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{{quote|''"[[War Is Hell|It's hard enough fighting a war.]] [[The Chains of Commanding|But it's worse knowing no matter how hard you try... you can't save them all.]]"''|'''Commander Shepard'''}}
'''WARNING: This page assumes you have played ''[[Mass Effect (video game)|Mass Effect 1]]'' and ''[[Mass Effect 2]]'' ([[Downloadable Content|DLC]] included). Spoilers for those two games will be UNMARKED.'''
The third in the ''[[Mass Effect]]'' series from [[BioWare]], the esteemed creators of the ''[[Dragon Age]]'' and ''[[Knights of the Old Republic (video game)|Knights of the Old Republic]]'' series, and the final game starring Commander Shepard.
Several months after [[Mass Effect 2|the second game]], the Systems Alliance has had Shepard brought to Earth and relieved from duty for his/her actions.<ref>
Like the second game, ''Mass Effect 3'' allows players to import their save files from the other two installments, altering the storyline to match the choices your Shepard made in ''Mass Effect 1'' and ''Mass Effect 2''. But ''
In terms of gameplay, combat is still based on the ''Mass Effect 2'' system, but with some new additions, most prominently the ability to [[Unnecessary Combat Roll|roll]] even when out of cover. Shepard also has a new heavy melee attack (this varies depending on class, but most of them use a device known as an omniblade). Combat will be more difficult than the other games, as enemies will now adopt roles like "cover buster" or "suppressor" to force players to occasionally lose health. All types of weapons can now be carried by any player, regardless of class, but a "weapon weight" system has been instituted to preserve the balance between weapons and powers
Two elements from the original ''[[Mass Effect 1]]'' - grenades and weapon modifications - return to the series with a slight redesign. Grenades are now a class-specific power, and they're thrown like traditional grenades instead of Frisbees. As for mods, ''Mass Effect 3'' returns to a [[Gun Accessories]] setup (instead of the second game's universal upgrade system); mods you buy or find need to be added at "weapon benches" after you acquire them. Weapons' appearances also change depending on the selected mods.
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With this game, [[BioWare]] has added an entirely new element known as ''Galaxy at War''. Players can unlock alternate ways to increase Shepard's "galactic readiness level" - the amount of troops, ships and resources the commander can use against the Reapers - by playing different gameplay modes outside the main single-player campaign. The main addition is 4-player co-op; in this mode, none of the protagonists of the series appear, so players will create their own original characters and fight to liberate key positions from Reaper control. However, while using ''Galaxy at War'' can increase the chances of saving the galaxy in the single-player story, participation in it is entirely optional and all but the most [[Golden Ending|golden endings]] are available so long as the right choices were made in the campaign.
The game was released on March 6, 2012 in North America and on March 9, 2012 in Europe. Any qualms purists had over the addition of multi-player were soon forgotten: first when people started playing the game and then when people started reaching [[Gainax Ending|the end of the game]]. Reactions to the endings indicate that ''Mass Effect 3'' is well on its way to creating one of the biggest [[Broken Base]]s in gaming history. After an unprecedented fan outcry, [[BioWare]] announced the [http://www.pcgamer.com/2012/04/05/mass-effect-3-extended-cut-free-dlc-to-expand-ending-this-summer/ ''Mass Effect 3'' Extended Cut], a free DLC pack to be released in the summer that will add some scenes further explaining each ending.
The [[Xbox 360]] version includes an exclusive voice command feature
{{tropenamer}}
* [[Fandom Gank]]: The insanely huge backlash to this game's ending when it first came out. The fandom's reaction is equal parts "Huh?" and "You gotta be kidding!", this grew to such a size that [[BioWare]] release a [[DLC]] to explain in an acceptable way on what happened. It's debatable if they succeeded, since the franchise managed to stay alive for ''[[Mass Effect: Andromeda]]'', which seems to redeemed the property.
{{tropelist}}
== Tropes A - F ==
* [[Abnormal Ammo]]: In an age of mass accelerators, ''anything'' can be used as ammo for a gun. Notable examples include a geth sniper rifle that shoots a jet of ferrofluid at relativistic speeds (a la the Thanix cannon from ''[[Mass Effect 2]]''), a krogan shotgun that shoots spikes, and (if you played the [[Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning]] demo) an assault rifle that shoots ''explosive chakrams
* [[Aborted Arc]]:
** The "Dark Energy buildup" which caused the sun of Haestrom to prematurely age, and that concerned the Quarians and some factions so much in ''Mass Effect 2'', is never brought up in this game. [http://www.ign.com/boards/threads/somethingawful-the-plot-of-me3-changed-dramatically-big-big-spoilers.250066288/ Production information has revealed that this was originally going to be the motivation for the Reaper cycle], that the use of ''Mass Effect'' technology would ultimately destroy the universe so the Reapers eliminated life once it began to pose such a threat, but this was cut out of the story early in its development.
* [[Air Vent Passageway]]:
** A little boy uses this during the Reaper invasion. The vent is big enough for him to crawl through (though Shepard cannot fit), and the vent is not soundproof, allowing Shepard to detect the kid rather easily. This does not stop the kid from [[Stealth Hi Bye|disappearing behind a corner in the few seconds when Shepard looks away]] a minute later.
** During Liara's introduction, she escapes a pair of Cerberus troops through an air vent. They follow her in and she then ''leaves'' the vent, and uses their vulnerability to unleash biotic hell on them.
* [[Alas, Poor Villain]]: {{spoiler|The Illusive Man. Either he commits suicide after Shepard and Anderson make him realize that he's been indoctrinated, or he takes one last look at Earth after being shot by Shepard and reaffirms his love for his homeworld. Remember how the game ''starts''? Shepard sets off on a journey... to save Earth. [[Not So Different|Which is exactly what the Illusive Man has been trying to do]]}}.
* [[Alien Invasion]]: By [[Abusive Precursors|The]] [[Eldritch Abomination|Rea]][[Sapient Ship|pers]].
* [[All Your Base Are Belong to Us]]: The Reapers invade the Earth and the other species' various home worlds.
* [[Alternate Character Interpretation]]:
** In-universe,
** Also in-universe, Joker reveals that he subscribed to the [[Fandom Nod|common fan theory]] that the Council believed in the Reapers and were preparing for them, but weren't letting Shepard in on it because "you know, Cerberus
* [[Ancient Astronauts]]: The Thessia mission reveals that
* [[And This Is For]]: "That was for {{spoiler|Thane/Miranda/Kirrahe}}, you ''son of a bitch!''"
* [[And Zoidberg]]: During the mission to rescue "Eve", Wrex tells Shepard and Liara there is no one else he'd rather be on a party with
* [[Another Side, Another Story]]: Multi-player mode highlights how the entire galaxy is fighting for survival. Players will create new characters who fight back against the Reapers and performing well will help boost the war effort in the single player campaign.
* [[Anyone Can Die]]: There is a memorial set up on the ''Normandy'', which lists every crew member (SR-1 and SR-2 both) that dies over the course of the series. As characters die in this game, their names are added to the wall. Characters that ''will'' die (Provided they survived to this game) include {{spoiler|Thane, Legion, Udina and ''David Anderson''}}, and characters which ''may'' die (
* [[Apocalypse How]]: Earth will suffer at least a Class 0: The Codex states that around 1.86 million people are "processed" every day, aside from those killed in fighting the Reapers. It is not the fastest of extinctions (it could take a decade at that rate), but it is an inevitable one.
* [[Are These Wires Important?]]: Ask James to {{spoiler|take out one of the geth cannons on the quarian homeworld}}, and he'll "start [pulling] wires out, see what happens." He then begins to kick the control panel. Repeatedly. Other characters take a more delicate approach to deactivating it.
* [[Arm Cannon]]:
** The Cannibals sport these. ''They are made of whole human corpses
** Kai Leng and the Cerberus Phantoms have a [[Power Palms]] version of this, thanks to their cybernetic implants.
* [[Armor-Piercing Attack]]: Armor-Piercing ammo, rather than merely giving a bonus against a certain type of protection like in the last game, actually allow you to shoot through cover. There is also a mod for each category of weapon that allows you to shoot through armor and cover, and the [[Big Freaking Gun|Anti-Material Rifles]] do not need special ammo. Their effects stack. Combine all three... and enemy cover means nothing to you.
* [[Armor-Piercing Question]]: {{spoiler|When you make the decision of whether to let to quarians destroy the geth, Legion asks you the question which your decision should be based around
{{quote|Does this unit have a soul?}}
* [[Artificial Brilliance]]:
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** Nemeses, the Cerberus snipers, have no melee or short range attacks. Phantoms, the ninjas, have extremely powerful melee attacks, but mediocre ranged offense. Individually, these two get around those shortcomings by running around the battlefield, maintaining the most effective range for their fighting style. When paired together, however, the Nemesis will stand in one spot, and lure in melee and shotgun fighters to the Phantom's attack range.
** Assault Troopers throw grenades behind your cover to force you to change locations, and goad you into a shootout so that their melee and shotgun-preferring comrades can walk up behind you undisturbed.
** Unlike in ''Mass Effect 2'', if you cloak as an Infiltrator at close range, expect the general area where you are standing to get riddled with bullets as nearby enemies attempt to scare you away. They also now have better awareness of you, as they will notice you if you bump them or start a heavy melee with your glowy omnitool.
** Rocket soldiers, in particular, will time their shots to hit just as you duck out from cover. If you are particularly entrenched and [[Grenade Spam]] doesn't work, the enemy ''will'' gang up and rush you.
* [[Ascended Glitch]]: The game acknowledges that the paragon resolution to Conrad Verner's meeting in ''[[Mass Effect]]'' glitches out in the second with Conrad acting as if you had picked the renegade option instead. Upon meeting him on Citadel, he apologizes for claiming you stuck a gun in his face when you had not. He explains that he was "under a lot of stress" at the time.
* [[Ascended Meme]]: Before Javik's name became officially known, he was commonly referred to on forums as "Prothy the Prothean". This gets a hearty lampshade from him.
{{quote|'''Javik:''' ''Your "Joker" pilot insists I call myself Prothy the Prothean. I insisted he allow me to throw him out the airlock.'' }}
* [[Ascend to a Higher Plane of Existence]]:
* [[Aside Glance]]: After making his "[[Hunt for Red October|Russian National Anthem]]" joke during the geth dreadnought boarding cutscene, [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uqt3aW6clAo Joker glances deliberately into the camera].
* [[Attack Its Weak Point]]:
** Cerberus' [[Mini-Mecha|Atlas Mechs]] have a large cockpit that can be shattered with enough hits, but shooting their rear eezo drives will kill them even quicker. Also, while the logical tactic for defeating Cerberus' Guardians is to flank them, it is most expedient to just take aim and [[Boom! Headshot!|shoot them in the head]], [[Subverted Trope|right through]] [[Luckily, My Shield Will Protect Me|their shields]] viewport with a [[Hand Cannon]] or [[Sniper Rifle]]. If you can't get that shot, their feet are also unprotected. There is even an achievement for doing this 10 times: "Mail Slot
** How Shepard racks up {{spoiler|his/her first on-foot Reaper kill}}.
* [[Awesome but Practical]]:
** Gameplay previews show that this [https://web.archive.org/web/20150112091812/http://gamerant.com/mass-effect-3-demo-hands-on-impression-tao-97364/ is how the Omni-Blade works]. Mooks can be offed with a quick hit, clearing the area of nuisances and letting you save ammo. Run up to a centurion, slash him, then take advantage of the recoil and blast him away with your shotgun. Yank a guy from around a barrier and perforate him. Rush the sniper and take them out without taking too long to finish them.
** The Scorpion heavy pistol is essentially a mini-grenade launcher. It is also very powerful and accurate, with its only downside being its high weight and less damage compared to the assault grenade launcher... which isn't a problem, since you're most likely an Adept or non-soldier not much else.
** Cryo skills, if not this, have at least been taken out of the [[Awesome Yet Impractical]] zone: you can now chill/slow enemies without having to expose their health bars, and several other abilities can be specced to combo on frozen targets.
* [[Awesome Yet Practical]]: Cryo powers, in a welcome shift from the second game. Several other powers can now be spec'ed to work better on frozen stuff, and enemies will slow down when hit even if they're shielded or armored.
* [[Back for the Dead]]:
* [[Badass Army]]: Building an army of the greatest Badasses of the entire galaxy.
* [[Badass Bystander]]:
** If you spared him in ''[[Mass Effect 2]]'', Aresh (the [[Arc Villain]] of the Pragia side-mission) turns into one of these. {{spoiler|Living as a lowly worker since that time, a group of evacuating civilians are shocked to witness him unleash his biotic power to protect them as they make their escape. He performs a [[Heroic Sacrifice]] to save everyone
** Jenna - the C-Sec informant from a sidequest in the first game - intervenes with her omni-tool to {{spoiler|save Conrad Verner from a Cerberus operative if you did her quest in Me1. Then she and Conrad hook up
* [[Badass Teacher]]: {{spoiler|Jack}}, post-''[[Mass Effect 2]]''.
* [[Bag of Spilling]]:
** Played straight
** Averted with the collectibles from the previous game, which are hidden in crates throughout the ship, the Space Hamster can be found in Jack's room at the bottom of engineering scurrying around and, provided she was taking care of them and survived the Collector base, Kelly Chambers can give you your fish back.
** The upgrades you bought for the ''Normandy'' (Thanix Cannon, Heavy Ship Armor, Multicore Shielding) transfer as a War Asset bonus.
* [[Batter Up]]: The batarian classes in multi-player have unique melee animations. If using a two-handed weapon, they involve [http://youtu.be/BasebmHiqIo?t=1m31s clubbing the enemy with the gun as if it were a baseball bat].
* [[Bayonet Ya]]: Shotguns can now accept bayonet modifications to increase their damage as a melee weapon. This is ''awesome''.
* [[Beam Spam]]: Harbinger attacks the invasion force {{spoiler|in the run to the Conduit}}.
* [[BFG]]: The Cain makes a reappearance in the mission to take back Earth. You use it to {{spoiler|drop a Reaper-Destroyer sized AA battery. It only takes one shot, and it homes in}}.
* [[Big Badass Battle Sequence]]: There are three large-scale battles between opposing forces throughout the game:
** The Reaper invasion of Palaven, the turian homeworld, is preceded by the fight between the Reaper fleets and the turian navy, the most powerful military force in Citadel space.
** The Quarian attempt to re-take their homeworld involves full-scale war with the geth, including the geth's command-and-control dreadnought, along with the three endings stemming from this.
** The attempt to retake Earth is the largest single battle sequence in the game series, and includes space, air and ground scenes involving thousands of individual ship and character models.
* [[Big Bad Duumvirate]]: Between the Reapers and the Illusive Man
* [[Big Damn Heroes]]:
** In the first level, the ''Normandy'', with Kaidan/Ashley and James Vega aboard, shows up to rescue Shepard and Anderson from Reaper forces right as they are about to be overrun.
** The final battle to retake Earth with every allied fleet and war asset you can muster, including yourself. Cannot get bigger than that.
* [[Bigger Bad]]:
* [[Big Good]]: Admiral Hackett.
* [[Big No]]: Flat out parodied in the Blasto audio drama.
{{quote|[[Dull Surprise|Blasto]]: [http://youtu.be/nXf7HC7iYEY?t{{=}}8m6s Nooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo.]}}
* [[Bittersweet Ending]]: As the game outright tells you in the first 5 minutes, you cannot save everyone. It is possible to lose allies and entire species before you even reach the final battle,
* [[Blasting It Out of Their Hands]]: The best way to deal with Cerberus Phantoms, who can [[One Hit KO]] you with their sword, is to remove it from them like this. Since you cannot dilate time in multi-player, and you won't get a gun that can kick up a storm of lead that can properly knock it off
* [[Blood From the Mouth]]:
* [[Bloodier and Gorier]]: ''Mass Effect'' is more violent than ever.
** Heads will now explode into a spray of gore if you get a head shot with various weapons including sniper rifles, shotguns
** There are several methods of making your enemy's whole body explode, entirely reducing them to bloody chunks. To name a few (all used on enemies with a low enough health to cause this), Carnage, Warp, a shot from a Widow, Black Widow
* [[Blue and Orange Morality]]:
* [[Body Count Competition]]:
** After rescuing defecting Cerberus scientists, who you only located because of Specialist Traynor's analysis of Cerberus data, Traynor jokes that she is going to begin putting little decals on her terminal to keep score every time she "analyzes the crap out of some data."
** If you have romanced either Tali or Garrus, before the final mission, you will find the two of them talking in the Main Battery where they are making bets on the upcoming fight and who will perform better.
* [[Body Horror]]:
**
** {{spoiler|The "Synthesis" ending has Shepard slowly dissolve in the Catalyst's beam
** Everything about Reaper-made enemies. Cannibals are mutated batarians using ''whole human bodies'' for [[Arm Cannons]], Brutes are krogan/turian fusions with the head ripped out and replaced with a turian skull.
** The art book originally had the Rachni as fused with rotting human corpses. Bioware deemed this too disgusting. They kept it with the Cannibals though.
** It's confirmed in this game that being impaled on the Dragon's Teeth is actually the ''preferable'' way of being turned into a Husk. Being infected with Reaper nano-tech will also have the same end result, only it's much slower and the victim remains conscious throughout the whole process, {{spoiler|as those who went to Sanctuary found out the hard way}}.
* [[Boisterous Bruiser]]: Krogan characters in multi-player will often laugh joyfully after killing an enemy.
* [[Bond One-Liner]]: Shepard has the option of pulling this off after killing a Reaper, if you take the renegade option. See [[Pre-Ass-Kicking One-Liner]] below.
* [[Book Ends]]:
** When Thane is first encountered is ''Mass Effect 2'', he prays for "the wicked
** Just before you take control of Shepard for the first and last time, {{spoiler|
** One of the last conversations with Joker aboard the ''Normandy'' is him reminiscing about Eden Prime. The camera angles used when Joker and Shepard speak are identical to those used the first time you ever speak to Joker in ''Mass Effect 1''.
** {{spoiler|1=Both this game and the original ''Mass Effect'' end with Shepard facing off against an indoctrinated [[Well-Intentioned Extremist]], who can be talked into realizing his indoctrination and committing suicide, before Shepard comes face to face with the mastermind behind it all as
* [[Boring
** While there are many flashier biotic powers, the simple Throw, a ball that knocks enemies of their feet, is one of the most useful. Its low cooldown lets it temporarily immobilise mooks, and more importantly, it can trigger a biotic explosion on any enemy (assuming they don't dodge it), unlike many similar powers, and can be specced to boost the damage of said explosions, which are how biotics do their damage. If you upgrade it enough, you can even launch ''two'' projectiles at once.
** The five "basic" weapons (Predator, Avenger, Katana, Mantis, Shuriken) all become quite practical up to Insanity/Silver when upgraded to level X- which is quite cheap compared to the other weapons, making them even more [[Boring But Practical]].
** The default pistol (the Predator) actually has higher damage per second than the default assault rifle, as well as being very light and accurate and cheap to upgrade. While there are better weapons maxing, this should be any new multiplayer player's first priority. At level X and with the right mods, it has a clip size of 28, good accuracy, more damage per second than the Avenger or Vindicator, and a very fast firing rate. And it weighs nothing.
** The Avenger assault rifle does low damage. However, its good accuracy, very low weight and fast firing rate make it a good primary early weapon for Engineers and Adepts. Its low damage can be compensated with assault rifle amps.
** The Mantis sniper rifle, particularly in multiplayer. It's slow firing but powerful, is the lightest of the sniper rifles. It doesn't have the raw damage of the Widow, but a skilled player who can consistently [[Boom! Headshot!|headshot]] enemies doesn't ''need'' that much damage.
** Similarly, the [[Hand Cannon|Carnifex]]. Slap a scope on it, and you won't even need the Mantis.
** The Disciple shotgun. Its damage might be underwhelming, but it's surprisingly accurate and is the lightest shotgun available.
** On a general level, especially in multiplayer the more basic, lighter weapons are this for more power-focused characters such as most adepts, who want to keep their cooldowns low and might not even use their weapons all that much.
** As in the previous games, the whole point of the Soldier class. Other than limited bullet time, all of their abilities just pump weapon damage, melee, and shield strength.
* [[Boss in Mook Clothing]]: Banshees. Huge barrier and armor amounts cause them to take a ton of damage before going down. Their attacks are also very dangerous, with the strongest being a one hit kill.
* [[Bottomless Magazines]]:
* [[Bribing Your Way to Victory]]:
** Many War Assets are either reduced or completely unavailable if you have not purchased and completed the DLCs of the first two games.
** Unlike in the pre-launch demo, multi-player equipment packs can be bought for real money if you do not want to grind for them with in-game currency.
* [[Bring Help Back]]: Shepard has to do this
* [[Broke Your Arm Punching Out Cthulhu]]: {{spoiler|No matter what you do, the total death toll will be in the millions or more by the end, the Mass Relays are going kaboom, and Shepard will probably be dead. Worst case scenario? The Reapers are defeated, but [[Earthshattering Kaboom|Earth is destroyed]] and ''all life in the galaxy'' is completely wiped out
* [[Bullet Time]]: In addition to being an activated ability that the Soldier class retains from the second game, this now accompanies the sound of glass breaking when Shepard's [[Deflector Shields]] [[Critical Status Buff|get taken down]]. Other classes had similar abilities streamlined or removed; the Vanguard's charge slows time automatically now, and the Sniper Concentration mod means that anyone (not just an Infiltrator) can slow things down when scoping in; Infiltrators can just make it last longer and free up a mod port.
* [[Bullfight Boss]]:
** Brutes fit this trope. They love to charge at you and do large amounts of damage if you do not leap out of the way. You even get an achievement if you manage to kill a brute while it is charging.
** The {{spoiler|Reaper}} on Rannoch. Though it does not physically charge you, the mechanics of dodging its main attack (which moves in a straight line), then attacking it while it is vulnerable for a moment are the same.
* [[The Bus Came Back]]: Liara and the Virmire Survivor were two of the first four party members to be confirmed for the game, after being [[Demoted to Extra]] during
* [[Bus Crash]]: A few secondary characters, assuming they survived the previous installments.
**
**
** {{spoiler|If you spared him in ''[[Mass Effect 2]]'', Aresh from the Pragia side-mission dies saving a bunch of evacuating civilians from a Reaper attack
** {{spoiler|The reporter Emily Wong is never referred to in the actual game, but the promotional Twitter event before release has her relaying news of the Reaper attack before being mortally wounded and crashing her flying news van into a Reaper
* [[Buxom Is Better]]:
** Matriarch Aethyta can tell Liara that one of the things that attracted her to Matriarch Benezia was her impressive bustline. Liara [[Too Much Information|does not really want to know about that]].
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** Returning squadmates frequently make references to missions from the previous two games, remarking how things have changed (or remained the same) over the past two years. These occur even if these squadmates were not present for the original mission.
** In one of Shepard's conversations with EDI, she questions Shepard about the behavior of some prisoners of the Reapers, and Shepard asks her if "submission is preferable to extinction." Saren had asked Shepard this same question in the first game.
** During your first conversation with him, Joker lampshades the fact that Shepard was not entirely respectful towards the Council in ''
{{quote|'''Joker''': Let me know if you want to patch a comm to the Council so you can hang up on them again. You know, for old times' sake.}}
** The music that plays over the [[Game Over]] screen, both for single and multi-player, is still Saren's theme.
* [[The Cameo]]: [[The Stinger|After the credits
* [[Canned Orders Over Loudspeaker]]: At Grissom Academy, {{spoiler|a Cerberus shill tries appealing to students' want to help Earth in order to pacify them. All while [[Mooks|cerbies]] are dragging students away screaming. You can put a stop to it if you find one of the generators powering a cyberwarfare computer and shoot it, allowing Kahlee to interject and reassure the students that Shepard's on the scene
* [[Casual Danger Dialogue]]:
* [[Catapult Nightmare]]: Throughout the game, Shepard has several nightmares about those lost in the war, typically waking up in this fashion.
* [[Catch Phrase]]: EDI's "That was a joke" is back with a vengeance.
* [[Central Theme]]: Casey Hudson describes ''Mass Effect 3'''s theme as "victory through sacrifice". Several characters can or will sacrifice themselves for their loved ones or to complete the mission.
* [[Chain Lightning]]: The Overload ability [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Or0fly8vA0&feature=player_embedded can be] upgraded to do this.
* [[Chain of Deals]]: What the plot boils down to. The constant [[Continuity Cavalcade]]s, [[Character Development]] and, well, massive galaxy-saving stakes help it feel glamorous (and [[War Is Hell|hellish]] when it needs to).
* [[The Chains of Commanding]]: One of the primary themes of the game. During a late-game conversation, Shepard can chew out Joker for making a particularly ill-timed joke. Joker then explains that Anderson asked him to look out for the Commander, and that Shepard is under more stress than any other person he knows (to the point of referencing the character's chosen war history from the first game). Shepard can then choose to either forgive Joker or blow him off for attempting to make light of the situation s/he's in.
* [[Character-Magnetic Team]]: By the time the finale rolls around, Shepard can assemble a truly massive team. Not only can the player character convince almost all the races in the galaxy to help, but you can amass a sizable group of squadmates (including a newly-minted Spectre, an N7 candidate, the feared "Archangel of Omega", a newly-honored Quarian admiral, a {{spoiler|living Prothean}} and an advanced AI capable of giving ground support), but you can have delegates from races come aboard, have past squadmates show up and hang out on your ship, and even bring back two of the engineers from the previous game if you pardon them.
* [[Character Blog]]/[[Day in The Limelight]]:
** Prior to release, the devs released a [http://blog.bioware.com/2011/12/22/shepard-off-duty/ blog post] by Commander Shepard detailing his/her off-duty hours. Naturally, the writing is [[Gender Neutral Writing|vague]] so that it can fit most playthrough styles.
** A Twitter account was made for the [https://twitter.com/#!/AllianceNewsNet Alliance News Network], which was used by Emily Wong to chronicle the Reaper invasion of Earth.
* [[Charged Attack]]: A few weapons, such as the Arc Pistol, the Graal Spike Thrower and the Kishock Harpoon Gun, can be charged up for a more powerful attack.
* [[Chekhov's Armory]]: Played for laughs during Conrad's appearance. If you completed three separate, completely unrelated sidequests in the first game, they will be referenced and used as part of Conrad's dissertation on dark energy. After which Conrad gets into a scuffle, and his survival is dependent on the outcome of yet another unrelated sidequest.
* [[Cherry Tapping]]: It is possible to kill even high level enemies by punching them repeatedly. In fact, at normal difficulty, Soldier!Shep can punch an enemy's shields out completely with a few hits, if s/he is willing to take the gunfire.
* [[Cleaning Up Romantic Loose Ends]]:
* [[Clock Tower]]: Coats spent three days sniping [[Our Zombies Are Different|husks]] from inside a broken Big Ben; this was the content of one of the first trailers.
* [[Collectors Edition]]: The "N7 Collector's Edition". It comes with most of a set (sans assault rifle) of N7 weapons, alternative outfits for squadmates, a [[Team Pet|robotic dog]] for the ''Normandy'', and the ''From Ashes'' [[Downloadable Content|DLC]] (which otherwise has to be bought separately). Outside the game, it also has a 70-page artwork book, an iron-on/Velcro N7 patch, the game's soundtrack, and a limited edition Dark Horse comic—the first issue of ''Mass Effect: Invasion''.
* [[Command Roster]]: Just like in the other two games, ''Mass Effect 3'' has this.
** [[The Captain]]: Shepard.
** [[Number Two]]: The Virmire Survivor.
** [[Wrench Wench]]: Tali. Adams is also a [[Mr. Fixit]], but less important to the plot.
** The Scientist: Liara.
** [[Communications Officer]]: Samantha Traynor.
** The Security Officer: Garrus.
** [[Space Marine|The Marine]]: James.
** [[The Medic]]: Initially none, but Dr. Chakwas or Dr. Michel can be recruited.
** [[Ace Pilot]]: Joker for the ship itself, Steve Cortez for the shuttle.
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** [[Mission Control]]: Hackett for the fleet, Anderson on Earth.
** [[Tagalong Kid]]: Diana Allers, if Shepard chooses to let her report from the ''Normandy''.
* [[Concealment Equals Cover]]: Semi-averted. You can take cover behind some seemingly ridiculous objects, such as glass panes (though the glass is implied to be bulletproof). However, cover in this game is split into thick and thin. With high level Armor-Piercing Ammo or penetration weapons mods, a gun can shoot through thin cover. A few extremely powerful rifles can do this without mods. Stick the ammo or the mods on one of these guns, and you can shoot enemies through foot-thick metal walls.
* [[Continuity Cavalcade]]:
** If you have imported a save from the previous games, nearly every mission will have you meeting old friends, fighting old enemies, visiting major locations you have spent the last two games only reading about in the codex, and seeing a [[Continuity Nod]] everywhere you look. If you are new to the series, the game will adjust itself accordingly, making such continuity knowledge largely unnecessary.
** Conrad's sidequest specifically brings up three incredibly minor and unrelated sidequests from the first game in such rapid succession and the ending changes based on another, also fairly minor, also unrelated quest.
* [[Cool Versus Awesome]]: A [[Eldritch Abomination|Reaper Destroyer]] vs the [[Sand Worm|Colossal Thresher Maw]].
* [[Crapsack World|Crapsack Galaxy]]: Reaper invasions will ruin anyone's day, and [[It Got Worse|it is only gonna get worse]].
* [[Critical Status Buff]]: In the main campaign, losing your shields will give you a few seconds of [[Adrenaline Time]].
* [[Crossover]]: Of the promotional kind, with ''[[Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning]]''
* [[Curb Stomp Battle]]:
** The Reapers vs. Earth. According to the Codex entry "The Fall of Earth", the Reapers conquer the planet in a matter of ''hours''. While escaping Earth, players will see that the previously enormous fleet that was gathered in orbit around Earth has been completely devastated, and we later learn that Arcturus Station (the Systems Alliances' capital) was destroyed, along with the ''entire'' Second Fleet. Many of the battles that directly involve Reapers turn into this. The turians are suffering massive casualties despite having the most powerful military in the galaxy. Thessia, home of the asari, falls.
** In the final level
* [[Curse Cut Short]]: Jack repeatedly does this to herself in order to maintain a professional appearance in front of her students. One notable exchange between her and Joker ends with a [[Hard Cut]] [[Quip to Black|to Black]].
* [[Cyberspace]]: {{spoiler|'''You enter the geth consensus'''. Legion helps by filtering the experience into something Shepard's mind can comprehend, though. As the disembodied Legion voice converses with you, you may notice that the walkway tiles appearing for your convenience flash in unison with Legion's voice:
* [[Damn You, Muscle Memory!]]:
** Paragon and Renegade interrupts were rebound from R2 and L2 to R1 and L1 in the [[Play Station 3]]. Might cause you to miss one or two.
** In multi-player, different characters have their powers mapped to different hotkeys.
* [[Darker and Edgier]]: The number of dead is in the millions already. Trillions more lives are at stake. The developers have said they want to make this game edgier, but still with more humor, as well. [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hfvo5ueKJY8 Liara is literally darker], as well as personality-wise. [[Word of God]] says it's intentional.
* [[Darkest Hour]]: {{spoiler|Right after the Thessia mission: Thessia falls to the Reapers, Shepard fails on his/her mission to recover the crucial data to finish the Crucible and the Reapers are curbstomping everywhere, with even the turian fleet now in full retreat from Palaven}}.
* [[Dark Reprise]]:
** "[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x5JvbD2Zc9I An End, Once And For All]" is a [[Lonely Piano Piece]] version of "[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZCk4RiKH9H0 The End Run]" from ''[[Mass Effect 2]]''.
** Mordin sings "Model Of A Scientist Salarian" during a scene on board the ''Normandy'' after the Sur'Kesh mission. He later repeats the same song to keep himself calm as {{spoiler|the Shroud implodes on Tuchanka during the genophage cure dispersal}}. Immediately following that, a reprise of the original ''[[Mass Effect]]'''s menu theme "[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w097Q0fZE-A Vigil]" plays.
** During the end credits, a slower (and slightly more unnerving) version of "Leaving Earth" plays as the final track.
* [[The Dead Have Names]]: The ''Normandy'' gets a memorial wall, which lists the names of every single crew member that died over the course of the trilogy.
* [[Deadpan Snarker]]:
** Joker loves doing this, and EDI tries this, with mixed results...
** Garrus embodies this trope. He is rarely serious but always remains stoic (although his jokes are more of [[Gallows Humor]] variety).
** Javik, of a more jerkassed, angry variety.
* [[Death From Above]]: {{spoiler|Shepard kills one of the smaller Reapers by calling down orbital strikes from the entire quarian fleet}}.
* [[Death of the Hypotenuse]]: With {{spoiler|Thane}} or {{spoiler|potentially Miranda}} if you cheated on your ''Mass Effect 1'' love interest with them, in {{spoiler|Miranda's case, if you break up with her, she will die regardless of the help you provide her}}.
* [[Death or Glory Attack]]: The new [[Magic Knight|Vanguard]] ability Nova takes down your barriers to deliver a powerful [[Shockwave Stomp]]. Fortification (available for certain Soldiers) also buffs your melee damage when deactivated now.
* [[Defcon Five]]: Averted in an email, stating about the traffic emergency and the Alliance declaring SABER One (presumably the equivalent of DEFCON in ''Mass Effect'') when the Reapers invaded Earth.
* [[Defector From Decadence]]: It seems that not all of Cerberus is in lockstep with The Illusive Man's apparent [[Jumping Off the Slippery Slope|vault off of the slippery slope]]. Your War Assets have a whole folder dedicated to "Ex-Cerberus". {{spoiler|Jacob and a bunch of security and science personnel have officially severed ties with the Illusive Man and have holed up on Arrae. Rescuing them adds to your War Assets: the science team helps the Crucible Project, while Jacob becomes an anti-Cerberus consultant for the Alliance}}.
* [[Defiant to the End]]:
** Emily Wong, dying of wounds inflicted while reporting on the Reapers, {{spoiler|rams her skyvan into one at high speeds}}.
** Rila, one of Samara's Ardat-Yakshi daughters, {{spoiler|realizes she is indoctrinated and manages to hold onto her own senses long enough to stare down a Banshee and blow them all to hell
{{quote|'''Rila''': We are ''not'' your slaves!}}
* [[Degraded Boss]]: The Atlas mech is encountered as a boss during Priority: Sur'Kesh. They are encountered on later missions as normal enemies. This can be oddly reversed if the ''From Ashes'' DLC is downloaded (see [[Sequence Breaking]] below).
* [[Demoted to Extra]]:
** Most of the ''[[Mass Effect 2]]'' squad members fall here. Garrus and Tali are the only ones to return as full squad members and most only appear in optional, albeit somewhat long and involved, side missions, although a few ({{spoiler|Mordin and Legion; Miranda and Thane to some extent}}) play more significant roles.
** Harbinger. Remember how much of a [[Large Ham]] he was in the last game? Because he does not even have ''lines'' in this one.
* [[The Dev Team Thinks of Everything]]: The plot accounts for the consequences of nearly everything Shepard has and has not done over the course of both prequels, including DLC content, and brings characters in and out of narrative based on whether you recruited them, helped them, left them to their own devices, or got them killed during the Suicide Mission. For vital plot quests, stand-ins will take the place of important characters that are missing. Even acknowledged bugs from the previous game have a place in the game's narrative: Conrad Verner may apologize for claiming that you pulled a gun on him even though you did not, as he was just under a lot of stress at the time.
* [[Diabolus Ex Machina]]: Literally.
* [[Died in Your Arms Tonight]]: {{spoiler|If Miranda succumbs to her wounds from Kai Leng, she dies in Shepard's arms; if you were in a romance with her, they admit their love and kiss one last time just before she dies
* [[Dies Wide Shut]]:
* [[Disney Death]]:
** Provided you
** Provided you had enough War Assets, during the climax
* [[Disney Villain Death]]:
* [[Distant Finale]]: The post-credits cutscene takes place far enough in the future after the [[Final Battle]] that humanity regards the player character as ''The'' Shepard, implying that the events of the game have passed into legend.
* [[Do I Really Sound Like That?]]: The Shepard VI mentioned in the second game makes an appearance. Its dialogue options depend on whether the player character is primarily Paragon or Renegade. After going through all available sequences, the real Shepard questions if s/he really does sound like that.
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** The game opens with Shepard escaping from the destruction of Vancouver, Kaidan Alenko's hometown, and learning about the initial Reaper landings in London, where Anderson was born.
** On the mission on Palaven's moon, Garrus points out the largest of the orange splotches covering his home planet and mentions that his hometown was there.
** The ''Normandy'' never visits Armali, Liara's home on Thessia,
* [[Downer Beginning]]: With human outposts on Mars and Luna going dark, Reapers landing on Earth in the hundreds if not thousands and Shepard leaving Anderson behind and forced to flee from a now Reaper-occupied planet, it is hard to say this is anything but.
* [[Downer Ending]]: One of the endings. If you do really poorly, then
* [[Driven to Suicide]]:
** By repeatedly returning to the hospital and passing by a certain pair of asari, you can hear the story of a spec-ops soldier whose mission failed spectacularly, all because she took a shower and left her gun in her room. {{spoiler|She repeatedly asks for a gun through the whole conversation, which you can grant her on Spectre authority. She uses it to kill herself
**
**
** {{spoiler|Rana Thanoptis, the asari scientist you spared on Virmire in ''[[Mass Effect 1]]''. It turns out that she did not get out in time to avoid being indoctrinated after all
** {{spoiler|Gavin Archer, should you choose not to tell him the fate of his brother at Grissom Academy. Overcome with guilt over his actions back in the ''Overlord'' DLC, he will pull out a pistol and end his own life
**
** {{spoiler|The Illusive Man, if you Paragon sweet-talk him into figuring out he is indoctrinated. A nice callback to how you could get Saren to do the same in the first game
* [[Dual-Wielding]]: Turians and human Sentinels [https://web.archive.org/web/20150112091812/http://gamerant.com/mass-effect-3-demo-hands-on-impression-tao-97364/ can] Dual Wield omni-blades!
* [[Dude, Not Funny]]:
** On Sur'Kesh, a yahg prisoner escapes the salarian confinements and runs off
** After {{spoiler|the fall of Thessia}}, Joker says that he bets the asari wish they had more commandos and fewer dancers. Shepard is not amused.
* [[Earth Is a Battlefield]]: Earth is one of the first targets of the Reapers, and they concentrate their efforts there, mostly because [[Humans Are Special]] and Shepard, a human, [[Did You Just Flip Off Cthulhu?|really pissed off the Reapers]]. However, the fighting is primarily done by resistance forces led by Admiral Anderson; Shepard spends very little time there.
* [[Earthshattering Kaboom]]: {{spoiler|If you don't accrue enough War Assets, this can happen}}.
* [[Easter Egg]]: Bioware has said that there are secret Kinect voice commands that they leave for players to discover. For example, saying [[Evil Dead|"boomstick" switches to the shotgun]].
* [[Eating the Eye Candy]]: Should you
* [[Elevator Action Sequence]]: After Kai Leng and some Phantoms board an elevator, Shepard's team opens the opposite shaft and rides up after him. You have to disable Leng's elevator (and the one he takes after that) while fending off Cerberus troops. On the upside, take the power conduits out fast enough and you can send the opposition plummeting.
* [[Elite Mooks]]:
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** The multi-player centers around a team of player-controlled special forces operatives.
* [[Emergency Weapon]]: The omniblade function of the omnitool is explicitly stated in the Codex to be such for Alliance marines. The program was a firmware update that was pushed out as standard issue to Alliance omnitools to deal with the threat of multiple husks at close range. It uses the omnitool's minifacturing feature to quickly "forge" a single-use, [[Absurdly Sharp Blade|Absurdly Sharp]], diamond blade, suspended in a [[Minovsky Physics|mass effect field]] to compensate for the material's brittleness, and [[Power Glows|highlighted with holograms]] so the wielder can see the otherwise nearly transparent blade. The codex also states that more technically minded soldiers are known to make alterations to the default program, customizing the blade to their own ergonomics and fighting practices, or adding effects such as [[Elemental Powers|a sheath of explosive, poison, or super-cooled gas]] to the blade. This is reflected in game play by different classes having different visual effects for their omniblade.
* [[Empty Room Psych]]: Just because you are allowed to explore every room of the ''Normandy'' now (compared to ''Mass Effect 2'' granting you access to areas as you recruited squadmates) does not mean they will all be filled. Life Support, notably, remains empty through the end of the game.
* [[Empty Shell]]: One of the conversations you can listen in on is an argument over whether a man who is essentially brain dead, but is being kept alive by a VI implanted in his head, is truly alive or not.
* [[End of an Age]]: {{spoiler|The mass relays are wiped out in all endings, breaking the Reaper cycle but also ending any realistic notion of interstellar travel
* [[Enemy Chatter]]: The Cerberus troops give constant updates of their situation to each other. The Marauders (turians husks) also chatter in some kind of mechanical language that sometimes seems to contain barely understandable words like "destruction
* [[Enemy Mine]]: Basically, many of the other alien species from the series who have had major issues with each other as well as humans attempt to put aside their differences to take down a common enemy. How well they manage get along, however, depends on the choices made.
** You can go so far as to convince ''Balak'', one of the most ardently anti-human batarians in the galaxy, to join Shepard's cause. Both Balak and Shepard make it perfectly clear to the other how much they still despise each other.
{{quote|''I never thought I would say this to the human navy, but we need you.'' -''[[Fantastic Racism|Batarian]] Commander''.}}
** Other significant points are when you get the krogans, turians
* [[Escort Mission]]: Shepard and company have to pull this toward Eve and Mordin.
* [[Eternal Recurrence]]: Said by {{spoiler|the Catalyst}} regarding why the Reapers continually destroy organic life.
* [[Et Tu, Brute?]]:
* [[Even Evil Has Standards]]: After {{spoiler|the attempted Cerberus coup on the Citadel}}, two smugglers forced off of Omega can be heard talking in Purgatory. Both of them are disgusted at how clean and nice the club is, but when the turian smuggler suggests they steal military medical supplies while they are stuck on the Citadel, the Human smuggler threatens to turn them ''both'' in if he does anything of the sort. She points out that Earth is dying and she is not going to try to make money off the Alliance ''now'', while they are fighting to save the human race.
* [[Even Evil Has Loved Ones]]: If you spared Morinth in the previous game, a terminal at the Ardat-Yakshi Monastery reveals that despite her hatred of Samara, Morinth still has a soft spot for her sisters Rila and Falere. {{spoiler|Unfortunately, by the time you get there, Morinth is probably well on her way to becoming an indoctrinated slave of the Reapers}}.
* [[Even Mooks Have Loved Ones]]: While raiding a Cerberus base for Reaper tech that they are studying, you can find two journals from "C. Talavi" as he records his experiences as he joins Cerberus
* [[Everything's Better with Dinosaurs]]: One sidequest involves finding an alien dinosaur fossil. To give to the salarians. ''Which the salarians then clone. '''And the krogan then ride.''''' [[Missed Moment of Awesome|Of course, you never get to see this
* [[The Extremist Was Right]]:
** The moment the first Reaper descends, the Committee collectively realize just why Shepard claims that causing the destruction of an entire star-system did nothing more than ''slow them down''.
** If you get enough war assets, you find out that {{spoiler|the Illusive Man}} was right, and it is possible to
* [[The Faceless]]: All human player characters in multi-player wear helmets that completely conceal their face.
* [[Faceless Goons]]: All the Cerberus troops conceal not only their face, but their entire body from head to toes in armor. {{spoiler|This hides that the experiments done on them have given them a husk-like appearance
* [[Fan Disservice]]: Banshees. Never has a naked asari been less appealing.
* [[Fantastic Racism]]:
** EDI observes that the majority of batarian refugees fleeing into Citadel space are a lot less intolerant of humans than they were before. She speculates that with the collapse of their government and its [[Big Brother Is Watching|totalitarian rule]], they no longer feel as compelled to tow the party line set out by their [[Fantastic Caste System|ruling caste]] that they should hate humans.
** Javik, though he can come around a bit. In the days of the Prothean Empire most of the races now ruling the galaxy were in the most nascent stages of sentience and were thus "primitive" when compared to the technologically and biologically advanced Protheans.
** A subtle one on the Citadel. After {{spoiler|Menae}}, you can overhear the asari minding the Citadel Gift Shop on the Presidium Commons telling a customer that all sales proceeds go to helping the turian war effort. The customer asks her if her husband is turian, but the asari (Ereba) says the her husband is actually krogan. The customer then says, lightheartedly, that she hopes he knows who is the enemy, to which Ereba is shocked almost speechless.
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** [[The Hero]]: [[Player Character|Commander Shepard]], as usual.
** [[The Lancer]]: Kaidan/Ashley and Garrus.
** [[The Big Guy]]: James Vega.
** [[The Smart Guy]]: EDI, as the ship's onboard AI {{spoiler|and later android lady squadmate}}, and Tali, as the ship's Engineer and tech expert.
** [[The Chick]]: Liara, who is the most visibly affected by the war, particularly after {{spoiler|Thessia}}
** [[Sixth Ranger|The Sixth Ranger]]: {{spoiler|Javik}}, the only squadmate who is not returning from a previous game or with you from the start of ''Mass Effect 3''.
* [[Flaming Sword]]: The engineer's version of the omniblade is on fire.
* [[Flanderization]]: In-Universe example, the Shephard VI that Mouse made in the previous game is now available for interactions. However, since the VI is so simplistic, it takes the basic personality of Paragon!Shep or Renegade!Shep and blows them way out of proportion. The VI "brags" that it can predict what the actual Shepard would say with 7% accuracy. Shepard even lampshades it him/herself by complaining about how "I don't really sound like that... do I?".
* [[Flash Step]]:
** What asari characters do, instead of rolling in Multiplayer, at the cost of [[Cast from Hit Points|draining some energy from their barriers]].
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* [[Flaunting Your Fleets]]: The "Fleets Arrive" sequence includes all of the amassed fleets you've acquired jumping into the Sol System in succession, along with Joker and several galactic representatives reporting their fleets as ready.
* [[Fling a Light Into the Future]]:
** Designs for the Crucible, an incomplete and impossibly advanced anti-Reaper superweapon, are left by the Protheans for the species of the next cycle to use.
** In a direct [[Call Back]] to the first game, Liara made plans for very detailed instructions on who the Reapers are and how to fight them them so various time capsules can be put in place in the event they do not win and any future species are able to recover the vital information.
** Javik, the Prothean Avatar of Vengeance, was to wait out the extinction of the Prothean Empire with one million other Protheans in stasis pods hidden on Eden Prime, intending to awake once the Reapers had returned to dark space, then uplifting and conscripting the primitive races (Humanity and contemporaries) to re-arm for the next cycle's end. Unfortunately, Reaper assaults on the bunker damaged their sensor equipment and the VI managing the stasis pods felt that it was too dangerous to wake the pods without being sure that the Reapers had left, so it decided to keep all pods active until a new species discovered them. As time progressed and power began to run out, the VI deactivated the pods one by one until only Javik was left alive to be woken by Shepard.
* [[Flunky Boss]]: Kai Leng. In the first fight, he is backed up by a single gunship, and in the second he is helped by Assault Troopers.
* [[Foe-Tossing Charge]]
* [[Foreshadowing]]: In Shepard's dreams, the dream always ends with the boy burning, but the final dream ends with {{spoiler|Shepard seeing him/herself burning alongside with the boy. The Catalyst takes the form of that boy during the ending, all of which feature Shepard burning along with it
* [[A Form You Are Comfortable With]]:
** When Shepard
** {{spoiler|The Catalyst appears as the boy from Shepard's dreams
* [[For Science!]]: Dr. Brynn Cole, a defecting Cerberus scientist, explains that "science must never bow to tyranny." One of the reasons she and other Cerberus scientists left the organization, apart from [[You Have Outlived Your Usefulness|the Illusive Man's aggresive contract terminations]], was because they wanted to pursue their research as they saw fit.
* [[Fossil Revival]]: One mission has requires searching for fossils to resurrect a once dead dinosaur species called the Kakliosaur. Shepard even says he found the fossil encased in amber.
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== Tropes G - M ==
* [[Gainax Ending]]:
* [[Game Breaking Bug]]:
** If you're not the host in a multiplayer game, your Vanguard can charge immediately after you're downed; the game's attempt to resolve the lag makes you start bouncing off the floor, eventually glitching out of the map and locking up the game.
** The [http://www.cinemablend.com/games/BioWare-Investigate-Mass-Effect-3-Black-Screen-Bug-40714.html Black Hole Bug] on the Xbox 360 version, which can cause the game to lock up on a blank screen before even reaching the title. So far, the only known [https://web.archive.org/web/20130212075449/http://www.consoledemon.com/put-a-band-aid-over-the-black-hole-in-me3 solution] involves editing the ''Mass Effect 3'' files in your gamer profile.
* [[Gatling Good]]: The Geth Spitfire, which is a [[Frickin' Laser Beams|laser Gatling gun]].
* [[Gay Option]]: Male Shepards have [[Relationship Upgrade|Kaidan]] or Steve Cortez, while female Shepards have Diana Allers or Samantha Traynor. Liara remains a romantic option, but is [[Discount Lesbians|not technically female]].
* [[Genetic Engineering]]:
* [[Genius Ditz]]: [[The Reveal]] that Conrad Verner is actually ''Doctor'' Conrad Verner.
{{quote|'''Shepard''': Conrad, I'm building an Ancient Prothean Dark Energy device to stop the Reapers. [[Sarcasm Mode|Can you help with that?]]
'''Conrad''': Well, I did write my doctoral dissertation on Xenotechnology and Dark Energy Intergration.
'''Shepard''': *[[Beat]]* ''Really?''
* [[Genocide Dilemma]]:
** You have to choose between the total extermination of either the geth or the quarians at the hands of the other over the skies of their homeworld, {{spoiler|However, it is possible to [[Take a Third Option]], but it will be very difficult to get the correct condition that allows you to do so
** If you choose the ending in which {{spoiler|Shepard (possibly) survives, you'll be sacrificing EDI and the geth
* [[Giant Mook]]: The Brute, Atlas and Geth Primes.
* [[Girl-On-Girl Is Hot]]: When Ken asks Gabby if she has seen attractive new crewmember Samantha Traynor, Gabby tells him not to bother, [[Incompatible Orientation|since he is not Traynor's type]]. When he then suggests that ''she'' make a move on Traynor, Gabby says she just might since nobody else is expressing any interest, and Ken then tells her to make sure she takes pictures. Later, when Ken asks Gabby if she helped repair some damage to EDI's architecture, he asked if there was any lubricants involved, and maybe some moaning, and that he wishes his imagination was good enough to picture it.
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** Joker explicitly names this trope when expressing his dismay over the Quarians arming their Liveships (the principal food suppliers of the fleet) with dreadnought-sized guns, as they are not equipped with strong shields.
** Geth characters become this with the Hunter Mode ability, a sort of anti-Tech Armor that halves your max shields for a set of offensive buffs.
* [[Gondor Calls for Aid]]: Basically the premise of the entire game, deconstructed in showing just how difficult it is to acquire allies when resources are stretched thin and every race having bad blood with at least one other species (turians/salarians vs. krogan, quarians vs. geth, humans vs. batarians, and more). Almost all plot-relevant missions are about you negotiating away years of hostilities and bartering for support in just about every theater of the war.
* [[Godzilla Threshold]]:
** Hackett admits that not even the people building the Crucible really know what it will do if fired, comparing it to the fears that the first use of the atomic bomb would ignite Earth's atmosphere. They just do not have any other options.
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* [[Good Cannot Comprehend Evil]]: After Ashley discovers what Cerberus was doing at {{spoiler|Sanctuary}}, once she is back aboard the ''Normandy'' she explains to Shepard that she simply ''cannot'' understand the kind of thinking that went into something like that. She also says that she is ''glad'' that she cannot follow that line of thinking, since it makes her feel human.
* [[Good Cop, Bad Cop]]: One of the bits of info you can read on Liara's Shadow Broker Terminal details two Alliance intel operatives interrogating a Cerberus Phantom. They start the good cop/bad cop routine... and then her face explodes. Looks like the Illusive Man was listening in when Mordin said that ocular nerve flashbangs work better than suicide pills hidden in teeth.
* [[Good Guy Bar]]: The Purgatory Bar on the Citadel, judging by the amount of Alliance and turian military soldiers hanging out there. However, with the capture of Omega by Cerberus, Purgatory is now serving Aria T'Loak and other criminals. [[Open Secret|Despite its size and popularity, Avina doesn't recognize that it exists
* [[Good Running Evil]]: {{spoiler|Potentially how the series can end, if Shepard takes control of the Reapers in the finale
* [[Grand Finale]]: The end of Shepard's story.
* [[Gravity Screw]]: The mission aboard {{spoiler|the geth dreadnought}} has you walking through the destroyed remnants of a docking extension tube on the ship, and sometimes the only footholds to move forward are on the ceiling.
* [[Grenade Spam]]:
** The gold challenges on multiplayer have had quite a few recognize this in effect; it in fact led to the creation of the trope page.
** As well as normal grenades, Centurions have smoke grenade spam, using two or three at a time to block your vision, in between throwing normal grenades. Rinse and repeat when the smoke clears as many times as they take to die, it could be three or four cycles. ''That's at least twenty four grenades they're carrying, a single soldier
* [[Grey and Grey Morality]]:
** The geth vs. quarian war. The geth just wanted to evolve on their own, while the quarians feared that the geth would rebel and kill them all off. Talking to Legion and Tali sheds a lot of light on this in ''[[Mass Effect 2]]'', and your decisions will affect the final outcome.
** Cure the genophage? You will need to do that to get the krogans to support the turians, who will then in turn help Earth. But the salarians are against it because of the Krogan Rebellions 1500 years ago, and how they proved to be a great menace to the galaxy. {{spoiler|However, Eve and Wrex promise to sort out the differences and learn from their ancestor's mistakes should you choose the Paragon route to cure it
** There is no clear-cut Paragon or Renegade ending choice, and the game goes out of its way to ensure that. {{spoiler|Destroying the Reapers is done by Anderson in the preceding cutscene, but that area and that cutscene are colored red, and choosing that results in the death of EDI, the geth
* [[Guide Dang It]]: The exact conditions needed to unlock the [[Golden Ending]] in the {{spoiler|quarian/geth}} storyline. ''No-one'' is sure of what the full list entails, and the conditions listed in the official strategy guide have been proven inaccurate.
* [[Guilt Based Gaming]]: More so than either of the previous games. ''Besides'' the ability to [[Et Tu, Brute?|kill off several close allies]] if you so choose, missing the Grissom Academy side-quest leads to
* [[Gun Accessories]]: Gun modifications return, and each one visibly attaches to the weapon (if external, like a scope) or causes changes in the weapon coloration (if internal, like a heat sink expansion).
* [[Gundamjack]]: During gameplay, Shepard is able to hijack [[Mini-Mecha|Atlas mechs]] by shooting out the cockpit's glass and killing the driver.
* [[Gunship Rescue]]: So many. The retrofitted ''Normandy'' makes it first appearance in this manner, but the biggest example is Shepard
* [[Hacker Cave]]: Liara sets up one on the ''Normandy'' to continue her work as the Shadow Broker while traveling with Shepard.
* [[Hammerspace]]: No matter what weapons you have equipped, you and your team still have the ability to pull an M-8 Avenger and Predator pistol out of their butts at a moments notice during certain cutscenes, even if you have a better pistol/assault rifle.
* [[Hand Cannon]]: The Carnifex and Phalanx return from the second game, but they are far outshone by two new additions. The first is the Paladin, a weapon so hard to come by it has to be requisitioned using Spectre authority. It only holds twenty shots, but makes up for it by dealing more damage than most ''sniper rifles''. The second is the Talon, sidearm of choice for Cerberus operatives. It's a revolver. That fires shotgun shells.
* [[Hand Wave]]: The Widow and Claymore shotgun can now be used by fragile quarians and salarians in multiplayer
* [[Harder Than Hard]]: Hardcore and Insanity difficulties return to this game with the recent major upgrades to the combat AI.
* [[Hauled Before a Senate Subcommittee]]: The game starts with Shepard trying to help the Alliance Defense Committee make sense of the Reapers.
* [[Heads I Win, Tails You Lose]]: Fighting Kai Leng on {{spoiler|Thessia}}. He has gunship support that will target you every time you take down his shields, and eventually it [[Cutscene Incompetence|switches to a cutscene]].
* [[Hero-Killer]]: Kai Leng.
* [[Heroic Sacrifice]]:
** Quite a few.
** [[Subverted Trope|Subverted]] in at least one case:
* [[Hero of Another Story]]: The way multiplayer is justified; players take on the roles of an elite team assisting Shepard in tackling hotspots.
* [[Heterosexual Life Partners]]:
** As of this installment Male Shep and Garrus have reached this point.
** Shepards of either gender will call a non-romanced Kaidan "my brother" during their lunch at the Citadel.
* [[Hide Your Children]]:
** Averted in the game's CGI trailer, which shows a little girl playing with a toy spaceship in a sunflower field as a Reaper looms ominously overhead. In the next scene, the sunflower field has been transformed into a blackened wasteland, and Shepard [[Empathy Doll Shot|picks up the girl's toy spaceship from the ashes]], implying that she did not survive
** [[Averted Trope]] in the first ten minutes of the game. Shepard comes across a young boy hiding in an air duct who refuses to let Shepard help him (and then [[Stealth Hi Bye|disappears]] when Shepard briefly looks away). Later, when Shepard leaves Earth,
* [[Hollywood Darkness]]: Averted. There are multiple places that are pitch black, forcing Shepard and the squad to turn on the flashlights on their guns. Outside of the beam, you cannot see anything.
* [[Honor Before Reason]]:
* [[Hope Spot]]: All over the place. To name a few: {{spoiler|
* [[Hope Springs Eternal]]: Regardless of which ending occurs, unless all life in the galaxy is destroyed,
* [[Hot Blade]]: Shepard can now wield an Omni Blade, using the tech from the Omni Tool. The Omni Blade is forged by the omni tools onboard fabricator. A hot carbon based blade held in place by a mass effect field that is diamond hard. The blade is often tinkered with by the user to produce electrified and twin blade versions. The Engineer takes this trope to its logical extreme by having blade coated in burning hot plasma literally setting it ablaze.
* [[Hotter and Sexier]]: The game's launch trailer features a blurb from IGN that says ''Mass Effect 3'' is the sexiest game in the series, and a minute later we get glimpses of a sex scene featuring Ashley and Shepard. Also, one of the casual outfits that FemShep can wear around the ''Normandy'' is a sleeveless, low-cut, form-fitting cocktail dress.
* [[Humongous Mecha]]: Multiple battles take place on foot against Destroyer-class Reapers, which are 200-600 meter tall ships that are built out of the "lesser" species of each cycle.
* [[Hypocrite]]:
** The salarian dalatrass accuses Shepard of being a bully when the Commander, Victus
** {{spoiler|The asari government. They claim that the asari are the most advanced race in the galaxy due to inherent virtues, but they actually have the ''only'' intact Prothean Beacon in the galaxy
* [[I Am a Humanitarian]]: [[Exactly What It Says on the Tin|Cannibals]], husks created by fusing humans and batarians, regain health by eating fallen enemies (or allies).
* [[Impaled with Extreme Prejudice]]: Banshees pick you up and impale you ''on their arm'' if you let them get close. {{spoiler|One of them will do this to Rila, Samara's eldest Ardat-Yakshi daughter}}.
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* [[Incompatible Orientation]]: Samantha Traynor, a romance option for FemShep, is forced to let MaleShep down if he tries to make a move on her. Later, when Ken and Gabby are talking, Gabby has to tell Ken not to bother flirting with Traynor, since he is not her type.
* [[Infant Immortality]]: [[Averted Trope]] with the boy Shepard encounters during the escape from Earth. His escape shuttle gets blown up by a Mini-Reaper as it was lifting off.
* [[Ink Suit Actor]]: Martin Sheen (
* [[Insane Troll Logic]]: An indoctrinated (or possibly just crazy) hanar on the Citadel believes that, since the hanar worship the Protheans and the Protheans were turned into Collectors, that means that the Protheans served the Reapers. Therefore the hanar must serve the Reapers. Shepard even lampshades this when s/he hears this.
{{quote|'''Shepard:''' You BIG STUPID JELLYFISH!}}
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'''Tali:''' Very carefully. Turian brandy, triple-filtered, then introduced into the suit via an emergency induction port.
'''Shepard:''' ...That's a straw, Tali.
'''Tali:''' ''Emergency... induction... port.''
* [[Instant Awesome, Just Add Ninja]]: Cerberus Phantoms are described by the official site as "Goddamn ninjas on speed!".
* [[Interrupted Suicide]]:
** Subverted in the case of
** A Paragon interrupt allows Shepard to stop {{spoiler|Samara}} from killing herself in order to {{spoiler|protect her surviving daughter and uphold the Justicar Code}}.
* [[Interspecies Romance]]: With the entire galaxy falling apart because of the war, this becomes more apparent then ever among Shepard, the crew, and background characters.
* [[It Got Worse]]: The Reapers are no longer a looming future threat, they are ''here''.
* [[It Has Been an Honor]]: Before you set out on the final battle, you get a chance to talk and interact with all the crewmembers possible. At least half of the conversations end up using some variation of the phrase.
* [[It's Popular, Now It Sucks]]: In-universe, Joker kids about this concerning Cerberus
* [[Journey to the Center of the Mind]]: In this case,
* [[Kick the Dog]]:
** Just to make it one hundred percent clear who the bad guys are, a Mini-Reaper is shown shooting down unarmed civilian transports, one of which had a little boy on it.
** The Illusive Man presents himself as [[Necessarily Evil]] but still has a few moments of utterly needless cruelty. During the Mars mission, he
* [[Kick Them While They Are Down]]: Fallen allies in multiplayer can be revived, unless the enemy stomps and executes them. On higher difficulty, especially if the whole team is down, they won't do this and end the match early, forcing players to sit and wait until the revive meter runs out or [[Rage Quit]] and lose any experience for that mission.
* [[Kill All Humans]]: [[And I Must Scream|...or enslave them]], or [[Mind Rape]] them, [[Fate Worse Than Death|or turn them into piles of gray goo]], if the Reapers have their way.
* [[Killed Mid-Sentence]]: On Mars, an e-mail that was being typed right before the sender was killed, she types along complaining about someone then immediately switches to allcaps raising the alarm about the mess hall being vented... but doesn't finish in time.
* [[Killed Off for Real]]: [[Anyone Can Die]] means ''anyone
* [[Lag Cancel]]:
** Adrenaline Rush does not take you into [[Bullet Time]] for the multiplayer, but it still instantly reloads your weapon.
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{{quote|''[after Shepard chooses a '''{{color|blue|Paragon}}''' dialogue option]''
'''Cortez:''' When you put it that way, how can I say no?
'''Shepard:''' You can't.
** Among other things, [[Dumbass Has a Point|Conrad Verner]] seems to call out [[BioWare]] itself on [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-YsGwcnDGaw the switch to thermal clips] in ''[[Mass Effect 2]]'' and ''Mass Effect 3''.
** Conrad is also very sorry [[Ascended Glitch|he accused Shepard of pointing a pistol at him]], he was under a lot of stress.
** Vega and Cortez argue the merits of the Mako vs the Hammerhead
** Cortez mocks the logic behind setting up the armory on the command deck and not the shuttle bay.
** After saving Primarch Victus, he mentions Garrus retired to the battery, "Something about... 'calibrations'..." to which shepard replies "That Sounds like Garrus
* [[Last-Minute Hookup]]: Both for the player character and supporting cast.
** Shepard will have the opportunity to bed his/her love interest (even if it's a new romance) right before the attack to retake Earth.
** Provided they survived ''
** If you didn't romance either of them, Garrus and Tali are seen embracing when you walk in on them at the forward batteries. Tali says in the conversation afterwards (likely half-joking) that "This is just a fling, Vakarian. I'm only using you for your ''body''."
* [[Last-Name Basis]]:
** If Shepard and Dr. Chakwas decide to share another bottle of brandy, [[Lampshade Hanging|they note that neither of them has ever called the other by their first name.]] Chakwas feels using Shepard's first name would be a disservice to everyone she is fighting for... and if that makes no sense, it is just a lady's prerogative. Shepard can call her Karin though.
** Jacob mentions that {{spoiler|his girlfriend wants to name their baby after Shepard... as in, naming the kid Shepard}}. He intends to talk her out of it though.
* [[Last-Second Word Swap]]: Jack. Repeatedly.
* [[Last of His Kind]]: Javik, the [[Precursors|Prothean]] squad member from the ''From Ashes'' DLC pack.
* [[Late Arrival Spoiler]]: None less than the Xbox Live frontend is already spoiling the fact that From Ashes gives you a Prothean squad member.
* [[Leaning on the Fourth Wall]]:
** The kid in the beginning that says "You can't help me
** A scene that follows continues this, with Shepard having the option to express just that.
{{quote|'''Shepard''': It's hard enough fighting a war, but it's worse knowing no matter how hard you try, you can't save them all.}}
** Conrad references the save import bug from the second game,
* [[Left Hanging]]:
* [[Legion of Lost Souls]]: In a manner with the squads in multiplayer. They are ostensibly Systems Alliance units and operate under Alliance command, with most of their members being human soldiers and other military specialists, but they also include volunteers and mercenaries from a variety of other races, such as turians, asari, krogan, drell
* [[Like a Son to Me]]: {{spoiler|Anderson will refer to Shepard as either "son" (Male) or "child" (Female) after saying [[So Proud of You|how proud he is of what you have accomplished]]
* [[Limit Break]]: What krogan characters get in multi-player after killing three enemies in close succession with melee attacks. What exact bonuses are given [[RPG Elements|depends on your progression]].
* [[Literally Shattered Lives]]: If an advanced [[An Ice Person|Cryo skill]] is used on an enemy, they can be shattered into little ice chunks by shooting or punching them.
* [[Living Relic]]: Javik, the Prothean party member made available in the ''From Ashes'' DLC who slept from the previous cycle in a stasis pod. To him, the most advanced races in the galaxy are but primitive barbarians and, in the case of the salarians, a ''food source'' (
* [[Loads and Loads of Loading]]: Multiplayer has so many loadscreens, you'll wish they brought back elevators. It's possible to invite a friend to a game, have him accept, switch the game to public and have it fill up before he can join.
* [[London Town]]: London (and UK Alliance Headquarters) is hit several moments before the attack on the Vancouver-Seattle Megapolis, with the first trailer showing no less than eight Reapers walking all over it.
* [[Lost Forever]]:
** Completing Priority: Tuchanka will make many side quests on the Citadel impossible to complete. There is little to no indication of this in the game. See [[Point of No Return]] below.
** While most upgrades, weapons or sidequest objectives will become available for purchase at the Spectre Office store if you missed them during gameplay, the Shuriken SMG and Saber assault rifle do not.
* [[Lost Superweapon]]: The Crucible, an ancient anti-Reaper superweapon discovered in the Mars Prothean Archives at the beginning of the game.
* [[Luck-Based Mission]]: Multiplayer objectives can frequently be this. Sometimes you score and all the various items you need to activate/deactivate are placed in the same room and far from the enemies, other times you have to kill four [[Demonic Spiders|Banshees]] which all are heavily guarded by their Reaper allies.
* [[Luckily, My Shield Will Protect Me]]: Cerberus Guardians carry riot shields into battle. They are quite effective at soaking up damage; however, the shields can be got around with good tactics, good aim, or good use of powers. Or, if you have a big enough gun, they can be flat out ignored.
* [[Ludicrous Gibs]]:
** The remains of Cerberus' Troopers killed by Infiltrator Shepard's [[Sticky Bomb]] would fit better into a bucket than a body bag. Also applies to enemies killed with the 'Carnage' ability, [[Exactly What It Says on the Tin|naturally
** Large enough guns such as the Black Widow sniper rifle gib pretty much anything that lacks shields or armoring.
* [[Luke, I Am Your Father]]: Having been heavily implied in ''Mass Effect 2'', this game confirms that {{spoiler|Matriarch Atheyta is Liara's "father
* [[Macross Missile Massacre]]: The Hydra missile launcher, which is occasionally encountered in single player. Instead of firing one big missile, it fires a whole bunch of self-guided ones with three-stage explosives, making it equally useful for taking out bosses or swarms of standard [[Mook]]s.
* [[Mama Bear]]:
** {{spoiler|Jack, if she survived the suicide mission, is very protective of her students and has even cut back on cursing in front of them to provide them with a good mentor
{{quote|{{spoiler|'''Jack:''' Didn't think I'd ever care this much. But I won't let anyone hurt 'em. They're my kids. MINE
** {{spoiler|''Samara'', [[Offing the Offspring|of all people]], is a [[Mama Bear]] in this, assuming she survived ''Mass Effect 2''. She is perfectly willing to take on an entire building full of Banshees on her own in order to rescue her two remaining daughters
* [[Match Maker Quest]]: {{spoiler|Shepard can encourage EDI and Joker to become a couple and can do the same for Ken and Gabby}}.
* [[McNinja]]: Cerberus Phantoms. Also, drell characters from multi-player 'roll' like ninjas and get a speed bonus.
* [[Meaningful Echo]]:
** If Miranda survived the previous game, she will return and be searching for her missing sister. Shepard will caution her to be careful, to which she will respond "No promises
** Mordin gives us two of these. In the previous game, he told Shepard he sometimes fantasized that it wasn't his responsibility to work on the genophage that keeps Krogan population in check. He follows this up by calling it a fool's wish because "It had to be me. Someone else might have gotten it wrong." Later, as Mordin prepares ascends to the top of a collapsing tower to make certain the cure for the genophage is effective, he repeats this line, though this time without any regrets as to his course of action.
** Shephard and Legion have a flip where Shephard wishes Legion "Good Luck" and he responds "Acknowledged". They repeat it with the roles reversed near the end of the mission.
* [[Meaningful Name]]:
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* [[Mega City]]: The story starts in a city that is described as Vancouver, British Columbia; Seattle, Washington; and Portland, Oregon merged. Later references make it clear that you were in the "Vancouver" part.
* [[Messianic Archetype]]: This game really ups the ante on how much of [[The Messiah]] Shepard can be, particularly in the good endings.
* [[Meta Casting]]: {{spoiler|Buzz Aldrin, the second man on the moon, voices a space-focused grandfather in the post-credits scene
* [[Mighty Glacier]]: Krogan multi-player characters, who have much less agility than the other races but have far higher HP, Shields
* [[Mildly Military]]: Discussed if you have Ken and Gabby rejoin the crew. Engineer Adams, who unlike Ken and Gabby did not leave the Alliance to enlist with Cerberus, will praise both of their skills, but he will comment that Ken needs to learn to keep his mouth shut, and that he needs to remind Ken about proper military procedure and the chain of command.
* [[Mini-Mecha]]: Cerberus has ten-foot tall mecha at their disposal. You can actually kill the pilot before destroying the mech, letting Shepard run rampant in one.
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** How Cerberus must have [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K2FH3zV7G0Y found out] about the krogan female on Sur'Kesh.
{{quote|'''Garrus:''' Cerberus must have been tipped off. They got here too fast.
'''Liara:''' Every war [[The Quisling|has its traitors]].
** Mordin was Wrex's mole
* [[Monumental Damage]]: In the trailer, we can see a pretty busted up Big Ben Clocktower, and a Reaper just about to land on the London Eye. The tower does, however, manage to remain standing through the end of the game.
* [[Motivational Lie]]:
* [[Multiple Endings]]: Three basic flavors, with quite a lot of levels of success/failure, and at least as many end-game nonstandard game overs. All of them have their merits, but also have [[Sadistic Choice|rather nasty consequences
**
**
** {{spoiler|Synthesis: Shepard [[Take a Third Option|Takes A Third Option]] and disseminates all his/her nanotech into the Crucible, causing a chain reaction that forcibly converts all organic and synthetic life in the galaxy into [[The Singularity|cellular-level cyborgs]], [[Heroic Sacrifice|dying in the process]]. Since the Reapers' motive for the cycle no longer applies, they cease hostilities and leave
* [[Mundane Luxury]]: In the monastery for secluded Ardat-Yakshi, you can find a message from one of the inhabitants mentioning that somebody managed to smuggle in a copy of the vid ''Vaenia''. She is arranging a group watching and is practically bursting with anticipation. Dialogue in ''Mass Effect 2'' revealed that ''Vaenia'' is a love-story featuring two asari:
* [[My God, What Have I Done?]]: If Shepard {{spoiler|shoots Mordin before he rides up the elevator to the Shroud}}, Shepard stands in shock for a moment before turning away with a grimace and throwing the gun away as he walks off. Especially significant if it's a Carnifex, the model of pistol he gave you as a good faith gesture the first time you met.
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== Tropes N - Z ==
* [[Nail'Em]]: The Kishock Harpoon Gun, which will pin enemies to walls if its projectiles are charged enough.
* [[Neck Lift]]: Legion will do this to
* [[Nerf]]:
** The Phalanx Pistol went from a [[Hand Cannon]] that outdid the previous [[Hand Cannon]] with 1.5x more damage to being only slightly more damaging than the basic pistol. The previous Hand Cannon is now practically a [[Sniper Pistol]].
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* [[NGO Superpower]]: Cerberus has been upgraded to a fully-realized military force in this game, with its own fleets of cruisers and fighters, and enough military force to challenge the Systems Alliance throughout its colonies. {{spoiler|It also manages to launch a full-scale assault on the Citadel and come close to assasinating the Council, but Shepard afterwards remarks that that was probably the bulk of their total forces, and they would not be able to do anything of the like again}}.
* [[Nice Job Breaking It, Hero]]: Some of your choices throughout the trilogy and this game ''will'' catch up to you, and not always in a good way. Some specific examples:
**
**
** On the Citadel, Shepard can overhear two conversations
* [[Nightmare Sequence]]: Occurs several times throughout the game as a way for Shepard to actualize his/her guilt over leaving so many people behind on Earth during the evacuation.
* [[Ninja]]:
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* [[No-Holds-Barred Beatdown]]: Happens to {{spoiler|the Virmire survivor}} early in the first act (causing them to be out of commission for the rest of the first act), then later to {{spoiler|Shepard}} in the climax.
* [[No Indoor Voice]]: Batarians in MP.
* [[Nonstandard Game Over]]:
** Early in the assault on Cerberus Headquarters, the bad guys will try to vent the fighter launch bay into space. If you don't find a console to override the venting command in time, Critical Mission Failure.
** In the endgame, {{spoiler|if you do not drive the Illusive Man to suicide. and you do not take either of the two Renegade Interrupt prompts, he shoots you and you die
** {{spoiler|If you take too long to choose an ending, "The crucible has been destroyed
* [[No Points for Neutrality]]: Averted for the first time in the series: paragon and renegade choices, as well as other neutral actions, all stack [http://www.gamezone.com/products/mass-effect-3/news/bioware-details-mass-effect-3-s-new-reputation-system into a single reputation meter]. So, instead of determining ''if'' you can persuade someone by how high your paragon and renegade scores are, they merely determine ''how'' you do it.
* [[Nostalgia Level]]: Almost every planet you have visited in the previous two games, you either re-visit or can procure Assets from. Yes, that includes ALL the UNC missions in the Mako from the first game except for Luna (for obvious reasons).
* [[Not That Kind of Doctor]]: During the
** Garrus asks the same thing, but with him, he knows full well what Liara's doctorate is in, and the whole conversation becomes a [[Mythology Gag]] about Liara's wide-eyed naive alien-girl role in ''
{{quote|'''Liara:''' Oh. You were joking, weren't you?
'''Garrus:''' A little, but, at least you're catching on these days.
** Or with EDI:
{{quote|Liara: Oh. That was a joke, wasn't it?
EDI: No. A joke has a specific structure. This was "messing with you".
* [[Nuke'Em]]: Glyph, Liara's drone assistant from the Shadow Broker base, reveals that one colony detonated its nuclear arms on itself [[Taking You with Me|in an attempt to take the invading reapers down with them
* [[Oblivious to Love]]: If they are both assigned to the geth dreadnought mission, Garrus and Tali can discuss the turian chocolates that Dr. Michel gave to Garrus. Tali reads into it, but Garrus does not seem to realize that Dr. Michel might have been trying to send a signal.
* [[Odd Friendship]]: Tali and Legion actually refer to each other fondly, Tali in particular talks about her whole perspective being shifted because they kept in contact with eachother between ''
* [[Oh Crap]]:
** The Defense Committee has an excellent one as they see the first Reaper descend from the clouds. Made even better by the fact that they have finally realized that Shepard was right.
** The Cerberus [[Mooks]] on Mars have one when they finally realize that Shepard is with the Alliance reinforcements.
** Wrex has a lesser one on {{spoiler|Sur'Kesh; after losing his temper and attacking some salarian guards, he finds the laser sights of two salarian snipers on his face. Shepard intervenes before things get messy
** Garrus says those exact words
* [[Old Save Bonus]]: Taken [[Up to Eleven]]. The game tracks over a thousand variables from a save file that went through the previous two games, including:
** How many of your ''[[Mass Effect 2]]'' squadmates survived, and whether they were loyal. It can make certain character-centric missions in ''Mass Effect 3'' much easier.
** An imported Shepard (and, by association, his/her squadmates) all start at the level you ended ''[[Mass Effect 2]]'' with. A Level 30 character imported in gets 31 points to spend right off the bat.
** The game tracks whether or not you completed the previous game's downloadable content. If you completed
** If you managed to save {{spoiler|Kelly Chambers}} and followed a specific set of circumstances, you can get a bonus War Asset and bonus intel from a tropical fish bought in the previous game.
** Importing a completed save of the OS game ''Mass Effect: Infiltrator'' into a new ''
** Taken to the point of self-parody in the Conrad Verner sidequest, which can bring up three seemingly-meaningless quests from the first game - {{spoiler|Gavin Hossle, the ancient asari writings and the Elkoss Combine license}} - in rapid succession. Conrad is amazed. Oh, and the ending changes based on a ''fourth'' flag.
* [[Ominous Floating Spaceship]]:
** The Reapers. They manage to pull this off even when on the ground due to their habit of uncannily walking around on stilted legs, as if they weighed next to nothing.
** {{spoiler|The Crucible in the final showdown
** The first mission features a friendly variant, with an Alliance dreadnought floating over Vancouver duking it out with a Reaper dreadnought. Unfortunately, this just results in several city blocks being wiped out when the Alliance dreadnought is destroyed.
* [[Ominous Multiple Screens]]: Liara's office on the ''Normandy'' has these. They actually *follow you*.
* [[One Hit KO]]:
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** Brutes can crush the player if they get too close.
** Banshees grab you and kill you instantly, and they love flying about the battlefield spamming their biotic charge ability constantly. If they warp to right beside you, or block you from the only exit in running out, it does not matter how many shields you have, you die, period. Thankfully, [[Save Scumming|the game auto-saves before each fight]].
* [[Our Founder]]: There is a large statue of Jon Grissom in Grissom Academy.
* [[Outrun the Fireball|Outrun The Blast Wave]]: At the end of the game, {{spoiler|the ''Normandy'' is seen attempting to outrun the blast wave caused by the overload of the Mass Relays. It fails and is forced to make a crash landing on an unidentified planet}}.
* [[Pair the Spares]]:
** If they both survive to the end of the game and were not romanced by Shepard, the player can walk in on {{spoiler|Garrus and Tali}} hooking up.
** If they return to the ''Normandy'', and Shepard encourages them to enjoy life while they can, {{spoiler|Ken and Gabby}} can be found making out in the sub-deck. Both try to cover what they were doing and are aghast that they were caught.
* [[People Puppets]]: {{spoiler|After getting Reaper implants, the Illusive Man gains this power. He uses it to keep Shepard and Anderson still during his final monologue, then forces Shepard to shoot his/her mentor
* [[Pin-Pulling Teeth]]: A turian is seen biting off the pin of a grenade in the ending battle of the game.
* [[Pistol-Whipping]]: One of the available melee attacks. It is faster than using the Omni-Blade, but for obvious reasons, does less damage. The melee damage can be upgraded with the combat tazer attachment.
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** FemShep and a non-romanced Garrus.
{{quote|'''Shepard:''' [[Mass Effect/Heartwarming|There's no Shepard without Vakarian.]]}}
** This may happen with Kaidan and a Female Shepard
* [[Point of No Return]]: There are two points in the game where, once you complete that part, previous parts of the game become inaccessible.
** '''Tough:''' Once you complete Priority: Tuchanka, {{spoiler|many Citadel sidequests can no longer be completed, as the next time you visit the Citadel, it is attacked by Cerberus and the people to whom you report your success can no longer be accessed. Completing the Citadel mission in turn makes any as-yet-uncompleted missions on Tuchanka also unavailable}}.
** '''Merciful:''' Once you {{spoiler|make the assault on Cereberus HQ}}, the endgame begins. When you first try to move in, Hackett explicitly points this out, saying that the Reapers will take notice and the assault on Earth will have to begin.
* [[Porn Stash]]: Joker apparently has ''seven zettabytes''<ref>For the non-computer geeks out there, that's roughly enough data to fill ''fourteen Internets''.</ref> of explicit material stored somewhere in the ''Normandy'''s computers. According to a Cerberus information terminal you find in their HQ, this collection was ''weaponized'' by EDI and used to spam Cerberus electronic warfare division computers trying to gain control over the ''Normandy''... unless she was joking.
* [[Power Fist]]: Of the holographic variety, used by batarian characters to punch enemies across the room.
* [[Power Palms]]:
** Cerberus Phantoms have a gun integrated into their hand. The awkward stance they use to fire it makes their [[Sword and Gun|other weapon]] vulnerable to a [[Blasting It Out of Their Hands|certain other trope]].
** Kai Leng has it as well, since he is basically a Phantom on steroids.
* [[Pre-Ass-Kicking One-Liner]]: Shepard to the heavily damaged Reaper on
{{quote|'''Shepard:''' Tell your friends [[Badass Boast|we're coming for them]]!
''Shepard uses the targeting laser to call in a [[Death From Above|final strike from the fleet]]. Cue the Reaper exploding.''
'''Shepard:''' [[Bond One-Liner|Never mind, I'll tell them myself]].
* [[Press X to Not Die]]: If you cannot {{spoiler|talk the Illusive Man down in the finale}}, failure to hit the correct prompt results in this {{spoiler|after he kills Anderson}}. And yes, {{spoiler|he kills you too if you do not take the second prompt. Hope you like going through the dialogue again}}!
* [["Previously On..."]]: If you did not play either of the previous two games, there will be two video prologues explaining the story so far and the races of the galaxy.
* [[Punched Across the Room]]: Adepts and Vanguards have biotic heavy melee attacks
* [[Put on a Bus]]: Early in the game, the Virmire Survivor is critically injured and has to spend most of the first act recovering on the Citadel. Later, the player is given the option of bringing them back into the party or keeping him/her on the bus, in which case, they go join Admiral Hackett and become a war asset.
* [[Put the Laughter In Slaughter]]: Krogan multi-player characters, when they enter close combat. Also, Grunt has a disturbing tendency to sort of giggle as he kills things.
{{quote|'''Krogan PC:''' Hah! They're dead!}}
* [[Putting the Band Back Together]]: Of the five surviving members of Shepard's
* [[Pyrrhic Victory]]: Even the best possible ending is this as no matter what you do, {{spoiler|the mass relay network is destroyed}}. However, if you take your time to do the [[Sidequest|side quests]], the losses will still be somewhat less severe.
{{quote|'''Casey Hudson:''' If you just rip straight down the critical path and try and finish the game as soon as you can, and do very little optional or side stuff, then you can finish the game. You can have some kind of ending and victory, but it’ll be a lot more brutal and minimal relative to if you do a lot of stuff.}}
* [[The Quisling]]: {{spoiler|Udina decides to team up with Cerberus, and is responsible for the Cerberus raid on the Citadel, and can kill off most of the Council if you don't stop him
* [[Rage Quit]]: Multiplayer has experience and money earned for kills, completing objectives, and surviving waves. The player forfeits this if they quit, discouraging this trope.
* [[Reality Ensues]]:
** Kelly Chambers is not a badass soldier like Jacob, or a biotic genetically engineered goddess like Miranda. She is a psychologist clerk. {{spoiler|When Cerberus come for her, there is no fight. There is no battle. She is not able to get Shepard to help. She is asked if she is Kelly Chambers, and when she says yes, she is shot between the eyes from point blank range
** After seeing him/her shooting down 160 meter tall Space Cthulhus like they were nothing, the game has [[Player Character|Commander Shepard]] {{spoiler|finally take on one of those Sovereign-class Reaper ships you have heard so much about. [[Curb Stomp Battle|It goes about as well as you'd expect
* [[Redemption Equals Death]]: {{spoiler|Mordin sacrifices himself to cure the Genophage}}.
* [[The Red Planet]]: Mars is visited very early in the game.
* [[Regenerating Shield Static Health]]: The new health system encourages players to be more careful in combat as Medi-Gel is now needed to fill up the health bar after near-death, as well as extra [[Experience Points]] being given for picking up Medi-Gel past your carrying capacity.
* [[Relationship Values]]: Hidden, but present, most noticeably for Ashley and Kaidan: {{spoiler|at the [[Mexican Standoff]] at the Citadel, a perfect relationship with them results in them automatically trusting Shepard, while worse relationships require higher and higher persuade checks until finally the player has no choice but to kill them}}. A bug also causes Ken and Gabby's ambient dialogue to only trigger if you have a good relationship with Ashley.
* [[Required Party Member]]: Liara is required for Thessia and Eden Prime (assuming you downloaded ''From Ashes''), Tali is required for the first and last Rannoch missions, and EDI is required for the {{spoiler|assault on Cerberus HQ}}. In addition, party members are chosen for you until you finish the mission on Palaven.
* [[Restart At Level One]]: Averted if you have an [[Old Save Bonus]]: you ''can'' waltz into the game as the Level Thirty [[Badass]] who wiped out the Collectors. Just remember two things: the level cap is now ''sixty'', and given that the Collectors were just Reaper ''minions'', you will most likely need to reach it to defeat the Reapers themselves.
* [[Reveal]]:
** The Leviathan of Dis, the corpse of a genetically engineered organic starship which was mentioned in ''
** The final scene of the game reveals that {{spoiler|the Citadel is home to an AI, referred to as "the Catalyst
* [[Right for the Wrong Reasons]]:
** {{spoiler|Cerberus, for ''several'' reasons, as per the Illusive Man's orders. The Illusive Man's belief is that the Reapers don't want to destroy all sentient life
** {{spoiler|On the Citadel, you can hear Rupe Elkoss (the billionaire owner of Elkoss Combine) lambast the Sanctuary colony on Horizon, advising his conversational partner not to run to that "scam of a place" since he assumes that they are making money off people's desperation. He is right that it is a bad idea to go there, but instead because Sanctuary is a secret Cerberus abduction and testing facility
* [[Robot Dog]]: The Collector's edition will give Shepard one
* [[Robot Girl]]: {{spoiler|EDI becomes this after the team captures a robotic Cerberus infiltration unit
* [[Romance Sidequest]]: [[Up to Eleven]] in ''Mass Effect 3'', which will resolve all of the romantic conflicts generated in the first two games
* [[Running Gag]]:
** Just as in ''[[Mass Effect 1|Mass Effect]]'' and ''[[Mass Effect 2]]'', it is possible to punch out [[The Snark Knight|the snarky and duplicitous]] tabloid reporter Khalisah Al-Jilani, provided you make the interrupt.
** A minor event on the Citadel has Shepard seeing a disgruntled customer trying to get a refund from a shop. He has been trying since ''[[Mass Effect 1]]''! In a [[Pet the Dog]] moment, you can support him, finally getting him... his fifteen credit refund... for a toaster oven.
** In the [[Show Within a Show|Blasto radio drama]], Bubin of C-Sec prefaces everything he says with "Badassfully:".
* [[Sadistic Choice]]: Over the course of the game, you have to choose between rival factions; only if you have done the legwork in your [[Old Save Bonus]] will you be able to [[Take a Third Option]].
* [[Scenery Gorn]]: Everywhere at all times where there are Reapers.
* [[Scenery Porn]]:
**
** The mission to Menae, the moon of the turian homeworld Palaven, is essentially an excuse for a nice, long scenery porn run, as you wander down canyons that end at magnificent vistas of the burning planet, Reapers walking across the surface, and lovingly-detailed shots of crashed turian ships. The amount of destruction also overlaps with [[Scenery Gorn]].
* [[Schrödinger's Butterfly]]: After leaving {{spoiler|the Geth Consensus}}, Joker will posit the theory that ''you never left'', and that everything you are seeing is just a part of the simulation.
* [[Science Is Bad]]: Apparently, this is the {{spoiler|[[Aesop]] the Reapers embraced. Their goal is to protect organic life from being destroyed by their own creations, by allowing primitive civilizations to advance for millions of years until they reach the capacity to create AI. When that happens, the Reapers move in and wipe them out and (if they deem said species worthy) preserve them forever as Reapers themselves
* [[Scoring Points]]: In the multiplayer mode. Unlike most cases of this trope, the points have a purpose
* [[Self-Deprecation]]:
** Vega and Cortez bicker over the merits/flaws of the Mako and Hammerhead. Vega says the Hammerhead practically has armor made of paper, while Cortez complains that the Mako "handles like a drunk rhino."
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{{quote|'''Conrad:''' I dunno, seems like a backwards step to me. You can still let the guns cool down themselves though, right?
'''Shepard:''' Ehh, no. They had to remove the self-cooling systems to make room for where the clips go.
'''Conrad:''' You may as well just go back to limited ammunition!
* [[Sequel Difficulty Spike]]: According to BioWare, this game would be harder than the first two, with "Normal as the new Veteran." True to that statement, there is no longer a Veteran difficulty level; it progresses straight from "Normal" to "Hardcore
* [[Sequel Hook]]:
** [[The Stinger]] {{spoiler|reveals that the entire trilogy was being recounted to a child by his/her grandfather. He promises to tell them "one more story about the Shepard" before the screen fades. A message follows about Shepard "becoming legendary"
** Provided your War Assets were high enough, {{spoiler|Shepard wakes up at the end of the "Destroy" ending}}.
* [[Sequence Breaking]]: The Atlas Mech is supposed to be first encountered at the conclusion of the mission on Sur'Kesh, where it receives an introductory cinematic and serves as the boss of the mission. However, the Grissom Academy becomes available after the previous mission to Palaven, and the Atlas appears as a much more mundane mid-level boss. The DLC mission
* [[Sharpened to a Single Atom]]: According to party banter, the Phantoms are carrying monomolecular swords.
* [[Shockwave Stomp]]: The Vanguard's new unique power
* [[Shooting Gallery]]: In the Spectre's office on the Citadel.
* [[Shout-Out]]:
** One of the voice commands supported by the Kinect is [[Evil Dead|saying 'boomstick' to switch to a shotgun]].
** A group within the 103rd Marine Division called the [[Malazan Book of the Fallen|Bridge Burners]].
** Vega's toast, if you buy the grunts a round at the nightclub, based on a toast by [[Robert Burns]]: "[[Return to Zork|Here's to us! Who's like us?" "Damn few, and they're all dead!]]" (
** When approaching a geth dreadnaught, Joker says, [[Hunt for Red October|"The only way they'll find us is if we start singing the Russian National Anthem."]] And then gives an [[Aside Glance]].
** [[Jurassic Park|"I found a Kakliosaur skull preserved in amber, maybe you could clone it?"]]
** The Rachni mission is a direct homage to ''[[Alien (franchise)|Aliens]]''.
** Talk to Cortez enough, and he'll get some of his old fighter pilot buddies to fight for you. They're called "Rogue Fighter Pilots" in the terminal, but they left the Alliance on good terms, so how did they go rogue-[[Rogue Squadron|ohhhhhhhh...]]
** The [[Call Back|big stupid jellyfish]] in Kasumi's sidequest is named [[Percy Bysshe Shelley|"Zymandias"]]...
* [[Show Within a Show]]: [[Running Gag|Blasto the Hanar Spectre]] eventually seems to have had [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nyK8nopOwqs a full blown radio drama] made about him. Inspired by ''[[Lethal Weapon]]'', no less.
* [[Shut UP, Hannibal]]: In the game's launch trailer, the Illusive Man warns Shepard not to interfere with his plans. Shepard's response? "Go to Hell!"
* [[Sigil Spam]]: Cerberus, who badly abused this trope in ''Mass Effect 2'', now [[Up to Eleven|take it to the next level]]. The inside of their 'secret' bases, their weapons, their
* [[Slap Slap Kiss]]: If you romanced Jack in ''
* [[Slave Mooks]]: Though the Reapers have always had the husks, {{spoiler|it is eventually revealed that most Cerberus troopers are this too, as Cerberus managed to raise such a large army in the six month gap between the second and third games by kidnapping civilians and using Reaper implants to indoctrinate them
* [[Smash to Black]]: The last shot in the game ends like this before fading into the credits.
* [[Smug Snake]]: Kai Leng. Emphasis on "smug".
* [[Sniper Pistol]]: Gun customization means you can, well, [[Exactly What It Says on the Tin|add a sniper sight to your heavy pistol]].
* [[Sniper Rifle]]: Standard equipment, coming in models that offer armor-piercing capability and with attachments that let you see through smoke.
* [[Socialization Bonus]]: Your War Assets, which build up via both plot and sidequest, are assigned point values, the way they might be in [[Tabletop Games]]; Miranda Lawson, as an example, is worth 25 points all on her own. To win the final battle, you need an army worth (say) 1,000 points. However, each asset's value is modified by their "efficiency" rating, measured in a percentage that goes up with multiplayer victories: base War Asset value times the Efficiency percentage equals "Effective Military Strength
* [[Somebody Set Up Us the Bomb]]: Used on Sur'Kesh, during the extraction of 'Eve'. Shepard and co. call an elevator to head for the surface... only to find that Cerberus left a present. Naturally, everyone survives, except an STG [[Red Shirt]] standing too close when the doors opened.
* [[Someone to Remember Him By]]: {{spoiler|Ereba, the asari whom you possibly convinced to rekindle her relationship with her krogan boyfriend, is pregnant by the time of this game. Unfortunately, Charr dies fighting Ravagers and Swarmers during the war
* [[Something Completely Different]]: {{spoiler|The mission where you enter the geth consensus which does not include any fighting, but instead involves solving some (admittedly fairly simple) puzzles, wrapped up in a new visual style
* [[So Proud of You]]:
** If Shepard has the Spacer background, Hackett informs Shepard that his/her mother is still alive, promoted to Rear Admiral, working on the Crucible, and that "she's damn proud of what [s/he's] doing out there."
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{{quote|You did good, son/child. You did good. I'm proud of you.}}
* [[Space Battle]]: Quite a few happen over the course of the story, most referenced in passing or seen from a distance, but several put you right in the midst of it.
* [[Space Is Noisy]]: [[Hand Wave|Handwaved]]
* [[Spider Tank]]: Reaper Destroyers, the go-to heavy ground-based combat unit for their forces. It's roughly 1/4 the size of the actual Reaper ships, which still puts it far into [[Humongous Mecha]] territory.
* [[Spiteful AI]]: Comes in two flavors. The first is when the enemy refuses to end a multiplayer match early by killing off downed players, forcing them to either wait or [[Rage Quit]] and lose any experience points gained. The second is how most objectives are to eliminate specific powerful targets in a tight time limit, with the mission failing if you do not somehow survive the waves of [[Goddamn Bats]], [[Demonic Spiders]] and [[Elite Mooks]] brimming with [[Artificial Brilliance]] that you do not have time to take care of. The specific enemies typically hide on the other side of the map and you only have a minute to kill it.
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** The Scorpion (Kirrahe's pistol during the Sur'Kesh mission) shoots lower-powered versions of these.
{{quote|'''Garrus:''' How do ''I'' not have one of those?}}
* [[The Stinger]]: After the credits, [[The Cameo|Buzz Aldrin]] (the second man to set foot on the moon) voices a character known only as Stargazer, who, {{spoiler|in the [[Distant Finale|distant future]], [[The Storyteller|relates Shepard's exploits]] to a child
* [[Stop Being Stereotypical]]: Garrus and Tali can jokingly comment on the importance of giving "dextros" (
* [[Stop Poking Me]]: There is a console on Sur'Kesh that you can touch repeatedly to get these responses:
{{quote|Please don't touch that.
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Once more, the Salarian Union formally requests that you not touch that.
Fine! If you're so enamored of that object, then I suggest you get your own feces analyzer.
We've already been down that road. No more.
* [[Storming the Castle]]: The attack on Cerberus HQ.
* [[Story-Driven Invulnerability]]: Dr. Eva is impossible to kill during the sequence where you're chasing her due to her instantly regenerating shields.
* [[Stylistic Suck]]: In-Universe with ''Blasto 6''.
* [[Suddenly Voiced]]: '''[[Inverted Trope]]'''. Remember how Harbinger boasted and taunted at Shepard ''repeatedly'' in ''Mass Effect 2''? Despite being mentioned a few times and [[One-Scene Wonder|even appearing once]], he has ''no lines whatsoever'' in ''Mass Effect 3''.
* [[Summon Bigger Fish]]: When the heavy artillery does not make it to the fight with the Reaper on Tuchanka, you {{spoiler|go to an ancient krogan temple and start the device that calls the Mother of all Thresher Maws}}!
* [[Supporting Leader]]: Several, including Urdnot Wrex (or Wreav), the members of the Quarian Admiralty Board, and Primarch Victus as you try to get entire alien races to unite and assist Earth. Holding down the fort until these allies can show up are Admiral Anderson, who stays behind on Earth, and Admiral Hackett, who seems to be the de facto leader of the joint species fleet in the end.
* [[Suspiciously Similar Substitute]]: Several instances occur throughout the game, based on who lived and died in any one person's particular playthrough throughout the series. If certain squadmates from ''Mass Effect 2'' died in the suicide mission, other characters fill in for some of them where they are supposed to appear.
** If Mordin Solus died in the Suicide Mission in ''Mass Effect 2'', Padok Wiks (the Special Tasks Group commander on Sur'Kesh) assumes his role in the narrative, and can fulfill exactly the same role as Mordin. The game even calls attention to it: Joker takes to calling Wiks "Not-Mordin".
** If you did not spare the Rachni Queen in the first game, a heretofore-unmentioned Queen appears in the Rachni Hive and can also be recruited if the player chooses. {{spoiler|However, this has a nasty consequence: this Queen has been indoctrinated, and it and its children run rampant on the Crucible and cause several deaths before they are put down, giving a reduction to your War Assets}}.
** If Grunt did not survive the [[Suicide Mission]], his role is replaced by Urdnot Dagg, another krogan picked (by either Wrex or Wreav) to lead Aralakh Company. Unlike Grunt, however, {{spoiler|Dagg always dies at the end of the mission}}.
** If Legion did not survive the [[Suicide Mission]] or he was sold to Cerberus, his role in the Geth-Quarian War will be assumed by a nondescript "Geth VI" constructed in Legion's likeness. Shepard will even note that the VI looks very similar to the geth they retrieved in the previous game if Legion was never turned on. This does not count Legion's appearance {{spoiler|as a "Geth Assassin" at the Cerberus Base}} if you sold him previously.
* [[Sword and Gun]]:
** What Cerberus Phantoms are equipped with. However, [[Never Bring a Knife to a Gun Fight|you can]] [[Blasting It Out of Their Hands|just shoot the sword out of their hands]].
** The addition of the omniblade makes all Soldiers, Engineers, Infiltrators and Sentinels equipped with this combo.
* [[Take a Third Option]]:
** The conflict with helping out the krogan or sabotaging the genophage cure in order to garner salarian support for the war effort. Depending on your actions in previous games, as well as the choices you make in this one, you can still get support from both (albeit a little later with the salarians) {{spoiler|once Cerberus attacks the Citadel, and you end up saving the salarian councilor, they largely back you up}}.
** During the geth/quarian conflict, you are constantly forced to choose one side over the other, with both sides promising various things. Depending on what you did in previous games, Shepard can choose to save both races instead of letting one side or the other get wiped out. Which is pretty good for both races, not to mention for Shepard's war effort and struggle to find allies.
**
* [[Take My Hand]]:
** Shepard pulls a variation of this towards a traumatized little boy. In this case, the boy is not in any immediate danger beyond being on Earth as the Reapers invade, Shepard is simply trying to get the boy to trust him enough to let him take the boy to safety. The boy declines.
{{quote|''"You can't help me."''}}
** A more conventional example can be found while on the
* [[Take Up My Sword]]: {{spoiler|The task of developing and building the Crucible has been passed on through countless galacitc civilizations, each one contributing new discoveries about the reapers and new technological inventions to make it into a working weapon against the Reapers
* [[Taking the Bullet]]:
** At the conclusion of the Poisoned Medigel mission on the Citadel, {{spoiler|Conrad will do this for Shepard, complete with a dramatic slow-motion dive. If you completed Jenna's sidequest in the first game then [[Subverted Trope|he is not shot after all]]
** If he survived the Virmire mission in the first game, and Thane did not survive the suicide mission in the second game, {{spoiler|Major Kirrahe will take the bullet for the Salarian councilor during the Cerberus invasion of the Citadel}}.
* [[Talking the Monster to Death]]: If your Reputation is high enough ([[Guide Dang It|and you didn't miss any conversation options]]), you can convince {{spoiler|the Illusive Man}} to commit suicide instead of continuing to oppose you.
* [[Team Pet]]: KEI-9 in the Collector's Edition, who is a robotic dog that was left behind by an Alliance engineer during the ''Normandy'''s retrofit, and exists to walk around in the ship's shuttle bay and be referred to by Shepard as a "good dog".
* [[Technicolor Eyes]]: In addition to the regular eye colors, Shepard can have more exotic iris colors like white or [[Red Eyes, Take Warning|red]].
* [[Theme Naming]]: Prothean VIs. In addition to Vigil, we now have Vendetta (part of the Crucible project) and Victory (in the flashback to Javik's time).
* [[This Is for Emphasis, Bitch]]:
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** After the final fight with {{spoiler|Kai Leng}}: "This is for {{spoiler|Thane/Kirrahe/Miranda}}, you ''son of a bitch''!"
* [[This Is Gonna Suck]]: Major Coats's expressions after killing the husk and looking up at the Reapers screams this.
* [[This Is Sparta]]: Yes, it's in all caps in the game subtitles
{{quote|'''Wrex:''' MY NAME IS URDNOT WREX AND THIS IS MY PLANET!
* [[Those Two Guys|Those Two Girls]]:
** Westmoreland and Campbell, two guards on the ''Normandy'' who banter about whatever just went down on your mission.
** Should they survive
* [[Thrown Out the Airlock]]:
** Javik threatens to do this to Joker after being continually referred to as "[[Ascended Meme|Prothy The Prothean]]". He's also in favor of spacing Legion due to his views on synthetics.
** If you sabotaged the genophage cure in a gameplay where Wrex survived Virmine,
* [[Time Abyss]]: The Reapers have been active for ''billions'' of years.
* [[Tired of Running]]: Shepard
* [[Tomato in the Mirror]]: ....''Maybe
* [[Took a Level in Badass]]: Tabloid reporter Khalisah Al-Jilani has learned from her [[Running Gag|previous encounters]] with Shepard.
* [[Trash the Set]]:
* [[Tripod Terror]]: The Reapers may have more tentacles than that, but the apocalyptic sight of several of them slowly walking around London of all places and vaporizing everything with death rays [[War of the Worlds|leaves no doubt as to what are they supposed to be referencing]]. And in case you still doubt it, the deafening {{smallcaps|[[Hell Is That Noise|WHOOOOOOOOONNNNNNNNGGGGH]]}} sound they give off will reiterate it.
* [[Triumphant Reprise]]: {{spoiler|1=[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_CHyFqB3eqg "The Fleets Arrive"]}} is one of the ''Mass Effect 1'' [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yVm_ljDSdwA&feature=player_detailpage#t=69s Main Theme] - the music which plays as the ''Normandy SR1'' heads ''out'' through the Charon Relay [[Book Ends|on the way to Eden Prime]].
* [[Trope Overdosed]]: For a while, the Main page had 20 tropes on it from only a minute long teaser with one line. That amounts to a Trope every '''3 seconds'''. During that time, there was also a Headscratchers page, a WMG, a Quotes wiki, and has been the subject of an edit war over those same tropes and, clearly, a YMMV page.
* [[True Companions]]: If you have done things right over the past two games and DLCs, you will be marching against the so far undefeated Reaper threat with those [[Fire-Forged Friends|who have gone through hell with you]] and will give their all to make the final push.
* [[Unexpected Shmup Level]]: Some portions of the game have Shepard manning a turret to blast away at massive enemies, or acting as door gunner on a drop shuttle. Once even both at the same time.
* [[Unexpected Successor]]: If he survived the events of
* [[The Unfought]]: {{spoiler|Since ''Mass Effect 2'', Harbinger was built up as the [[Big Bad]] of the series, and is stated to be personally leading the Reaper attack on Earth. However, the closest you get to fighting him is him blasting you with a laser as you rush towards the relay to the Citadel
* [[Unique Enemy]]: The {{spoiler|Legion Assassin}} enemy, which is encountered during Priority: Cerberus Headquarters if {{spoiler|Legion was given to Cerberus in ''Mass Effect 2''}}. Also, to an extent, the {{spoiler|Jack}} and {{spoiler|Morinth}} enemies encountered during Priority: Cerberus Headquarters and Priority: Earth, respectively. These two enemies are just named Phantom and Banshee enemies with no difference beside name though.
* [[Use Your Head]]: Krogan player characters in multiplayer use head-butting as their "weak" melee attack, in place of the [[Pistol Whip]] or gun butt of non-krogan characters.
* [[The Usual Adversaries]]: Cerberus. The Reapers are the main threat, and their Husks are the primary mooks you have to fight, but Cerberus hounds Shepard and the ''Normandy'' crew every Goddamn step of the way.
* [[The Very Definitely Final Dungeon]]: {{spoiler|The end game essentially starts with the assault on the Cerberus HQ, but the final battle takes place on Earth, with the final confrontation being on the Citadel
* [[Video Game Cruelty Potential]]: If you saved David Archer from Project Overlord
* [[Video Game Cruelty Punishment]]:
** If you chose to betray Samara for Morinth in ''[[Mass Effect 2]]'',
** Sending Legion to Cerberus instead of activating him {{spoiler|makes him come back as a Geth Assassin in a Cerberus base raid. This also makes you unable to end the geth/quarian conflict without genocide}}.
** If you chose not to support the salarian teams on Virmire back in the first game and thus did not save Captain Kirrahe, his replacement in this game lacks his willingness to trust or support Shepard, meaning that the salarian STG will not defy the dalatrass in order to help against the Reapers if the genophage is cured.
** Not responding to the distress call at Grissom Academy {{spoiler|allows Cerberus to capture Jack and convert her into a Phantom with indoctrination
** Sabotage the genophage cure? No need to worry if Wreav leads Clan Urdnot. If Wrex survives
* [[War Is Hell]]: The game has near endless examples of the trauma the Reaper war has already inflicted going on in the background.
** The game opens with Shepard stating that "[[Anyone Can Die]]" in a war, driven home by the little boy's shuttle being destroyed by a Reaper as it tries to flee, traumatizing Shepard.
** A senile old woman on the Citadel who keeps trying to get in touch with her son, a soldier who "hasn't called in a while" because he is in an active war zone. The asari clerk she is talking to tries to remind her that they have already had this conversation many times, but the woman's senility not only makes her forget that she has already been told there is no news, but she also begins to incorporate the asari into the memories that she ''does'' have.
** An asari commando who killed a crying girl to prevent her from giving away their position, and keeps begging for a gun {{spoiler|so she can put a bullet in her own head}}.
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** One girl in the refugee camp stands patiently near a converted information kiosk, because her parents said they would meet her there, even though they were on different escape shuttles. The turian on duty knows full well that her parents are not going to make it, but cannot bring himself to tell her. She slowly works it out herself anyway, and resolves to wait for them all the same.
** It is shown through the interaction with squad members as many of them get reports of their families being killed or worrying about news of that, homeworlds destroyed, etc. And the strain that it puts on Shepard is very noticeable.
* [[The War Room]]: The ''Normandy'' comes with a very in-depth one that allows players to keep track of their war assets.
* [[Weak Turret Gun]]:
** [[The Engineer]] gets one of these they can throw into position, and see through walls.
** The Cerberus Engineers can deploy them as well; in a subversion, they are quite powerful and tough to destroy.
** Female Quarian and Geth Engineers can also use one in multiplayer. The Quarian one is offensive, the Geth one can restore some shields.
* [[We ARE Struggling Together!]]: Despite the Reaper invasion, some of Shepard's potential allies are trying to kill each other. Shepard will need to resolve their issues to get their support.
* [[Wham! Episode]]: The Thessia mission. {{spoiler|Not only does the homeworld of the galaxy's most prosperous species fall, it turns out that the asari owe their prosperity to Prothean technology that they have been hoarding to themselves, in blatant violation of their own laws against withholding such technology. For the first time in the whole series, Shepard flat-out ''fails'' thanks to Kai Leng's dirty tricks. It is very quiet on the Normandy afterwards
* [[What Happened to the Mouse?]]:
** During the mission to Sur'Kesh, Cerberus attacks the STG facility and both Mordin and Shepard's squad mention that Cerberus must have been helped by a [[The Mole|mole]] in STG to get there that quick, but this is never brought up again later and whoever it was remains unrevealed.
** On the mission to Benning, Admiral Hackett explains that Cerberus is officially denying their involvement and saying that the personnel involved are rogue operatives. Hackett states that this time he is actually inclined to believe Cerberus, since wanton destruction is not their usual style (They normally have ''some'' goal, no matter how obtuse or abhorrent it might be). After this mission, the idea of rogue Cerberus agents, or what they might have been planning, is never brought up again.
* [[What the Hell, Hero?]]: No matter how you resolve the genophage situation, someone is going to chew you out for it:
** If you cure the genophage, {{spoiler|the salarian dalatrass emails you and explains that she will withhold Salarian Union suport from the Crucible since you have just doomed the galaxy to another Krogan Rebellion after the Reapers have been dealt with}}. {{spoiler|However, depending on your actions in prior games, the rest of the salarians decide to support you, especially for saving the salarian councilor}}. If you sabotage the cure, {{spoiler|Mordin catches on to what you are up to and expresses indignation that Shepard will throw all that work away for a backroom deal with the dalatrass}}. He can, however, be persuaded to come around to your viewpoint depending on who is in charge of the krogan clans and who survived the mission so far. If Wrex is leader, and you sabotage the cure, and you completed his family armor quest in the first game, he {{spoiler|rails at you for being two-faced when he confronts you on the Citadel}}.
* [[What You Are in the Dark]]: The Salarian Dalatrass offers the full aide of the Salarian Union in building the Crucible, provided you sabotage the Genophage cure. She specifically points out that nobody will know what you did, as the countermeasures they have in place will initially make it look like the cure was successful, and when the continued presence of the Genophage is discovered it will look like a good-faith error. {{spoiler|Depending on which characters have survived this and past games, and which decisions you make here, your complicity ''can'' be discovered, leading to [[What the Hell, Hero?|a severe criticism of Shepard]]}}.
* [[Where Does He Get All Those Wonderful Toys?]]: Garrus when he sees Kirrahe's sticky grenade launcher.
* [[Where It All Began]]:
** The
** The finale {{spoiler|takes place on the Citadel, on the underside of where the first game ended, once again trying to open the arms
* [[Won't Work On Me]]: Humanoid enemies can [[Unnecessary Combat Roll|roll]] to negate a power's effects.
* [[Working with the Ex]]:
** Shepard and Liara
** Potentially applies to Tali or Garrus, if you pursued one of them in the second game and choose to dump them in ''Mass Effect 3''.
* [[Workout Fanservice]]: James Vega does tons of pull-ups. This is even part of a [[Ho Yay]] joke with Steve Cortez, who is openly gay, and Vega comments slyly, "''You know you love the show.''"
** A scene involving Jacob Taylor when he does crunches. Kasumi loves to point out "Mmmmm, crrrunches. Lots of crrunches."
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* [[Your Cheating Heart]]:
** If you romanced the Virmire Survivor or Liara in the first game and someone else in ''[[Mass Effect 2]]'', the infidelity ''will'' be addressed. This will also apply to any ''Mass Effect 2'' love interests, except Jacob, if you did not romance anybody in the first game.
** If you romanced Jacob in
* [[Your Head Asplode]]: Headshots have become cathartically more interesting. Krogan characters can sometimes get the same result by headbutting people. Batarians can do so ''reliably'' with their Power Fists.
* [[Zerg Rush]]:
** The final space battle is basically this. You need strength in sheer numbers to stand a chance against the technologically superior Reaper forces.
** Hammer Force attempts a mad rush
* [[Zombie Apocalypse]]: When not [[Brainwashed and Crazy|Indoctrinating]] the people, the Reapers will mutate existing species into their footsoldiers. The previous games showed us the Husks (human) and the Collectors (the Protheans), but this game introduces Cannibals (batarians with an [[Arm Cannon]] [[Body Horror|made of a human]]), Marauders (turians), Ravagers (rachni), Banshees (asari) and Brutes (krogan/turian hybrids). {{spoiler|Learning and controlling the process (in turn giving them control of Reaper forces, or so they hope) turns out to be Cerberus' primary goal}}.
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