Favorite Mass Effect Planet descriptions

[theSovietConnection]

So, I've been doing a replay of the Mass Effect trilogy recently, and playing it again has reminded me of how many great planet descriptions the series has. So what are some of your favorite planet descriptions from the series? I'll start with one of mine, largely just because of how creepy the implications of it are.

An enigmatic terrestrial planet, Zayarter has a hazy atmosphere of nitrogen and argon. The surface is scorching hot, and mainly composed of calcium with deposits of sodium.

Three times in the last century, ships stopping to discharge at Treyarmus reported geometric patterns of lights on the dark side of Zayarter. Attempts at further investigation proved fruitless; the lights disappear when ships approach the inner system.

 

[Silentpony_v1legacy]

OH SHIT! I completely skipped over every single description of planets I couldn't land on! It it didn't give me an Asari Insignia, or I couldn't Mako drop, it wasn't worth reading.

Not to 100% derail the thread, but isn't this like asking what was your favorite book in Morrowind?

 

[Zhukov]

Heh, Nice to know I'm not the only one who obsessively reads stuff in games.

I Obviously don't remember the exact wording, but there was one planet that had been claimed by a mining firm, only to turn out to be mostly worthless. (Surveying? What's that?) So one of the frustrated miners had used a mining ship to carve "There's nothing here" into the landscape in massive letters. Which then ironically became a tourist attraction.

Also, there was that one with a huge ravine that was theorized to be the result of a glancing blow from a ludicrously large mass accelerator weapon. Which then become a minor plot point in ME2, which was a nice touch.

 

[theSovietConnection]

Not to 100% derail the thread, but isn't this like asking what was your favorite book in Morrowind?

Oh, it totally is. I know the planet descriptions likely escaped most people, which is why I want to ask which ones stuck with them.

Also, there was that one with a huge ravine that was theorized to be the result of a glancing blow from a ludicrously large mass accelerator weapon. Which then become a minor plot point in ME2, which was a nice touch.

Yep, that was Klendagon. I actually just came across that planet not 30 minutes ago.

 

[RJ 17]

I had read over each and every planet's description a lllooonnnggg time ago, so unfortunately I can't remember any off the top of my head in particular (though the one mentioned in the OP and the two mentioned by Zhukov immediately sounded familiar).

Luckily I, too, just started up a replay of the ME trilogy, so I'll get a chance to refresh my memory.

 

[Beliyal]

Junthor is a large terrestrial planet with a thick atmosphere of carbon dioxide and chlorine. The surface is mainly composed of aluminum with deposits of nickel.

Surveyors found the ruins of a technical civilization near the equator ? evidently the colony of an ancient spacefaring race. The ruins had subsided to almost nothing ? merely wind hollowed husks of arcologies and other megastructures. In the center of the ruins was a single column whose inscriptions defied translation for several centuries.

When asari linguists finally managed a translation, the elaborate relief carvings said merely, "Walk among these works, and know our greatness." The crude scratches on the base of the reverse side said, "Monsters from the id."

And the one from the OP. I love reading planet descriptions in all three MEs. You never know when you'll come across a gem like this.

 

[Elementary - Dear Watson]

OH SHIT! I completely skipped over every single description of planets I couldn't land on! It it didn't give me an Asari Insignia, or I couldn't Mako drop, it wasn't worth reading.

Not to 100% derail the thread, but isn't this like asking what was your favorite book in Morrowind?

I totally with you here... I remember reading them, but like hell I remember any... I skim read them just incase something sounded important.

I am all for immersive worlds and the like, but I seriously don't get some of the mass detail in some games. I remember getting so bored reading descriptions of things in FFXIII and thinking it as rubbish and lazy story telling. If it's important, they tell you, or you find it in the game world in a much more natural way than finding a cut/copy book and reading it yourself.

I work with a guy who is writing for the new Everquest game (ingame lore and accompanying novellas), and had a lengthy discussion on it. He assured me that he doesn't give a damn that most people won't read it. He writes because he enjoys it, and because the hardcore fanbase like it and he gets to discuss it with them after... but even he agreed that it was too much at times to expect people to ruin the pacing of the interactive portion of a game by making you read pages and pages of text.

Luckily these planet descriptions are pretty short, but they were still a bit much. Especially as you tended to come across them bunch at a time, and you were usually more interested in trying to find a new planet to explore!

 

[TheVampwizimp_v1legacy]

Oh man, great topic. I've made it a point to read every single planet description in all three games, and having played them so many times I've seen some of them over and over. I love the imagination and the detail in so many of them. It must have been a huge amount of work to make a unique description of all of them. And the mystery implied by so many of them adds so much to the atmosphere of the game.

The first one that comes to mind is the gas giant Ploba. When it was first charted, the exploration team's readings indicated several enormous solid masses inside the planet's atmosphere. When they approached to investigate, the structures sank away one by one until they disappeared, and have not been spotted since.

There is also the moon Caleston of the gas giant Cernunnos, a world with the highest eezo concentration in the known galaxy. Since Cernunnos orbits a red dwarf, the plant life on Caleston is not photosynthetic, but thermosythetic, converting the heat of the star and the gas giant it orbits into energy. Also of note, Caleston was mentioned in one of the trailers for the first Mass Effect, even though it isn't a planet you can ever land on.

I also like the idea of the Shadow Broker's base on Hagalaz, a planet with such a long rotation period that one side is always boiling and one side freezing. The small area between hemispheres is a constant storm where the warm and cold air meet, a planet-circling hurricane that sweeps the planet every rotation, with the Shadow Broker's ship riding the leading edge of the storm. The description even notes that the plant and animal life is very hard to take off-world, as the unique cycle of Hagalaz's day is almost impossible to replicate elsewhere.

Ah, this is just off the top of my head. There is so much cool stuff to find and think about in those planet descriptions.

 

[Aerosteam]

Does EDI's comments when you probe Uranus count?

Other than that, the only one I remember is the Moon. The capital is called Armstrong and the year humans colonised it was 2069, which I thought was neat.

 

[CaitSeith]

Eletania:

WARNING: Level 1 Toxic Hazard

Eletania appears to be a world eminently suited for colonization. Sadly, appearances are deceiving. It is covered by a verdant carpet of mosses, algae, and lichen, and possesses a thick oxygenated atmosphere, but the animal kingdom is a web of microscopic symbiotic creatures. These are impossible to filter from the air and necessary for the native life to thrive. Unfortunately, they also cause anaphylactic shock when inhaled by non-native life.

In short, settlement requires either fully sealed environment suits, or replacement of the entire world's ecosystem. Some have proposed limited colonization at altitudes above the symbiotes' range, or in areas where favorable winds keep the air clear.

 

[Sniper Team 4]

There were a few planets in Mass Effect that got me curious and made me go, "I want to go there instead of wherever I'm heading to now." The top post in one of them.

I think there was another one that talked about some sort of impact canyon. This was used in Mass Effect 2 also, or maybe that's where I'm remembering it from.

 

[DrownedAmmet]

Eletania:

WARNING: Level 1 Toxic Hazard

Eletania appears to be a world eminently suited for colonization. Sadly, appearances are deceiving. It is covered by a verdant carpet of mosses, algae, and lichen, and possesses a thick oxygenated atmosphere, but the animal kingdom is a web of microscopic symbiotic creatures. These are impossible to filter from the air and necessary for the native life to thrive. Unfortunately, they also cause anaphylactic shock when inhaled by non-native life.

In short, settlement requires either fully sealed environment suits, or replacement of the entire world's ecosystem. Some have proposed limited colonization at altitudes above the symbiotes' range, or in areas where favorable winds keep the air clear.

Is that the planet with the spherical Prothean artifact that never gets explained?

OT: I usually just skim the planet descriptions, but it's nice to know that they are there, even if I ignore 90% of them. I wonder who wrote them, was it one of the writers or did they reach out to an astronomer or something?

 

[bigfatcarp93]

Heh, Nice to know I'm not the only one who obsessively reads stuff in games.

I Obviously don't remember the exact wording, but there was one planet that had been claimed by a mining firm, only to turn out to be mostly worthless. (Surveying? What's that?) So one of the frustrated miners had used a mining ship to carve "There's nothing here" into the landscape in massive letters. Which then ironically became a tourist attraction.

Also, there was that one with a huge ravine that was theorized to be the result of a glancing blow from a ludicrously large mass accelerator weapon. Which then become a minor plot point in ME2, which was a nice touch.

That's hilarious, I must have missed that one.

Anyway, I cast my vote for Proteus:

Like the hanar homeworld, Proteus has more than 90% oceanic cover. The incredible heat thrown off from Athens raises global humidity to 100%, creates constant cloud cover, and powers colossal typhoons that rage across the surface year-round.

Hot, humid, and storm-wracked, Proteus' rare combination of oxygen-nitrogen atmosphere and carbon-based biosphere nevertheless recommend it for colonization. A pilot program is studying the possibility of colonies below the ocean surface, safe from the worst effects of the weather.

Doesn't that just sound cool?

Aite's a close second.

 

[TheVampwizimp_v1legacy]

Eletania:

WARNING: Level 1 Toxic Hazard

Eletania appears to be a world eminently suited for colonization. Sadly, appearances are deceiving. It is covered by a verdant carpet of mosses, algae, and lichen, and possesses a thick oxygenated atmosphere, but the animal kingdom is a web of microscopic symbiotic creatures. These are impossible to filter from the air and necessary for the native life to thrive. Unfortunately, they also cause anaphylactic shock when inhaled by non-native life.

In short, settlement requires either fully sealed environment suits, or replacement of the entire world's ecosystem. Some have proposed limited colonization at altitudes above the symbiotes' range, or in areas where favorable winds keep the air clear.

Is that the planet with the spherical Prothean artifact that never gets explained?

OT: I usually just skim the planet descriptions, but it's nice to know that they are there, even if I ignore 90% of them. I wonder who wrote them, was it one of the writers or did they reach out to an astronomer or something?

I think that is Eletania. But it's not completely unexplained. Usually when you go there the sphere just hangs there and you can't interact with it. But the last time I played I went there after I had helped Sha'ira the Consort on the Citadel. If you do all her side missions she gives you a Prothean trinket that seems useless, until you take it to that Prothean sphere. Then you get a glimpse of what it was built for.

And I wonder too who wrote all that text. So much of it contains ideas and terminology and oddities that most people wouldn't know. They must have had several astronomers on staff to advise on all of that stuff.

 

[Snotnarok]

Bleh, they were all interesting and fun, I love space and planets so getting to read all the stuff they had written out was always fun.

From simple descriptions of large H3 deposits to the above mentioned planet that has deadly microscopic creatures.

Really neat stuff, you don't often see such fun effort put into planets like this. I think Dead Space even had a whole cool idea with planets, ships that would rip them open and mine them in space.

Gah, give EA all the hate ya want but their studios have such fun stuff.

 

[Dalek Caan]

Really neat stuff, you don't often see such fun effort put into planets like this. I think Dead Space even had a whole cool idea with planets, ships that would rip them open and mine them in space.

Gah, give EA all the hate ya want but their studios have such fun stuff.

Planet Cracking, send some people to populate and prepare the planet, send some large space-ships called Planet Crackers, then using gravity tethers they rip apart the planet and process the pieces for valuable minerals. It's an engineers wet dream and environmentalist nightmare rolled into one.

Also I think Visceral, the people who made Dead Space deserve the credit =)

Sotera's atmosphere retains a modest amount of oxygen, but it is too hot to support life that relies on liquid water. This is fortunate, because projections show that Sotera will collide with Promavess, a planet crossing its orbit, within the next three years. The impact is expected to pulverize both worlds while forming new asteroids and moons. The asari have constructed research stations at safe distances to record this rare event.

There was another about a planet that had a Large Hadron Collider constructed around it but was then destroyed by Reapers by I can't(too lazy) to find it.

 

[Ravinoff]

Hmm...I've gotta go with Junthor.


Surveyors found the ruins of a technical civilization near the equator ? evidently the colony of an ancient spacefaring race. The ruins had subsided to almost nothing ? merely wind hollowed husks of arcologies and other megastructures. In the center of the ruins was a single column whose inscriptions defied translation for several centuries.

When asari linguists finally managed a translation, the elaborate relief carvings said merely, "Walk among these works, and know our greatness."

A dead planet with an Ozymandias reference carved into its ruins (in an indecipherable language, no less) is just delightful, and really shows where the ME series could have gone. There's a few more great ones, too:

- Rayingri: going to be shredded by tidal forces from a rogue planet in several hundred years, certain asari companies are already planning cruises to watch.
- Ploba: a gas giant, home to unidentified massive anomalies deep inside its atmosphere, constructed with unnatural regularity. May be some form of planetary supercomputer, or the dumping ground for an unknown civilization.
- Ontarom: home of the "Shifty-Looking Cow," a particular "Space Cow" who will steal your credits if you turn your back on it.

 

[Darks63]

Ploba is the second, and by far the larger, of Antaeus' two gas giants. Active scans by survey ships have returned tantalizing indications of massive, solid structures deep within the atmosphere, too regular in pattern to be anything natural.

Some believe Ploba is a "Jupiter Brain", a planet-sized supercomputer. Adherents of this theory have fruitlessly beamed signals toward the sunken megastructures, hoping to get the machine's attention.

Others believe that an ancient spacefaring race disposed of their weapons of war by dumping them into the planet. The last attempt to reach and salvage Ploba's "Deep Anomalies" went tragically wrong, and ended with a crew of 12 being trapped and crushed in the gas giant's lower atmosphere.

I love this planet and what it implies that it could possibly be a graveyard for dead reaper ships or the wreckage of previously wiped out civs.

Solcrum also has one of the most beautiful skyboxes in the game. Its a shame that so many planets didn't follow its example and went with dull brown planets with ugly skyboxes.

 

[Snotnarok]

Really neat stuff, you don't often see such fun effort put into planets like this. I think Dead Space even had a whole cool idea with planets, ships that would rip them open and mine them in space.

Gah, give EA all the hate ya want but their studios have such fun stuff.

Planet Cracking, send some people to populate and prepare the planet, send some large space-ships called Planet Crackers, then using gravity tethers they rip apart the planet and process the pieces for valuable minerals. It's an engineers wet dream and environmentalist nightmare rolled into one.

Also I think Visceral, the people who made Dead Space deserve the credit =)

Sotera's atmosphere retains a modest amount of oxygen, but it is too hot to support life that relies on liquid water. This is fortunate, because projections show that Sotera will collide with Promavess, a planet crossing its orbit, within the next three years. The impact is expected to pulverize both worlds while forming new asteroids and moons. The asari have constructed research stations at safe distances to record this rare event.

There was another about a planet that had a Large Hadron Collider constructed around it but was then destroyed by Reapers by I can't(too lazy) to find it.

Indeed, I know the lore of Deadspace, read all I could on whatever they gave on it. Was super interesting and a cool idea.
They do deserve 99% of the credit but, EA at least made it happen via money...they may have also ruined it on the 3rd game I can't be sure but whatever. I don't really hold companies in favorites. I just know who makes 'em and publishes them. I only avoid 1 company's games because of their hilariously terrible customer care/respect.


ooh, I'm not sure I read anything on those planets, that's really fascinating.

 

[IceForce]

I can't name any specific one (although some posted in this thread already ring a few bells), but I too read all of these.

They're an excellent example of a video game giving you just enough to let your own imagination run wild, rather than the game devs giving you absolutely everything and allowing nothing up to the imagination.
I love it.