If I had to choose a science fi⛦ction franchise to hold above all others, it’d be Mass Effect. This was a sci-fi opera unlike any other - drastic galactic stakes, incredible futuriꦡstic technology, galaxy-spanning alliances, and a dark and terrible foe.
Perhaps best of all 🦂throughout the franchise were the alien species each game introduced. They had just the right amount of a♔lien to make us think this wasn’t going to be another Star Trekkian ham-show of a bunch of dudes with weird🥃 ridges on their face, and just the right amount of 2 legs, 2 arms, and 1 head to make us recognize each speciesꦡ as a sentient thing.
Mass Effect also bꦡroke that 2 arms, 2 legs, 1 head rule enough times to first prove it’s a rule, and secondly to prove that space is weird and aliens could be even weirder.
But besides being weird, each Mass Effect species is unique. Some are older and thus have more advanced🎃 technology than others, while some show more intellectual potential, and still others are just really good at murdering things.
What I’m trying to say here is that not all species are created equal. Some are 🐻just plain b🉐etter than all the rest. Here are all the Mass Effect species ranked from lowest on the galactic totem ꦺpole to the top space-faring dog.
21 Rachni
They’re space bugs. Think Starship Troopers but with less copyꦍright infringement. Or maybe you just can’t copyright space bugs.
Regardless, the Rachni are a race of hive mind insects that ♑resemble overgrown crawfish but act more like the Zerg. They were originally discovered by the Protheans who used them as a weapon of war until they ꦦgrew too powerful. When they did, they destroyed as many as 200 worlds to ensure the species was eradicated.
But tꦆhey missed a few, who repopulated and then eventually invaded the reꦛst of the galaxy once the Protheans had been wiped out by the Reapers. They’re certainly scary, but I’ve never really been a bug guy, so the Rachni are at the bottom of our list.
20 Vorcha
Right next to the bottom are the Vorcha, the intergalactic henchmen. Seriously, it’sꦏ like BioWare was trying to think of a species to specifically fulfill the role of dim-witted criminal underling and ไcame up with the Vorcha.
While they look terrifying and are represented as buffoons, the Vorcha do havꦿe one pretty big advantage: their cells can adapt to almost anything you throw at them. Cut them, and they grow a tougher skin. Put them in a poisonous atmosphere, and their lungs adapt to the poison. Cut off a limb, and they’ll regrow it.
It’s a n🐲eat party tr♏ick, but not enough to get them higher up the list.
19 Raloi
Very little is known about the Raloi. They were welcomed to the intergalactic🍸 community just before the Reaper invasion, and soon after withdrew from the Citadel to focus on prot🐼ecting their homeworld. The hope was to destroy all evidence of being a spacefaring race and thus be spared the Reaper’s wrath.
The Raloi resemble giant walking birds in space suits. Those space suits are much like the Quarians, except instead of trying to keep themselves safe they’re trying to kee🎃p everyone else from getting sick. At the time of their welcoming, the Ra🐷loi species were suffering from a particularly virulent form of bird flu - a nod to the present day epidemic of H5N1 avian flu.
S💟orry, Raloi - sick birdies don’t get very high up the list🌜.
18 Collectors
The original enemy from Mass Effect 2, the Collectors were ꦡa mysterious and deadly race rarely seen in the Terminus Systems. When they did show up they offered advanced technologies in exchange for very specific and peculiar hostages, such as💝 50 left handed Solarians or a dozen sets of Batarian twins.
What they did with those specific genetic samples nobody knew - until Mordin Solus, the Solarian doctor, discovered the Collectors were actually the remnants of the Protheans, indoctrinated by the Reapers to the p⛎oint where they were essentially mindless husks. Those sওentient species handed over to them were being genetically tested and harvested to create a new Reaper.
Mindless indoctrinated enemies don’t make it too high up the list🧜 eitherꦕ.
17 Volus
Short, fat,𓆏 and mercantile, the Volus certainly feel like a vaguely offensive stereotype, but it’s hard to say of what considering they look like mole people. So maybe they’re offensive to mole people?
Their stocky frame💙s are actually a biological consequence of their home planet, which has a relatively high gravity. That same high gravity also means their atmosphere is unusually dense and full of greenhouse gases, thus making them unique as an ammonia-based species rather than a carbon one.
It also ꧒means they have to wear those mole-like suits whenever they’re not on their homeworld. A normal oxygen-nitrogen atmosphere is poisonous to them, and regular atmospheric pressure is so low they’d split open like melons if they were to ever walk around the Citadel disrobed.
Like Solarians, they a🎃lso have a cloaca. So that’s cool.
16 Leviathans
B🐻efore the Protheans, before the Reapers, there were the Leviathans. A race so ancient that no one knows how old they are, they regarded themselves as the apex of intelligent life. Which is pretty easy to do when you’re an enormous squid that has mind control powers.
After mind controlling the land-based sapient species that shared their home planet, they went on to conquer most of the ga🍃laxy. They saw themselves as protective stewards rather than conquerors, trying to preserve life at every turn.
They eventually noticed a weird pattern: each thrall species would create an artificial intellig🌠ence that would inevitably turn on their creators. So naturally, the Leviathans thought they could do it better and created the Reapers, tasking them with preserving all life.
That massive amount of hubris really should put thꦗem lower on our list, but I have a thing for squids.
15 Yahg
Massivꩲe, deadly and predatory, the Yahg are a race that the Citadel consiꦗders to be persona non-grata. Sort of like North Korea.
While all contact with the Yahg has been severed by the 🐼greater intergalactic community (due to an unfortunate incident where they massacred a diplomati𝄹c envoy from the Citadel), the Yahg are still a highly intelligent race, with one even rising to the rank of Shadow Broker.
The mentality of Yahg is somewhat hard to understand for us Humans. The Yahg abhor equality to the point where they find it🌺 offensive. In Yahg society, someone is always a leader, ꦰand others are always subordinate. But unlike Game of Thrones, once the pecking order is established ever✤yone is completely loyal to the leader until their death.
14 Keepers
Even more mysterious th💝an the Collectors are the Keepers, a race of insect-like creatures found only on the Citadel. They’re💧 a curious species in that they all look the same, and seem to only exist to maintain the Citadel.
After the Asari discovered the Citadel they found the Keepers were already there, as though they were pre-built servant♊s just waiting for their masters to return. All attempts at further study fail as once removed from their work they self-destruct. Although some Keepers occasionally die due to old age or accident, th🔯eir numbers remain constant. Nobody knows where they come from, and nobody knows where they get materials for repairs.
For being helpful, but spooky, the Keepers get🐎 to be in the middle of our list.
13 Batarians
Space pirates. Slavers. Criminal syndicates. These are the things most species associate with the Batari🌳ans, a race of four-eyed humanoids that have often been the villain in Mass Effect.
If the Yahg are sort of like North Korea, the Batarians are definitely like North Korea. They have an oppressive government that only allows state approved messages to go out within the wider population, and they continue to cling to a cultural history of slavery that puts them at odds with the wider galactic com🌸munity.
But not all Batarians agree with their history and government, as became evident by the millions of refugees that fled the 🐽Reaper invasion. So let’s cut the poor Batarians some slack and give them anoth꧙er chance. Maybe they learned their lesson?
12 Reapers
The original enemy, the Reapers have been harvesting all intelligent life from the Milky Way Galaxy for millions of years. Designed by the Leviathans originally to safeguard all life, they instead eventually determined that intelligent biological ဣlife was always doomed to create an AI species that would subsume them. And so, the Reapers turned on their creators and began the endless cycle of genocide against all sentient life in the galaxy.
Insidious and ultra-powerful, what they cannot destroy with brute force they can subvert through a process called 𝓰indoctrination, which slowly turns the mind of any sapient creature toward the Reapers goals.
They may be the univ𝐆erse's ultimate evil, but they also created the Citadel. Also, I still have a thing for squid.