Fair Play? Violence, Gender and Race in Video games” by
Christina Glaubke, Patti Miller, McCrae Parker, and Eileen Espejo

6. Race And Gender
•Heres
a picture of
creating their character
reflective of Barack
Obama
•This character creation
is done on the first
installment of the Mass
Effect series, thus having
more dated graphics and
technology people are
still able to have the free
range to create such a
character

7. Although players can customize their characters, by default the
protagonist Commander Shepard is Caucasian. This falls under the
statistic of 52% white male main characters and 78% white female
characters according to “Fair Play? Violence, Gender and Race in Video
games”

8. Customized Shephard



Some people enjoy the idea of creating a
character in the image of themselves , in
the image they want to be, or for fun (like
Obama Shephard) so having customized
characters tends to this audience.
This allows for type of unique play
through for everybody (including your
unique decisions) as they play through
Mass Effect in the embodiment of what
they created.
In my opinion this option is mainly used
to cater towards the audience of players
because many people like the idea of
customization very similarly in World Of
Warcraft.
Default Shephard



Some people are lazy so some people can
choose a default character, which
happens to be a white buzz cut stoic
male. But there is fair reason for this.
Bioware modeled the default male
Shepard in regards to the Dutch model,
Mark Vanderloo and the name, Shepard
comes from the first American (and
second in the world) to travel to space,
Alan Shepard.
As for the female Shepard (fem Shep), 6
different designs were voted for by
people to become the default Fem Shep,
which also happens to be Caucasian.

9. Commander Shepard and Mark Vanderloo
6 (fairly diverse) Fem Shep Designs

10. 

The main governing body is the Citadel Council, which
is a committee of singular representatives from each
species. Currently there are only three species in the
council and the humans aspire to become part of the
Citadel Council as their decisions directly affect the
galaxy.
The council maintains order with their own covert
intelligent agents called Spectres (Special Tactics and
Reconnaissance). They only answer to the Council, are
above all laws as they are deemed to do whatever they
think is necessary to maintain galactic peace.

11. Species: Turian, Asari, Salarian (from left to right)
•The all powerful governing body, The Citadel Council, is two thirds
female (the Salarian is female and the Asari race only has one
gender but retains female appearance as well as maternal instincts)

12. Race And Gender
Udina is a human ambassador to the
Council whom strives to also become a
member of the Citadel Council.
Anderson is a war hero and the first
candidate to become a human Spectre.
This is important because all Spectres
were all of the same species as the
Council.
Either Udina or Anderson will become a
member of the Council (depends on
players decisions)
Clearly race (at least within humanity)
does not seem to matter any more as we
see two colored characters that attain
positions of great importance and power.
A parallel in reality to this would be
Barack Obama reaching Presidency
Donnel Undina (left) and David Anderson (right)

13. Race and Diversity
Bioware does well in attempting to cover a diverse amount of
ethnicities, although some are a bit poorly represented. As far as
Asians go, I personally did not notice them unless they have
distinctly Asian names, for example Emily Wong (lower left
picture). And then there is the bland stereotypical martial
artist/ninja, Kai Leng who plays as a sort of an antagonist in the
third installment of Mass Effect (I feel no need to point out who that
is in the pictures).
Last but not least is the jarhead James Vega. I would also have a
hard time interpreting if it were not for the characters constant need
to call Commander Shepard Loco (or Lola for female Shepards).
At the same time there are these extremely stereotyped characters
like James Vega and Kai Leng, but at the same time they stand out
because they are stereotyped (unlike Emily Wong). And because
they are stereotyped, they become very one dimensional and bland
characters. So which is worst? Stereotyped and boring or just being
a wall flower.
In my opinion it is perfectly fair to have stereotyped characters
because stereotypes exists because I see it as statistics. Yes, from my
personal statistical view there are many Asians out there that know
martial arts (my father for example) and there are some that don’t
(like Emily Wong in game or me in reality). And Bioware does well
to equally represent stereotypes (and different ethnicities) as
strange as that sounds.

14. 
Mass Effect is infamous for its romantic relationships
As the main character there are several romantic relationships one can pursue
within your starship. Although Bioware slowly works on LGBT
relationships, by the third installment of Mass Effect there are male
characters in which a male Commander Shepard can romance and the
same for a female Shepard.
Humans in the Mass Effect universe seem to be more understanding than
humans in reality as one can be in a romantic relationship with anyone
(male female or even alien) in and not be judged, whilst in reality the
game series takes a hit from critics for containing such content.
Note: If you are really interested in seeing this content I recommend playing the game or Youtubing
it!

15. In the world of Mass Effect, there
seems to be much equality
between genders and races,
but something beyond the
world of Mass Effect is that
the game still endorsed some
gender stereotypes such as
the body building male and
the hour-glass scantily
clothed female.

17. 


The Krogans lived in a harsh planet filled with predation and scarce with
resources. The Krogans were known to be to be powerful and highly
physically adept, for example having two hearts, four lungs, back up
nervous systems and much more.
Then along came the Salarians who provided the Krogans with advanced
technology and a new peaceful planet to live on. The Salarians did this to
use the Krogans to wipe out a threatening species called the Rachni.
Without predation and harsh living conditions combined with the high
birthrate of Krogans, they began to aggressively expand.
To stop this Krogan aggression within galaxy, the Salarians developed a
biological weapon, called the genophage, that practically sterilized the
Krogan species since nearly all reproductive attempts resulted in
stillbirth.

18. 


In relation to our texts
The bio-weapon that the Salarians used on the Krogans felt surprisingly
similar to the virus in Legend, by Marie Lu. In both cases the bio-weapon
was engineered to oppress a certain group of people to keep a sense of
order within a governed space.
The manipulation by the Salarians is also similar to the Oankali in Dawn,
by Octavia Butler. Both the Salarians and the Oankali promised for
something better in order to gain something for themselves. In the case of
Mass Effect, it was for military power and eradication of a species and in
the Oankali’s case it was for reproductive and trading purposes.

19. Tuchanka Vs. Syria
On top is the Krogan homeworld,
Tuchank, which has suffered civil
wars, planetary bombardments,
and nuclear wars.
And to the bottom is Syria…
In the article, A Microscopic
Insurgent, Jenna M. Loyd examines
the indirect effects of war. Loyd
states that destruction of
infrastrucutre, premature deaths,
and diseases point towards
structural violence and
militarization.

20. 

I would like to say that characters and stories within
video games can be analyzed in terms of race, gender,
and other themes that we have discussed within our
class.
There is much more to Mass Effect than what you have
seen as this is just the tip of the iceberg.

21. 
Pleasure in video games
Darshan essentially poses me the question “How do I make sense of pleasure in video
games?” and that question boils down to me as “Why do I play video games?”
First of all it is fun and entertainment and I look for a few main themes in the
games I have played.
1)
I play games for a deep and engaging story that will bring me out of this world
into a fantasy or sci-fi world and consume my time, like the Mass Effect or
Darksiders series.
2)
And mainly competively (think sports) I thrive in strategic competitive games like
Starcraft 2 or DotA 2 as these genres are the games that have kept me entertained
(via competition) for nearly half my life span. And games with deep engaging
stories (which Starcraft also has) is what I do when I take breaks away from
competition.