As a nerd, I think it’s only fair that I let this out. I respect all species in the sci-fi universe. Good or evil, and I wish there was more equality in movies and video games. But most of all, I find that we as humans are often overpowered in science fiction, and all we want to do is kill anything that isn’t human.
If you like series like Mass Effect and Star Wars, then you’ll be pleased to know that anything non-human is treated respectfully by humans. In Mass Effect, even though you are playing as Commander Shepard who is human, and part of a human military called the Alliance, other species still get the spotlight.
Like the crew on the Normandy is integrated, and all over the galaxy the species are all equal and aren’t at war with one another, and they live in harmony on integrated planets like Illium. Then there’s the Citadel which is also an integrated place for all species. Sometimes you might come across a character who hates other species, like in Mass Effect 2, this volus accuses this quarian for stealing his credit chit, when she didn’t do it. He’s just being racist. The krogan have had bad blood with the turians and the salarians, because they worked together to end the krogan rebellions. But there is no war going on, and I like how eventually all species unite as one, to fight the Reapers in the third game.
With Star Wars, it’s a little different, the main characters are all human, but there are many aliens out there. Each one has their own home planet but on planets like Naboo, Tatooine, and Courascunt they live in harmony together. From the Kel Dorians, to the Twi’leks. So the main characters may be the humans but when any alien species come in, they get the amount of screen time that they deserve. Sometimes they don’t speak at all, but at least they are acknowledged more unlike one some series I love, which I will talk about now.
Halo is very common example of this, and I don’t want this rant to go too far, so I’ll only talk about Halo for this. We have all these badass aliens put in the universe, and yet they are treated like they don’t matter. The only way to truly appreciate them is to read the books and look on websites. I enjoy doing that, however, the company does not acknowledge them when making the games. You don’t interact with the Sangheili for instance, other than kill them. I don’t want to kill them, I want to play as them and talk with them. I even want to do that with the Forerunners too!
Humanity is way to overpowered and it just keeps getting worse. Since the release of Halo 4, the humans eventually began to rely on only one UNSC frigate to save their asses, which I hate with a passion. Why? The post war stuff is boring as hell, and that ship took part in destroying one of my favourite spaceships in the galaxy: Mantle’s Approach.
But aside from that, the humans in Halo have become so hyper-focused by the company that anything non-human they have to kill. There’s no equality here. Wouldn’t it be nice if there was peace between the Sangheili and the humans, and they also got their equal time in the spotlight? Remember the Halo 3 glory days when there was more equality? You had the choice to be a Spartan or an Elite.
I would also like a Halo movie that is almost like Halo 3; Master Chief and the Arbiter as the main characters, but instead we get Forward Unto Dawn.
Don’t get me wrong, that short film was good, but humans humans humans. The UNSC is 100% boring, it’s basically just a different version of America’s current military, only with spaceships this time, and humans with their bodies augmented to be Spartans.
Whereas the Covenant and the Forerunners are the ones with more interesting stories, personalities, architecture, etc. and they get almost no love from the company and the fans.
Everyone only cares about Spartans these days. I frankly find them to be overrated now, McFarlene Toys can release up to ten different Spartan action figures and only a few Covenant ones. A friend of mine on Instagram said they want an action figure of the Librarian, since we already have the Didact. I would also like Warden Eternal, but it seems like that’s not going to happen because of the high amount of attention Blue team and team Osiris get, which I don’t give two shits about.
Sometimes, one of the negative effects species inequality has in a fandom is that if you were to go on a forum, and you were to ask people what they can imagine themselves as in that universe………..95% of them will say the species that get the most recognition by the company…..and that’s humanity. Am I the only one with an imagination beyond the human box?
Everyone said they would like to be a Spartan, Marine, ODST, or ONI scientist in the Halo universe while I said Emili ‘Vadum or the Emi-Didact. Big facepalm.
In a sense, I don’t like it when humans become the supreme race in a sci-fi universe, anything non-human they kill, and all other species involved are under-appreciated by the fans and the company. No wonder I agree with the Didact on how the humans don’t deserve the Mantle of Responsibility.
Rant over, now if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to go back to my starship and visit the Kel Dorians on Dorin.
(wait, how do you say goodbye in Kel Dorian?)
-Emily
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