Mass Effect: We Are Last In Space

Welcome to Pixellated Culture. This week we'll take a look at the in-universe history of Mass Effect.

Image from Mass Effect wiki

Mass Effect has an extensive in universe timeline, not only chronicling humanity's efforts in space, but many other species as well. The wiki has a nice big timeline for your viewing pleasure (with spoilers for the events in the game).  Just be aware this post will also have some spoilers, for those of you who haven't played Mass Effect yet.

There are quite a few interesting things to note about this timeline. First is the earliest date on this timeline is 37,000,000 BCE where a mass accelerator round was fired at a Reaper. So long before humanity there were living things in space and these living things in space had guns. They were also dying. The entry implies that the Reapers as a species were around well before this date. For those unaware, the Reapers are called such because they go around killing species to near-extinction/total extinction. This is part of their reproduction. Reapers are bad news.

So not only was there more than one advanced alien species in the universe long before humanity was in the picture, there were plenty of others you run into in the game when humanity was just getting into the swing of things, you also have to keep in mind this timeline only track the Milky Way galaxy. All of the events in Mass Effect are contained to the Milky Way galaxy. When you start to think about it, this makes humanity feel really small and insignificant (or maybe just me). You see this reflected in humanity's attitude toward other council races: humans have a tendency to make themselves sound pompous by trying to sound like the most important thing in the room, despite the fact that humanity is the newcomer in Council Space. There are many races in Mass Effect and now humanity has competition on every front. If you haven't felt that incredible shrinking feeling yet I am amazed.

Now here's the part where I link this to our history. I know it seems hard mostly because I've been marveling at Mass Effect's long detailed timeline and ideas that we're not alone and are far behind the curve. But that's the thing: in the Mass Effect universe, we are far behind and quickly trying to catch up. In Mass Effect, humanity has started setting up colonies on the moon in 2069 C.E. That's a mere 58 years from the date of this post. This is before we discover the mystical element zero which makes all the aspects of space travel a million times easier, so Mass Effect is presenting a plausible idea for it's audience. Unfortunately, reality comes to rain on the parade of space adventure. The last couple years have shown cuts in spending for space exploration in the United States. Mass Effect is implying we have the technology or the potential for technology for living on the moon in viable colonies. This could be instrumental in solving some of humanity's problems like overpopulation. Yet here we are limiting that potential. I don't know much about the international scenario for space funding, so I don't know how dire the space funding situation is. But wouldn't it be awesome if we could live on the moon in 58 years.

Bonus: Here's a map of the Milky Way in the Mass Effect games from the Mass Effect Wiki.