"Mass Effect" - Universe [1] Trivia Quiz

Answer: Paragon and Renegade

"Mass Effect" has choices that generally fall under the banners of Paragon, Renegade, or neutral. The two talents associated with Paragon and renegade are Charm and Intimidate respectively. Having points in either of these talents will open up new dialogue options in conversations. Special Paragon options, coloured blue, let Shepard coerce people into helping, or resolve situations with reason. The more Paragon points Shepard has, the more Charm slots will open up. The more points put into Charm, Shepard will have stronger Paragon dialogue options open up. Renegade points and Intimidate work the same way, except Shepard uses threats and insults to control the conversation.

Paragon points can also be gained by performing selfless acts like saving innocent lives. Renegade points can be earned by ignoring those in peril, or in extreme cases, executing those who get in Shepard's way.

Answer: Turian

The very first non-human character seen in "Mass Effect" was Nihlus, a turian Spectre. Nihlus was onboard the Normandy as it was headed for Eden Prime to oversee the recovery of the unearthed Prothean artifact. Off the record, Nihlus was there to observe and evaluate Shepard as a possible Spectre candidate. Eden Prime was meant to be the first of many missions together for this purpose.

However, during the trip to Eden Prime, a distress call was received, and Nihlus decided scout out the colony alone. During his search, he met up with Saren, another Spectre. Nihlus trusted Saren as an ally, and Saren used this to get the jump on Nihlus. When Nihlus had turned his back, Saren shot him.

Answer: David Anderson

Captain Anderson was the captain of the Normandy at the beginning of "Mass Effect". At that point, Shepard was the executive officer (XO). After the Eden Prime debacle, the Normandy flew to the Citadel, where Shepard and Anderson saw the council. After proving that Saren was responsible for the Eden Prime attack, Anderson stepped down as the captain of the Normandy so Shepard could use it in the hunt for Saren. Pressly became the ship's new XO.

Answer: Husks

Humans (and presumably other species) were placed on and impaled by large devices called Dragon's Teeth. After a while, they would be let down as husks, which could be used as dispensable troops against enemies of the geth. Husks are short humanoid enemies with glowing blue lines and nodes across their bodies.

Husks generally will run at Shepard and the squad without regard for their own safety. Once close, they will physically beat their enemies, or release a pulse attack that will disable shields and damage enemies within a certain radius. They tend to attack in groups of at least three, but can come in waves of more than ten.

Creepers are first seen on Feros, and only once Shepard has returned from the ExoGeni headquarters. They are taller, and completely organic. They will also run up to the squad without fear for their own lives, and when in range, will vomit on squad members, dealing massive damage. Creepers can be very dangerous on harder difficulties, taking out weaker characters and classes in one attack.

The geth are a synthetic species, and the primary agents of Saren in his attempt to stop Shepard. Geth come in many forms and sizes.

Rakghouls are creatures from a previous BioWare game, "Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic". They are former sentient beings turned into feral monsters. Rakghouls carry a plague that turns whomever they bite into a Rakghoul ("Star Wars" zombies!).

Answer: Fist

Fist was the owner of a club in the Wards called Chora's Den. When Tali contacted the Shadow Broker, the Shadow Broker told to talk to Fist, one of the Shadow Broker's agents. Fist promised her a meeting, but instead sent her into a trap for Saren, betraying the Shadow Broker. The Shadow Broker was furious, and hired Wrex to kill Fist.

After recruiting Wrex at the C-Sec academy, the next time Shepard visited Chora's Den, it was void of any happy patrons, bartenders, and dancers, and was instead filled with armed thugs. Once Shepard reached Fist, he told Shepard about Tali. If Wrex was in the squad, he shot Fist there. If not, then you had the chance to spare Fist's life.

Fist makes an appearance the club Afterlife in "Mass Effect 2" if you let him live.

Answer: Tali'Zorah nar Rayya

Tali found proof that Saren was working for the geth when she was out on her pilgrimage. She looking for information on the geth's evolution since the Morning War between the geth and quarians, 300 years before "Mass Effect".

Once she found the audio file, she attempted to trade the information to the Shadow Broker in exchange for protection, to which the Shadow Broker agreed (later, we learned that the Shadow Broker ordered that Tali be executed once the data had been retrieved). The Shadow Broker told Tali to contact Fist, who promised to help. Fist jumped ship, and attempted to help Saren by turning Tali over to his thugs. Tali was just about to be taken away when Shepard arrived.

After being "rescued" (Tali held her own quite well), she turned the evidence over to Shepard and joined the crew of the Normandy.

Answer: Quarians

Saren had three main species working for him: geth, asari, and krogan.

The geth believed the Reapers to be gods, and the pinnacle of synthetic life. Saren was attempting to aid the return of the Reapers, and so the geth joined his cause. The geth made up the vast majority of Saren's army.

The asari Matriarch Benezia, and those that followed her, also pledged allegiance to Saren. Benezia's commando units were very well trained and deadly, using their natural biotics to great effect.

Saren had a base on Virmire in which he was simultaneously trying to cure the Genophage and create a cloned army of krogan to serve his cause. Saren's attempts to cure the Genophage raised some tension in Shepard's squad when Wrex found out.

Saren also had some turian and salarian agents on the Citadel, and a few indoctrinated salarians on Virmire that he had captured from Kirrahe's team. The geth, which fought for Saren, also used husks, which were often made from humans.

Answer: Eden Prime - Recruit Liara

Liara was recruited on Therum, not Eden Prime.

There were a few main story worlds where key events happened.

The first planet visited was Eden Prime, where Saren was first seen, and a damaged Prothean beacon was accidentally used by Shepard. The beacon imparted memories of the Protheans, but they were fragmented and broken, and Shepard's non-Prothean mind was not able to interpret them correctly.

After exposing Saren and becoming a Spectre, Shepard had four main locations that had to be investigated: Therum, Feros, Noveria, and Virmire. The first three were immediately available, and Virmire became available once two of the first three were completed. The order in which the planets were completed did not matter. All pieces of the puzzle were required before proceeding.

On Therrum, Shepard recruited Liara. Her knowledge of Protheans and ability to meld minds allowed her to see the images that the beacon had planted in Shepard, and interpret them in terms of modern landmarks, such as the world of Ilos.

On Feros, Shepard acquired the Cipher. The Cipher was the essence of being a Prothean. It gave Shepard the ability to interpret the images from the beacon.

On Noveria, Shepard found the coordinates to the Mu relay, a mass relay that had drifted away. The Mu relay allowed travel to Ilos, which is where the Conduit could be found.

On Virmire, Shepard found another beacon, like the one on Eden Prime, but intact. The undamaged beacon gave Shepard a clearer set of Prothean memories and understanding.

Answer: The Citadel

The final confrontation with Saren was on the Citadel, at the top of the Citadel tower, in the council chambers.

Virmire was where Shepard and Saren first fought. Saren ran in order to escape the nuclear warhead that had been set to destroy his base.

Shepard took a bit of a roundabout way of getting to the Citadel. First, the Normandy was grounded at the Citadel. Shepard and crew released the magnetic seals and stole the Normandy so they could race to Ilos. On Ilos, they found the Conduit, which was actually a mass relay that acted as a backdoor back to the Citadel. Shepard followed Saren through the Conduit, back to the Citadel, just as the geth fleet showed up to wreak havoc on the Citadel forces.

Answer: A Reaper

Sovereign was first seen in the distress message sent to the Normandy at the beginning of the game, and was seen by Shepard leaving Eden Prime.

It was soon found that Saren could bend the will of those around him to serve him, and that the source of this ability was his immense and powerful warship, Sovereign. It was thought that Sovereign was a Reaper ship that Saren had found.

On Virmire, Shepard learned the truth: that Sovereign wasn't a Reaper ship, but an actual Reaper. It also turned out that Saren himself had been indoctrinated, and was just being used as a figurehead.

The Reapers were a massive machine race that lurked out in dark space, beyond the galaxy, and eliminated pan-galactic life once every 50 000 years or so. The last race to be exterminated was the Protheans.

The Reapers built the mass relay system so that any species that discovered them would develop along the paths desired by the Reapers. All civilizations eventually came to the Citadel, a large space station, which would become a central hub for politics and commerce.

The Citadel was actually a mass relay itself, and was the Reapers' gateway into the galaxy, and the rest of the relay network. Once the Reapers entered by surprise, they would sift through the information on the Citadel to learn of every outpost and bastion of all races that came to use the relays, and would use that information to eliminate every last shred of any space-faring species.

The Prothean extinction took centuries, but was essentially completed. Only a small group on the hidden world of Ilos managed to avoid detection by having no records of their existence. They went into hibernation pods, and one by one were extinguished to save power. Once the mass extinction was over, they were awakened, and they set about creating a chance for the next galactic civilization to survive.

They built a mass relay - the only one known to not be created by the Reapers - that pointed to the Citadel. They determined that the Citadel was controlled by the keepers, possibly one of the first races bent to the Reapers' wills. However, the keepers no longer served the Reapers, but rather the Citadel itself. The Protheans were able to alter the programming and behavior of the keepers so that the next time a signal was received to open the Citadel for a Reaper invasion, the signal would be ignored.

Sovereign was left as a sentinel of the Reapers, and when the planned extinction cycle did not begin when expected, it set about correcting the situation.