The First Contact War [Mass Effect]

Today we explore the First Contact War, also known as the Relay 314 Incident, from Mass Effect- both humanity's first contact with an alien race, and also their first intergalactic war. We also dabble in the Rachni War, as well as the events leading up to the war from humanity's first colony on Mars and their discovery of faster-than-light travel.

Music from #Uppbeat (free for Creators!):
https://uppbeat.io/t/prigida/moonshine
License code: CKHJJOGWARURVBOO

If you have an idea for an episode, or just want to say hello, please send it over to loredtodeath@gmail.com or at one of the social media links below!

Podcast & Social Media Links:
linktr.ee/loredtodeath

Transcript

Hey there, welcome to the Lore’d to Death podcast. My name is Brett, and today I want to revisit yet another Bioware title set in space and that is Mass Effect. Specifically, I want to go out of the story of the games and take a look at the First Contact War, otherwise known as the Relay 314 Incident, where the human race first came into contact with an alien race, the Turians, and started a three month long conflict between the two.

Not that I think that it’s warranted anyways, but there aren’t any major spoilers for the games since this all happened outside of the games and is referenced in the book Mass Effect: Revelation which happened a few decades before the events of the games. So if you’re one of those people who hasn’t played this masterpiece of a trilogy, this episode is safe for you!

That being said, Bioware released the Mass Effect Legendary Edition in 2022 which remastered and packaged Mass Effect 1, 2 and, 3 into one amazing bundle. If you haven’t played the games, or if you played the originals when they came out, I cannot recommend picking up the Legendary edition enough. Back in the day, I played the second one first, then tried to go and play the first one before the third came out and I just wasn’t able to get into it. The first game was kind of a nightmare to play, with janky controls, weird animations, and mechanics that just weren’t quite developed enough yet. The second game gave way to a much better playing experience, having built massively upon the foundation that the first laid, but it made trying to play the first one that much worse. Thankfully, Mass Effect Legendary revamped the playstyle of the first and second to better match the third game, which makes it a more cohesive, enjoyable experience. But if you haven’t played these games, hopefully this little tidbit of lore gives you the incentive to take the plunge. It’s one of my favourite series, and I think it’s one that everyone should experience at least once.

The first game is set in the year 2183, where humanity exists in relative harmony with the other races in the galaxy. Humans are on the cusp of receiving a seat on the Citadel Council, but the other races are somewhat apprehensive because Humans are still relatively new to faster-than-light travel and the galaxy as a whole. We’re going to go back 35 years to when humanity was blissfully ignorant to other life in the galaxy, had barely been to any planets in their solar system, and was just starting to think about expanding into other galaxies.

The year was 2148. 45 years prior, humanity had landed their first permanent settlement on Mars called Lowell City. On Mars, they had just discovered traces of a new element which they dubbed Element Zero along with a small cache of highly advanced alien technology hidden deep below the surface of Mars on the South Polar Region of Promithei Planum which was left by the Protheans. Using this technology, they were able to utilise Element Zero to create Mass Effect Fields which led to the development of faster-than-light travel, which I’m going to just refer to as FTL travel from now on, and marked the start of the Space Age and detailed exploration of their own solar system, Sol. 

A Mass Effect field is created when an electrical current is run through Element Zero, causing it to give off a dark energy that can lower or increase the mass of an object. Running a positive current through Element Zero would cause the mass to increase, while a negative current would cause its mass to decrease. The stronger the current, the greater the effect. Using a low-mass field, ships are able to travel faster than the speed of light, as well as go in and out of orbit without as much energy exertion. Of course, this technology was used for military applications as well, using the mass effect energy to armoured vehicles that could hover above the ground leading to greater manoeuvrability and granting the ability to be dropped out of a larger vessel on to the ground from great heights without worrying about damaging the vehicle, like the Mako being dropped from the Normandy in the games. They also used high-mass fields to create artificial gravity fields that would act as shields for personnel, vehicles and starships by pushing away debris or incoming fire.

Mass Effect fields could not be used without consequence, however. The creation of a mass effect field generated a static electrical charge, which, in starships, would have to be grounded at regular intervals by either touching a planet’s surface or interacting with its electromagnetic field to prevent the electricity from discharging into the hull and causing massive damage. There were people who could use mass effect fields that were generated biologically with enough training, who were called Biotics. The electrical discharge in biotics took the form of a static shock when they touch metal or other living beings.

Humans were able to take the Prothean cache on Mars and translate its data to reveal that Charon, Pluto’s Moon, was actually a massive piece of dormant Prothean technology that was encased in a thick layer of ice. With the help of mass effect fields giving way to FTL travel, they were able to lead teams to Charon to uncover the relic which turned out to be a Mass Relay.

A Mass Relay was a transportation device which could connect to a network of other relays within the galaxy to make travel between solar systems much quicker. Trips that would take years or centuries with a regular FTL drive could be made in a matter of days or hours depending on the distance by using a Mass Relay. The relays consisted of two fifteen-kilometre long curved metal arms surrounding a set of revolving gyroscopic rings which were about five kilometres in length. Inside the gyroscope was a massive core of element zero. When approached by a ship, the pilot would transmit the amount of mass to be transported and which relay they would be travelling to. After aligning with the corresponding relay, the ship would make a drive-by and be propelled through space by the giant core. There was no exact spot that the ship would come out on the other side at, but rather they would end up somewhere in the general vicinity of the intended relay, sometimes within several thousand kilometres which was known as positional drift. Many relays, like the Charon Relay, were gravitationally anchored to a celestial body which made it easy to track. Others were out in the middle of nowhere and had to be carefully tracked to ensure that they could be travelled to.

After humanity discovered and uncovered the Charon Relay in 2149, they sent a few exploratory probes through the relay to no avail. As soon as they were sent through the relay, all contact was lost from them. So a fellow by the name of Jon Grissom lead the first team of explorers through the relay where they took a shot in the dark and ended up by another relay in Arcturus, 36 light-years away. It was there that they discovered that the relays formed a massive network, and could be used to travel accurately across the galaxy. Being the leader of the first team to explore outside of the Sol system, Grissom was hailed as a hero on his return as a pioneer of space travel, much to his chagrin. He was not in it for the fame, but for the cause.

Shortly after in that same year, the System’s Alliance was formed as a representative body of the Earth and all human colonies. The Alliance, as it’s often referred to as, became humanity’s military, exploratory, and economic spearhead and based itself on Arcturus, where the relay first sent Grissom and his team. After all, in the last few years humanity had discovered not only a new element and form of space travel, but the existence of life outside of their own kind in the technology left by the Protheans.

In the next two years up to 2151, the Alliance would set its eyes on its first colony outside of the Sol system and discovered the planet Terra Nova which, not very cleverly, means New Earth in Latin. They would also start to create a massive military fleet to defend existing and new human colonies despite not having any direct contact with other intelligent life in the galaxy. This was more of a preemptive move so that when they inevitably did encounter other life, they were prepared for the worst or to be the worst. This fleet’s home base was on Arcturus, an easily accessible and nostalgic location to the human race. 

For the next few years, humanity had one goal: explore the galaxy and activate as many relays as they could. For that, they were going to need plenty of Element Zero. There were a couple incidents, the main and first one being in Singapore, where humans were exposed to a dust-form of Element Zero which caused those involved to suffer from cancerous growths and die. However, there was one silver lining. One of the victims involved was Kaiden Alenko’s mother, who gave birth to him later that year. Kaiden is one of, if not THE, first human to be born with biotic potential. A couple more incidents happened and more children were being born with some minor telekinetic abilities because of their innate exposure to Element Zero. This paved the way for the eventual training facilities that would focus on enhancing biotic capabilities.

However, this era of unhindered exploitation could only go on for so long. In 2157, humanity’s excursions caught the attention of the Turians who found human explorers reactivating an inactive Mass Relay known as Relay 314. Humanity was literally like a baby crawling around touching things that they weren’t supposed to, as Relay 314 was closed for a reason. They couldn’t have possibly known that, though. What they were trying to do was against Citadel regulations after the Rachni Wars, neither of which humans knew anything about.

Over 2000 years prior, a Salarian explorer used a mass relay to go to a previously unknown system and encountered a race known as the Rachni. As you might expect from the name, they were a hive-minded intelligent species of insect-like creatures. The Salarian was captured by the Rachni who were able to reverse engineer the Salarian FTL drive and proceeded to construct a fleet of their own to expand into the galaxy. While they were intelligent, they could not be reasoned with. Any attempts by the Citadel to do so were futile as it was near impossible to make contact with the hive queens who were guiding their warriors from beneath the surface of their homeworld. This started a century-long war which was basically the galaxy versus the Rachni, which the galaxy was losing through sheer numbers.

The Salarians took extreme measures to bring another species into the fold, the Krogans, by “cultural uplifting” them, which really meant taking advantage of their rapid breeding cycle to create an army that could potentially outpace the Rachni, which is an ethical nightmare in itself. Despite this being a morally depraved method, it actually worked. The Krogans were able to strike at the queens and push them back to their homeworld where the Rachni were bombarded into dust. After 300 years of war, the Rachni were declared extinct, however there were survivors that lay dormant for almost 2000 years that went by relatively undetected. After their victory, the Citadel Council declare that the activation of any deactivated relays was prohibited in order to prevent other disastrous encounters with hostile races again, which is why no race stumbled across humans for so long.

So, humans were just doing what they thought was best for their expansion and colonisation without realising that they were doing something potentially catastrophic. I likened it before to a child touching something they shouldn’t and that would make the Turians the parents in that situation. Clearly they were from the age that believed that any bad behaviour was punishable by a good beating, because instead of trying to make contact and negotiate or inform them of the galactic laws that they were breaking, they decided to instead open fire on the Alliance fleet. The Turians wouldn’t have done so without expecting to win so they could sweep it under the rug and forget it ever happened, but to their surprise the Alliance ships returned fire and destroyed the attacking Turian vessels. 

This very quickly escalated into both Humanity’s first contact and first intergalactic war. To the Turians, their actions were an act of policing an ignorant species who were violating a galactic law, but the humans would not see it as such, especially because they were fired upon without warning. This would, unfortunately, shape their views of other alien life for decades to follow and give way to prejudice.

Since there was no introduction, humans assumed that the ones who attacked them might have been Protheans at first. Curious about their identity, but not so curious as to mount a full-scale attack into Turian space, they sent out probes armed with nuclear warheads to both prevent the Turians from intercepting Human technology, and also to maybe take out a couple scouts along with the blast. The human fleet was relatively new, though, and didn’t hold up against a proper galactic defence due to their resources being spread so thin. The Turians were able to easily intercept and destroy several scout and patrol fleets.

That didn’t ruin morale as much as you might think, and there were plenty of heroics from the Humans and they were able to push back and win several scenarios. There was one such event where a soldier named Tadius Ahern was sent on a suicide mission with a small squad to retrieve a data module against dozens of mercenaries inside Turian space. With basically no cover and a couple of defence turrets covering a small fortified position, Tadius and his squad were able to fight back the Turians until their evac arrived. Unfortunately for Tadius, his worldview was shaped by this incident and through his life he carried a grudge against the Turians despite having a candid appreciation of the advantages of the Turian military. 

After some time, the Turians were able to break through Alliance lines and attacked Shanxi, a human colony which was established close to Relay 314 and settled in for an orbital siege. The Turians relentlessly killed soldiers from above and disrupted supply lines which caused the people of Shanxi to eventually starve. The tough decision was made by General Williams to surrender the colony, which only fueled hatred towards the Turians.

The Turians, being in a good position above Shanxi, were not without their own problems, though. Being far enough out of Turian space that they had to ship in all of their food and supplies from a distance, which meant there was a decent lag in any supplies being delivered. They believed that by this point, they had defeated most of the enemy forces and were in a more relaxed state. The Humans were able to take advantage of both and swoop in with a secondary attack force led by Admiral Kastanie Drescher, taking the Turians by surprise and forcing them offworld. It was this retaliation that caused both factions to prepare for a full-scale interplanetary war, which drew the attention of the rest of the galaxy, and, in turn, the Citadel Council.

The Council intervened before more blood could be spilled to negotiate a peace between Humans and Turians. It was then that the Alliance was informed of the existence of the Citadel, a colossal space station that served as a sort of Capital of the galaxy, and that more alien races existed past the Turians who all, more or less, co-existed peacefully. The war came to an abrupt end and less than 1000 lives were lost on each side. It wasn’t all flowers and sunshine from there out, however.

There was a strong political and cultural ramification for the Alliance. Humanity’s first contact with the rest of the galaxy was one that began in war which created a culture of xenophobia amongst the Alliance public. This led to the creation of pro-human and anti-alien groups like Terra Firma and later Cerberus, who opposed humanity’s integration into the rest of the galaxy, citing the First Contact War as a reason why they shouldn’t trust aliens. But because their first interaction with the rest of the galaxy was a small-scale war, the Citadel recognized the humans as being a very militarily capable race, which granted them quick access to be considered for the Citadel Council. It was still plenty of years before that happened, but they were received fairly well for being basically infantile in the grand scheme of the universe.

The Turians didn’t get off scot free, being the aggressors in the First Contact War. They were forced by the council to pay heavy reparations to the Alliance as a result to which they refused to pay any interest accrued by this debt. Those involved in the war on both sides harboured resentment towards the other race for decades to come, and the Turians had an anti-human group of their own led by Saren Arterius who nurtured a hatred for humanity for the death of his brother in the First Contact War. It’s unclear whether or not he was personally in the war, however. Saren entered the military two years before the war started, but there is no mention of whether he was deployed. Despite that, we know that his brother was killed and that’s what fueled his rage. Whether he was involved or not is irrelevant since he already has his motives from his brother’s death.

In the decades to come, the relationship between Humans and Turians improved, but not by much. Both sides were still largely apprehensive towards the other, but they allowed themselves to put their doubts aside for trade purposes and even engineered the flagship of the Mass Effect games, the SSV Normandy, in unison. This collaboration helped to ease some of the tension between the two, but it wasn’t able to heal the wound.

The only minor spoiler for the game here is that in game, if you choose to save the Citadel Council during the Sovereign Assault, the Turians recognize the good deeds done and agree to pay additional reparations to those affection in the First Contact War including paying the interest that they had put off for so long. But this option isn’t seen as canon, as far as I remember. I’m pretty confident that the games’ canon mostly follows renegade actions, but I could be wrong about that. I feel like in these kinds of open-ended RPGs, it’s hard to nail down the canon when there is an entire trilogy’s worth of choices that have to be cemented into one “right answer”.

But that marks the end of the First Contact War, everything leading up to it and the resulting fallout. If I were to expand on anything here, it would be the Rachni War and, in turn, the situation between the Salarian and Krogans. That’s a whole thing in itself which is pretty bleak, but very interesting. If you want to hear more about it, let me know and I’m happy to make it an episode! And with that, what do you think? Were the Turians right in their “shoot first, ask questions later” mentality towards the Alliance? Or do you think that maybe the Alliance should have been a bit more cautious with activating the mass relays?

You can find us online @loredtodeath on your favourite social media or podcast websites. If you have any burning questions about your favourite games, books, or movies, leave a suggestion on Spotify’s Q&A section attached to this episode or send a message on instagram where I’m most active!

Until then, remember– when life gives you lemons, make a spaceship and fly yourself blindly into deep space. You never know, your manic-pixie-alien-waifu might be out there waiting for you. C’ya!