Salarian
The salarians are a fictional extraterrestrial humanoid species in the Mass Effect multimedia franchise developed by BioWare and published by Electronic Arts. Originally introduced in the 2007 tie-in novel Mass Effect: Revelation, salarians are a warm-blooded amphibian species with a hyperactive metabolism, which makes them think, talk, move and act faster than most species in the Mass Effect universe. Salarian characters have appeared in most Mass Effect games, mostly playing supporting roles but with major roles on some occasions. These include Mordin Solus, Major Kirrahe, Dalatrass Linron, Padok Wiks, and Councilor Valern, among others. Salarians are a playable race in the multiplayer modes for Mass Effect 3 and Mass Effect: Andromeda.
Due to their hyperactive metabolism, salarian lifespan is relatively short when compared to other Mass Effect alien races, usually not living for longer than 40 years. Salarians are a haplodiploid egg-laying society, in which unfertilized eggs produce males and fertilized eggs produce females, which along with their strict societal norms led to the species being 90 per cent male. Salarian females are usually cloistered on their planets, usually holding positions of power.
Salarians are Mass Effect's version of gray aliens, a common archetypal image of an intelligent extraterrestrial non-human creature and an iconic space exploration trope.
Concept and design
According to Mass Effect's art director Derek Watts, the first thing BioWare's art team did, was write a short paragraph describing what they wanted to achieve with the race before designing an alien race. For salarians, the designing process started with the gray alien sci-fi trope with giving it a Mass Effect twist. After the initial phase, this job was passed onto concept artists, which divided the process into slightly more malleable phases.Associate art director Matt Rhodes compared salarian approach to the Japanese and found great inspiration in them. The salarians were pictured as "warrior poets" and with the concept of some big dark gray alien eyes created a sense of tranquility. This led to softening their appearance, making them seem less threatening when compared to the more imposing krogan or turian. Final design of their face featured facial characteristics of gray aliens including the big dark eyes, triangular face and long mouth. Later, the art team decided to add some horns on the top of the head to help differentiate them from the classic version of the trope. In order to create more variation in alien faces Derek Watts came up with the idea of facial tattoos. This helped differentiate salarian characters from each other.
Due to animation restrictions, the bodies of most alien races were designed to remain humanoid. For the salarian body, artist Sum Kim added concave chest to the salarians. This was later used as a design element for salarian clothing. Salarians usually add some sort of tubing in their clothes in order to make their chests appear less concave and fit in with the rest of the alien species. In an interview with Game Informer, Matt Rhodes made a simile between this common practice in their clothing and "a bald man wearing a toupée". With a hood and a sort of ring being put in place to try to make their chests less concave several other ceremonial dressings were designed.
Attributes
Biology
The salarian homeworld of Sur'Kesh is filled with large oceans and landmasses covered in flora. Sur'Kesh is known for its humid climate and lush vegetation, leading to an abundance of life and a high biodiversity, akin to that of Earth's rainforest regions. Salarian desire for scientific discovery drove the species to explore every aspect of their environment, allowing them to thrive in it without damaging its ecosystems. Salarians regularly maintain the areas near major cities, ensuring light passage towards the ground level and the cleanliness of the roads that traverse through the planet's abundant jungles.Salarian physical appearance is usually described as reptilian and skinny, sharing great resemblance with the aforementioned gray aliens. Emma Kidwell from Polygon said the salarians "resembled the traditional gray aliens, with their large eyes", also calling them "incredibly skinny". Louis Kemner, writing for TheGamer, also highlighted their resemblance with gray aliens, calling them "the ultimate alien stereotype as humans understand it". Kirk Hamilton from Kotaku took a different approach, calling them "reptilian" and emphasizing their short lifespan. Ultimately, salarians are described as "gray aliens, but with a nearly concave torso and dog-like legs" by Mass Effect's art team.
Due to their hyperactive metabolism, salarians are able to process emotional and biochemical changes quickly, allowing them to think and act faster than most other races; and live on just one hour of sleep. The main drawback of this high-speed metabolism is their short lifespan. The salarian species is known to be of haplodiploid nature: unfertilized salarian eggs become male, while fertilized salarian eggs become female. Salarians are known to possess a photographic memory, which has proven itself integral to their predilection towards intelligence gathering and spycraft. They are an androgynous species, barely experiencing any sexual dimorphism, with no notable secondary sexual characteristics. According to former lead character artist Herbert Lowis, during the development of Mass Effect: Andromeda, the team originally played with the idea of adding secondary sexual characteristics to female salarians, but ultimately rejected it in order to remain consistent with the already established Mass Effect lore.
Culture
Salarians tend to be practical and unsentimental, making them prone towards making tough decisions and sacrifices when they believe it's for the greater good. This mindset has contributed to their renowned reputation as technological pioneers, usually serving as the galaxy's main source of scientific advancement. The salarians typically avoid engaging in conflict unless they perceive it as a direct and significant threat to their interests. They view formal declarations of war as inherently unwise and hold a deep aversion towards the concept of waiting for an enemy's first strike. Due to their advanced infiltration capabilities, the salarians have historically struck preemptively and without warning in every conflict they've participated.Salarians experiment no concept of love as humans understand it. They have strict and complicated societal rules, in which sexuality is used strictly for the means of reproduction, with no romantic interest involved. Salarians follow ancient social trditions in which egg fertilization occurs after months to years of negotiations between clan leaders as a means of political and dynastic alliance. No salarian would even dare to question these traditions. Due to their elaborate administrative system, salarian naming is very complex. A full salarian name is composed of the name of their planet, duchy, barony, fiefdom, family clan and their given name in that order.
Society
The salarians have a centralized government called the Salarian Union. According to the Mass Effect codex, an ingame lore compilation, it is "a labyrinthine web of matrilineal bloodlines, made through political alliances". Their political network is further split into smaller entities: fiefdoms, baronies, duchies, planets and marches. These work similarly to how noble families distributed land in medieval Europe. Their society is also divided into extensive salarian clans, which are further divided into concentric circles of relatives. The first circle usually contains no more than 100 members and is composed of closer relatives. However, because every circle is bigger than the one that preceded it, the fourth or fifth circle is usually composed of more than a million individuals.Males constitute the majority in the salarian society. However, political power in the Salarian Union is dominated by millions of planet cloistered Dalatrasses, a group of political head of clans who are female. Every area of the Salarian Union is ruled a by a Dalatrass. Due to this secluded system of all-female elites, other sectors of salarian society are male-dominated. It includes positions of power in fields of science, military or business.
Military
The salarian military works similar to the western volunteer militaries. The salarians prioritize advanced technology and stealth over sheer firepower, maintaining a fleet of generally smaller, high-tech spaceships designed for espionage and camouflage. They instead decide to divert their investments towards their intelligence service. As a consequence of this, Salarians always are the first ones to attack, without warning their opponents.The Salarian Union's military intelligence service is mainly composed of the Special Tasks Group, an organization of intelligence field agents that work in small and independent groups trying to fight problems such as terrorism, assassination attempts, infiltration, etc. Because of its strategic importance, the STG is supported and monetarily well-founded by the salarian government. It was also used as the basis for the Council's SPECTRE program, an intergalactic intelligence group with almost no limitations imposed on their actions.
History
The salarians were the second race to ever reach the Citadel which is a massive space station that is the capital sector of Citadel Space. Together with the asari, they co-created the Citadel Council, that serves as the main governing body of Citadel Space.2000 years before the events of Mass Effect, a hive mind of space-faring hyper-intelligent spider-like insects, the rachni, was encountered by a group of salarian scientists. They violently captured the scientists and reverse engineered their space-flight technology. This began a 300-year-long bloody conflict between the rachni and the citadel races. In this conflict, the rachni seemed unstoppable. In a desperate attempt to turn the tides in the war, a salarian initiative would seek the uplifting of the krogan, a race of warmongering reptiles who had destroyed their planet in a thermonuclear world war. Their initiative was successful and the rachni were driven to extinction.
However, due to their rapid growth rate, the krogan began expanding planet by planet in order to meet their needs. The krogan would eventually attack the asari colony of Lusia, starting a conflict between them and the council of races known as the Krogan Rebellions. A set of massive battles started between the warmongering krogan and the turians, which led turians to seek help from the salarians in order to put a definitive end to the conflict. The salarians manufactured a massive biochemical weapon that would make the krogan nearly sterile. The salarians originally envisioned the bioweapon as a deterrent but the turians used it. Eventually, krogan numbers greatly decreased, which would bring about their eventual surrender. During the Krogan Rebellions, the SPECTRE program would be created with Beelo Gurji who was a salarian as its first member.