From sci-fi references to artistic nods, the Mass Effect series has numerous connections to the real world—this video, narrated by none other than Commander Shepard (or Mark Meer if you will) himself, looks at some of them.
For example, did you know that:
- Mass Effect 2's Collectors were inspired by real-world insects. Okay, that one was pretty obvious.
- But how about the architecture of the alien races? Take the Asari homeworld's futuristic spires and towers: they were influenced by the work of Santiago Calatrava, a Spanish (you guessed it) neofuturistic architect.
- There's also the fact that the mysterious precursor race, the Protheans, who scattered their technology around the galaxy for other races to find, could derive their name from the Greek words for "first" and "god"—"proto" and "theos," respectively—and that their name may also reference the Greek mythological Titan, Prometheus, who gifted the human race fire, thus granting them the gift of civilization. Clever!
- And the mythological influences don't end there: the criminal organization Cerberus, the Shadow Broker, the Charon mass relay, and the planet Elysium all have conceptual roots in Greek mythos.
That, and more interesting bits of trivia await in the video below.
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