Nerdgerhl: Year One

28th June 2012

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Female Krogan Agency in Mass Effect 2 and 3

So, in Mass Effect 2, you spend an entire mission investigating the work of a Salarian scientist who has come to the conclusion that the genophage (a gene-altering virus that renders the overwhelming majority of Krogan births stillborn) was an immoral punishment to inflict on the Krogan (who otherwise would have overrun the galaxy and destroyed its government) and that he must find a way to reverse it at any cost, including the use of unethical medical practices and experiments on Krogan subjects. There’s a lot of establishing of the various ways in which this could be interpreted morally, and it affects one of your companions, Mordin, deeply. Mordin is another Salarian geneticist, responsible for secretly monitoring and maintaining the effect of the genophage on Krogan biology, and also the mentor of the scientist you’re trying to find. He is deeply moved by the ravaged bodies of Krogan females who volunteered (desperate and taken in by the outlandish promises of the scientist you seek) to submit to inhumane treatment for a slim chance at bearing children. You watch him pity them, bloody victims of the genophage, as he wrestles with his conviction that the genophage was a bloodless solution to galactic war, and feeling that he has failed to teach his protege to lead ethical work. 

At the end of the mission, you are given the choice of saving the research, obtained through incredibly inhumane means, or destroying it. According to Mass Effect 2’s morality system, destroying it is the morally right thing to do: aside from upholding galactic law, the hands of anyone using such painfully bought information would inevitably be stained with the blood of the innocents who were emotionally manipulated into dying for its creation. Saving the research is presented as a Renegade action, the side of ruthless, independent, and un-empathetic decisions. 

This decision, and plot line, comes back with avengeance in Mass Effect 3, when you are required to cure the genophage in order to get the Krogan to join the war against the Reapers. Here, you are introduced to Mordin’s change of heart about the genophage. Here, you are introduced to Eve, the series’ first speaking role for a female Krogan (in ME2 female Krogan only appear inside body bags). Here, curing the genophage is presented as noble, necessary, and something that should have happened years ago. Here, destruction of that old genophage cure directly costs lives. But the more I think about it, the thing I love most is the change in how the game wants you, Shepard, to feel about female Krogan. 

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Tagged: Mass Effectkroganwall of textspoilersprobably