Space. It’s been called the final frontier, the great beyond, and the ineffable void.ဣ It calls to humanity as the last true voyage l💟eft to, to discover the mysteries of the cosmos.
So why does Mass Effect get so much about space absolutely wrong?
Don’t get me wrong, I think Mass Effect is per✱haps the greatest 🍌space opera of our generation, easily beating out the Star Wars prequels and the Star Trek reboot. But for something that hꦦas an amazing story filled with futuristic technologies and bizarre alien species, it’s surprising to find out how many things about space travel Mass Effect goofs on.
How many things, you as𒀰k? Well, pretty close to anything. About the only things Mass Effect gets right is the fact that space exists, there are planets and stars out there, and it’s not easy to get between them. On virtually everyth🏅ing else, Mass Effect drops the proverbial ball.
No entry in the series is s🎶afe. Everꦗy game, from the original to Andromeda, screws up someth🌼ing. Actually, scre♓ws up most things and no amount of element zero can make it better. At times I almost wish the Reapers had done a𒀰way with us all so we could maybe make a space game that accurately portꦡrays what it means to travel the stars.
Here’s 15 space facts Mass Effect gets horribly, horribly wrong.
15 In Space, No One Can Hear You Scream. Or Explode.
There’s no sound in space. Full stop.
Alright, a little explanation. First, we must define sound: sound is the wavelike movements of air caused by stuff moving in it. A plane traveling overhead makes an enormous racket because of the amount of air that’s being pushed from in front to behind it. Our voices create sound by vibrating air in our larynx via the vocal chords and then passing that air ꦺoꦿut with our breath. Speakers are essentially giant moving plates that vibrate the air in the frequency of whatever jams you’re listening to.
No air, no sound. In space, there’s no air, therefore there’s no sound. Every single time the camera pans outsid♍e a spaceship to show a lovely little laser blast and you hear a “pew pew” sound, that’s wrong. Full stop.
14 Spaceships Don’t Need To Look Like Planes, And Th💦ey Probably Shouldn’t
Let’s look at the Normandy here. Ain’t she a beaut? Look at those curves, and those wings, and t🔴hat tail fin reminiscent of a modern jet fighter.
Too bad all of it is completely useless.
Remember, there’s no air in space, so there’s no need to make your spaceship look like a plane. In fact, most of th🍎e spaceships we’ve ever sent to space are basically cylinders with rockets strapped all over them so they can orient themselves.
Once again, since there’s no air in space, there’s no need to have things like wings. Moving around in🐠 space is not like flying an airplane at all, and is more like maneuvering in the old-school game𝓰 Asteroids. You move in whatever direction an engine is pointing, so it actually makes more sense to have a spaceship that’s s🔯haped like a giant sphere but has a bunch of rockets strategically placed to orient yourself in whatever direction you need to be.
13 Ain’t No Aliens (So Far)
Bad news everyone: so far, we’re alone i🦩n the galaxy. We haven’t heard a peep from anywh🍰ere or anyone possibly out there.
I know Mass Effect wouldn’t be a s🐲pace opera without tons of alien cultures and civilizations, but the fact is we’re the only known space-faring (sort of) species out there.
And we’re actually not really sure why that is. We know there are hundreds of thousands of planets in our galaxy alone, and statistically, there should be at least one intelligent species out there. It could be that there have been intelligent species, but they die out before our species becomes intelligent enough to find them. Or it could be that𓄧 every species that starts broadcasting gets gobbled up by some giant space armada, Borg style. Or it could be we’re just as special as some of us seem to think we are. Regardless, there aren’t any aliens that we know of.
12 You Can’t Go Faster Than Light
Space travel in Mass Effect does a ෴lot of hand-waving when it comes to space travel. One of the things it waves away is how their space ships manage to travel faster than the ꦆspeed of light.
In Mass Effect, faster than light speed travel is possible via the titular mass effect engine, which uses “element zero” (or eezo) to magical꧟ly 🌺reduce the mass of the spaceship to allow its engines to propel it faster than the speed of light.
Except you can’t. Nothing can travel faster than the speed of light, and i🧸f you managed to do so Einstein’s theory of relativity states you’d have 🔴a negative mass which is impossible. It also does some awful things to time, like potentially allowing you to go backward in it, but regardless it can’t be done without physics being very, VERY angry at you.
11 Time Dilation Also Makes Space Trave𓆏l A Real Bummer
Not only can you not travel faster than light, if you were to even get close things start to get weird. Relativistic velocities mean that as you get faster, time sta♉rts to slow down relative to the rest of the universe.
As an example, let’s say you managed to achi♌eve 1 gravity of acceleration (that’s aro🌠und 9.8 m/s2), you’d be able to go around the universe and back w𒀰ithin a human lifetime, but billions of years would have passed by the time you got home.
You can even see this in ♉action on the International🏅 Space Station. After spending 6 months aboard the station, each astronaut is about 0.005 seconds younger than they would be had they stayed firmly planted on Earth.
Mass Effect again wa🌄ves this very real phenomenon away with element 𒀰zero, but no magic space rocks will stop time. Unless they are magic, in which case all bets are off.
10 Space Weapons Are Super Fast And Y🎉ou Can’t See Them
Mass Effect, like many space games, has lots of big space ships with lots of big guns. Particle cannons, rail guns, lasers and masers, and all of tไhem making big, flashy arcs as they barrel to꧂wards their target.
Only problem is, real space weapons ♎are usually invis💙ible.
Let’s take the standard laser. The stan🦄dard green or red streak you may remember from countless games and movies really only shows up when there’s gas to reflect off of. In space ther𒁃e’s no gas, so there’s nothing for the light to reflect off of and you don’t see a thing.
Also, those big balls of energy that slam into ships really shouldn’t be visible either. Most particle guns or rail guns accelerate their projectile to relativistic speeds, so they impact their target before your brain has time to register the light hittin🐭g your eyes.
9 There’s Radiation Everywhere
Space is a death trap. This may sound obviou𒐪s, considering there’s no air🔯, water, food, and it’s colder than a polar bear’s tit, but there’s also another problem: radiation.
Radiation is everywhere in space. We take for granted that we don’t have to deal with it outside of slathering our fragile human skin with UV prot💃ective sun block, but Earth has a giant magnetic field t🍷hat redirects the harmful radiation that’s all over space. In a spaceship you need something to block that radiation or you’ll fry.
Also, fun fact: a nearby supernova wওould produce enough radiation, and travel far enough, to kill most l🔴iving things on Earth. And we’d never have any warning either.
Sleep tight!
8 There Aren’t Any Cool Explosions. Ever.
Mass Effect has plenty 🅰of awesome space explosions, from the original Normandy blowing up to Reapers eܫxploding in space, but the reality is all those giant fireballs would never happen.
For there to be fire, you need oxygen. For there to be oxygen, there needs to be… not space. 🏅Because there’s nothing in space. So when something explodes in space, it really just looks like a sudden disintegration of whatever just exploded, with no sound or fireworks ﷽to denote its untimely demise.
Another thing about explosions is the shrapnel they prod💫uce travelﷺ literally forever. Well, not literally; until they hit something. And when they do hit that something they can be traveling super fast since explosions impart a lot of energy to whatever bit of metal they’re propelling.
7 Space Doesn’t Look Super Pretty
I know the star maps and cut scenes in Mass Effect make space out to be this gorgeous place filled with color and light, but I’ve got more bad 🉐news for you: space ⛎isn’t pretty.
Space is big and dark, and that’s🔯 mostly it. There are a few pinpricks of light from all the various stars, and if you’re close (and lucky) maybe there’s a bit of a swirl to denote accreting gases in a nebula, but oth♌er than that there’s a whole lot of nothing.
Where do we get all those colorful images from various🍰 space telescopes? Well, they’re seeing in different electromagnetic spectrums, and often they’re given to artists to make into something a little more interesting. It’s good PR for space, but not accurate.
6 Not Every Planet Has Earthlike Gravity
Ever notice how every planet you go to in any Mass Effect game has basically the same gravity? You run the same speed, you jump the same distance, everything is the s🎀ame as though you wer♊e back home on Earth.
While it’s true there are certainly Earﷺth-like planets out there, none of them have the exact same gravity as Earth. Most of them are 1.3 or 1.14 or 0.87 Earth gravity. That might not seem like a lot💎, but a third more gravity means you're 30% heavier. Imagine how far🐓 you’d be able to jump with 50 more pounds to lug around?
It would be a lot more accurate for Mass Effect to have some planets where you bound like a gazelle and other planets whereꦍ ꩲyou lumber like an obese gorilla.