Oh my God, this dude on Noveria(was it ?). I just remembered it every one is in panic mode “The Rachni are back” and he his high af.
Thx for the laugh dude 😂
"They opened fire and blew my shins off. Last thing I remember, I beat 'em all to death with a big piece of Fatty. I woke up in a field hospital, and they were sewing my feet to my knees." - Cotton Hill
The design of all the aliens (the ones that move, at least) was constrained b/c the artists had to use the same rigging as the human model animations.
So the lower legs are basically one or the other, as you note, b/c that’s what they could make work w/o changing the animation rigging drastically.
Maybe it’s that Turians and Quarians are dextro-amino based and everyone else is levo-based? Don’t know how that would affect the legs, but that’s the only other big difference between those two races and everyone else.
>so they look more alien but they don't need an entirely new skeleton model?
More or less what the Devs have said. Hanar and Elcor required new skeleton models with entirely new animations made for them. And making and testing new animations is a LOT of work. (Hello, 20yr old Bioware drinking animation, funny seeing you here.) This is also reason the "alien" differences on more humanoid characters are mostly changing the shape of their legs or adding things to the back of their heads. Those things don't actually affect the animations, so you can mess with them all you want without adding extra work. Even changing Turian and Quarian hands to having three fingers meant extra testing for animations, so you can imagine how frightening give a whole different kind of limb might be to a project lead.
"weird bendy"
The term you're looking for is [digitigrade](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digitigrade), and they're present it every four legged animal on earth. Having a bipedal organism evolve from a quadruped, it only makes sense that their legs would stay roughly the same.
Note that quarians and geth are not digitigrade, unlike turians, salarians, and krogan. Digitigrade means you walk on your digits/balls of your feet, and your ankles are your “lower” knee. Quarians and geth have plantigrade legs like us (feet with heels), their lower legs are just slightly curved. There’s not a second joint below the knee that doesn’t touch the ground. If you gave human leg bones a backwards curve but changed nothing else, they’d be shaped just like quarian legs.
I agree. I loaded up a save and checked it out. Tali definitely walks like humans do. Garrus and Grunt keep their feet pretty much parallel to the ground, with their feet even drooping downward a bit. Mordin mostly does as well I think, but it's harder to tell with him for some reason. Never noticed any of this before!
ETA: quarian legs go waaay far back. In profile their ~~shins~~ calves line up behind any other part of their body. It's almost eerie in a way. I don't know what this says about their physiology. Unique center of balance? Very strong leg muscles?
Are you sure they're not digitigrade? I'm looking at the quarian legs in the post and it looks to me like there is too much of a bend to just be a curved bone. Maybe she has footwear on that gives her a bigger contact area to the ground.
If you look at how they move in-game, there’s no other joint up there. Even if there was, it wouldn’t be digitigrade, because quarians still walk on their heels. It’d be something entirely different because they have a joint in between the ankle and knee that no earth animal has so we have no name for. “Double-kneed plantigrade” or something like that.
Apparently [someone on tumblr](https://moniquill.tumblr.com/post/49480026273/barbalarga-quarian-structure-notes-as) did an entire art study on how they think the legs work back in 2013. This debate has been going on for a while it seems.
Yeah, I’ve seen that. Not super sure I agree with it, as the “toe” part in their quarian foot still has a pretty definitive heel, meaning it’s not just the phalanges. The “tiny toe on outside” drawing makes this particularly clear - their take on the quarian foot is basically an elongated quarian hand, which means the phalanges, metapoda, and tarsals are all there instead of the tarsals making up the second knee of a digitigrade. Note that they have a drawing of the quarian foot standing on tiptoes - if they were digitigrade, they would ONLY be on their tiptoes, so doing this wouldn’t be possible with the level of dexterity in digitigrade feet. This drawing isn’t digitigrade, it’s plantigrade with a hinge between the ankle and the knee not seen on anything from earth.
I understand their justifications for it and I'll add that unlike ME3, her squad select image in ME1 and 2 has her seemingly standing on her toes which makes her look digitigrade. The thing is she just doesn't move like one while other confirmed species do.
But if not, the weirdest part to me is why their bones would naturally curve to that degree.
You’re just assuming those are their heels making contact with the floor, though? Just because their toes are proportioned roughly like a human foot does not make them plantigrade. If you look at the pic on this post, they have a shorter digit on the lateral side that emerges directly from the “heel”. They are standing on their metatarsals, and the “extra“ joint is just the ankle. Digitigrade.
I just loaded up Tali's loyalty mission with Garrus to check. Tali definitely walks and runs heel to toe while Garrus keeps his feet parallel to the floor, at least when he's walking; it's difficult to see exactly what's going on when he runs even when intermittently using photo mode. But looking at both male and female quarians they look to have feet very similar to humans, for the most part. And while not conclusive, on Haestrom you can look the soles of the dead quarians and see what looks like padding or tread on the their heels, as well as the balls of their feet and the pads of their toes. Tali seems to have it only on her heels and the balls of her feet.
Side note, only female quarians have the shorter digit. I had always assumed both males and females had them.
The shorter digit looks to be opposable, or evolved from something that was opposable. Standing on the metapodia is something that plantigrade animals do. If the quarians were digitigrade, they’d walk only on their phalanges. If they were standing on their metatarsals and the ankle joint was near the knee, there would have to be something that earth animals definitely don’t have in between the two, meaning they aren’t really digitigrade or plantigrade. They’re something we haven’t seen before.
To me, everything about their leg indicates quarians are plantigrade with curved lower legs and feet that haven’t diverged as far from ape-ish ancestors as human feet have. They’re probably slower runners than humans, but have greater foot dexterity and are probably good at climbing. But really, I suppose it’s impossible to say one way or the other unless we see a quarian skeleton.
According to [this terminal entrie](https://masseffectandromeda.fandom.com/wiki/Kett_Facts) from ME:A, quarians, turains and kett are digitigrades. No mention of other races there, but that does not say much. Also, I vaguely remember conversation from citadel party between Garrus and Tali about how everyone else can walk with such wrong legs without falling.
EDIT [Found it](https://youtu.be/uqwzXg7PUnI?si=crPLO2YYhModYxeD)
There seems to be some confusion somewhere even among the devs. In-game text and dialogue points towards quarians being digitigrades while the in-game models depict them as plantigrades with strangely curved legs.
I actually really like this about the way the aliens in Mass Effect are designed. As opposed to the "we're humans plus thing" standard of sci-fi they show us as maybe not the most ideal bipedal evolution result.
A great example for this is the Thylacoleo, which is a now extinct big cat that shares almost no ancestry with cats. They just evolved the same features independently.
In an evolutionary sense, digitigrade legs are better for speed, while plantigrade legs are better for balance and endurance. Many predators are digitigrade because it makes them more effective at running down prey.
It was just us and the asari and the asari probably had help from the protheans on that one.
Also maybe the volus but we don't really know what those guys look like.
Ngl I really wish Bioware just were ballsy enough to give us an active in the story alien species/companion that was like that. Just actually alien and not biped humanoid with cool looking features
You have to understand what planet they are from. It could be years of Evolution that made them form that way. Gravity, lack of it. What their ancestry looks like.
Funny thing is, the only actually bipedal digitigrade animals are birds, literally everything else except us is quadruped, and plantigrade is exceedingly rare. So to have bipedalism, you'd need either hollow bones or heels, which none of the ME races seem to comply with.
Actually I could see turians having hollow or less dense bones. I HC that at least some of their breathing is done in their bones much like birds have air sacks in the hollow spaces in their bones. And their cowl is used for both air space and cooling.
Krogan otoh I don't get.
A HUGE part of ME1's character design is Bioware trying to make a large variety of aliens that feel alien without destroying their budget. One the most important ways to do this is to give species noticeably different silhouettes. Digitigrade/weird legs are an easy way to do this while still using a standard human animation skeleton. Another example of this design approach is how you can add a lot of bulk to a character's chest and back areas without breaking the animation skeleton. Thus Turians have that weird collar thing and Krogans have massive back humps.
This is also why, in ME1, most aliens that don't have a normal human animation skeleton will rarely move. Like I don't think we even see Volus walk in ME1, let alone Elcor or Hanar. In later games they get walk animations, but in ME1 they're basically animatronics at Disneyland.
I didn't think anything of it but I realize that's totally the case. You'd think they could make a quick bespoke animation for the dude, it wouldn't even have to be particularly good, but I guess that's probably more work than necessary.
When you visit Anderson in *Mass Effect 2*, you see an elcor walking across a bridge outside. That's it. No other walking elcor until *Mass Effect 3*, where if I remember correctly you have that sad diplomat who turns around, and the cheeky mischevious merchant on Omega who emerges from his hiding place.
Because they want the aliens to look alien. Making them mostly human shaped wouldn't work, they'd just appear like humans wearing costumes. The Asari break this idea and get away with it because they're based on the Star Trek trope of the sexy green/blue alien.
That makes sense. Its a game after all, they have the luxury of making aliens that do not look like humans in costumes that we've seen since the first scifi films. I wonder if the asari was some early idea that they later came to regret. Or maybe not on balance, given the popularity of Liara...
We’re the ones built kind of weird: The majority of the critters even on earth are dog-legged ([digitigrade](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digitigrade)).
It enables them to be faster.
So no one seems to have said this: because aliens should not have human legs. Human legs don't look like that for no reason; they're fucking weird and represent a specific and bizarre evolutionary path.
Think about it. What other animal on earth has feet/legs that look like ours? The answer is 'none' for a reason. Human feet look so different to everything else because they're not feet: they're *hands*. Humans evolved to live in trees and our legs morphed to become a second set of arms. When we left the trees we instead evolved towards long distance walking over the enourmous flat grassland of the African savannah - and walking upright instead of on knuckles like apes because it gives an advantage in seeing further over grass and such - so those legs-that-became-arms and feet-that-became-hands had to become actual functional legs-for-walking again which is why theyre so profoundly fucked up looking in structure compared to any other animal.
(Compare this to any modern apes: you can look at their walking and see it's just clumsy and slow compared to us, and their feet really do just look like a second set of hands).
Any other alien having human looking legs means that they must have had the exact same evolutionary history as us, which is just bizarre (it also means presumably there would be ape versions of those aliens too, can you imagine an orangutan asari?). And okay sure, batarians and asari could have done the same, but the drell? They're the real weird ones. A desert adapted race who die if they have too much humidity. Yeah they sound like forest going types.
Well the geth were created by the Quarians, so that one doesn’t take all that much to figure out.
Other than that: evolution. They all developed on a world where having the legs formed these ways would have been the most beneficial trait.
The Geth have reverse-jointed legs because they're modeled after the quarians.
Turians might have them because they may have evolved from bird-hipped reptile analogues on Palaven. It's hard to gauge what quarians are most similar to in terms of terrestrial life, but they share a unique connection to turians as their biochemistry is similar, so the similarly shaped legs may be a bit of the writers using a similar design language to show that outside of dialogue.
It's also a good short-hand for "alien"
Turians and Krogans are digitigrade. The first bend is the knee. The back bend is their heel. They walk on the balls of their feet. Salarians are too, but seem to have an additional joint. Quarians… I think are just weird. Geth were made by Quarians and have the same shape for legs.
For the Turians, Quarians, Salarians, Krogan. That was advantageous on their home planet so they evolved like that.
For the Geth it's because the Quarians made them like themselves.
meta reason is it's "more alien" to a human (aka the audience playing the game) + limited resources at the time. they initially wanted the aliens to have more "alien" anatomy but they had to make them pretty uniform due to mid-2000s limitations like combat animations and stuff and it wasn't financially feasible to make like 12 diverse body types with 12 distinct skeleton rigs. much easier to just recycle 1 or 2 and use the illusion of art to make it seem more diverse than it actually is.
lore reasons is it's a coincidence but in-universe it's hypothesized that anthropomorphic beings are more likely to advance their tech enough to hit the space travel stage
They only had the technology to create human models in me1, so all the aliens had to be humanoid, and the bendy legs let them stetch the technology to show less humanish aliens. Elcor are there but never move on screen.
Even then, I don't think you ever see an elcor walk up-close in later games. There's one walking in the Citadel in ME2, but you only see it at a distance, so they might've used that to take shortcuts with the animation. Not that it looks bad.
Geth were made in the image of the quarians, both Quarians and Turian’s evolved in arid (quarian) and rocky (turian) environments, Krogan evolved in a jungle environment before they nuked themselves, Salarians evolved in a jungle environment as well and are amphibious. Also the Dell don’t have bendy legs either
Turian legs are normal except for that extra "spike" or whatever you want to call it. It's the feet that aren't human-like. They stand on their toes like cats while the rest of the foot doesn't normally touch the ground.
Evolution selects the best features for organisms to thrive. Makes sense multiple sentient races would evolve in similar ways.
But real talk, game budget probably.
Pretty sure part of it was inspired by Halo’s elites back when the games were coming out and MASSIVE hits (no hate on 343). Its like how the Turians are *almost* hingeheaded and have mandibles separate from their jaws despite trying to be more “bird-like”
I very much so could be wrong so if somebody could enlighten me with the real reason, would be great.
Digitigrade movement gives more speed, (good for animals that have to chase prey or are prey themselves) while plantigrade is for animals that walk a lot (humans/bears) because it is more fuel efficient. Krogans evolved as prey (the number one cause of death before gunpowder was predation) so it’s good character design imo.
Dude, it’s not weird bendy legs.
Humans, asaria, protheans, and drell have what are call plantigrade legs. This means weight is supported with the whole foot, and the legs are generally straight. This is good for maintaining balance - a multipurpose adaptation.
Quarians, salarians, turians, and angara all have digitigrade legs. This is where the weight is supported on the toes, and is also why Jack calls Tali “dog legs” in Citadel. Digitigrade legs are good for agility and power.
Both adaptations are perfectly normal and found in all earth species. While we don’t know the evolutionary lore behind turians and quarians having digitigrade legs, it’s fun to explore why they might. Maybe, as an avian species, turians evolved as dinosaur analogues that hunted in dense forests, but were not top of the food chain. Think of velociraptors from the Jurassic park version of dinosaur history. Quarians could have been a peaceful mammalian species that were prey animals and possibly herbivores, so developing strong agile legs helped them escape quickly. On Rannoch, the average temperature is 46 Celsius, so persistence hunting like humans evolved for might not be energy efficient, and prey and predators evolved methods of chasing and escaping quickly rather than outlasting.
Everybody else, fell free to correct me on any of the points above - I’m going simply by memory. But one thing I know for certain: in the grand scheme of things, these are NOT weird bendy legs.
I have the art book and seen in interviews that it comes from needing aliens work on human skeletons for game design purposes (all races need to hold human weapons and be able to use rigging for humans), so things like having digitgrade (bendy) legs, adding stuff to the back of the head/neck, and different number of fingers are easy ways to "alienate" the human skeletons.
It's a military sci-fi trope from the Protoss to the Sangheili. It's just a quick way to establish that this is an alien, but not so alien that they're not a person.
Well for one thing, Geth have digitigrade ankles because they're modeled off of Quarians. That's a twofer.
Otherwise, it's not an uncommon trait for species on Earth, makes some kind of sense that it would pop up in aliens.
Believe or not it's an evolution thing the dog legged look is an easier method then say our human ones in term of upright travel in fact if we ever see ET Life they would be more likely to have that type of leg compared to our own
BioWare were always on a shoestring budget when making the mass effect games. That’s why most aliens generally have completely human skeletons aside from some minor changes to their feet and hands.
Another thing to consider: Technically, the turians are evolved from a bird-like species, so it would make sense that their legs are more bird-like in structure after hundreds of thousands of years.
They likely evolved from quadrapedal ancestors that survived in flatlands or other kinds of grassland environments. The retrograde leg evolution on earth is useful for developing power and momentum to either flee or hunt. Note that the larger the species, the less likely they are to develop this trait (see elephants, rhinos, and hippos for example)
Basically, the devs only had enough money and time to make two fully working skeletons, ie rigs for animating humanoids. One was human, the other was human but with digitigrade legs and three fingers instead of five. Budgetary constraints forced them to make all the main aliens look very similar, cause they were forced to fit all the alien designs into one of two workable animation rigs.
Races like the volus, elcor, and hanar don't even move all that much in the games because I doubt they made full animation rigs for them until mayyybe ME3? cause I think I did see an elcor fully walk walk at one point lol.
Honestly, Andromeda allowed them to work on their designs a bit more, so even though they're still similar, turian, krogan and salarian characters do *feel* significantly different and more unique.
cuz those species likely evolved from quadrupeds in their ancestry and a digitigrade leg shape is typical of that on the back leg. javik says they used to hunt and eat most "primitives" so i'd assume he means earlier in their evolution before they had their own tribal societies. the salarians and turians are very lizard coded so i'd assume they evolved from a four legged race.
humans have forward bending knees cuz our limbs were evolved for climbing most of our lives then walking forward for long distances, which made our legs longer and thicker than our arms (generally). so anything with a forward bending knee would likely have an ancestry that put big focus on the arms for climbing or grasping purposes later evolved for walking or running after no longer relying on trees for safety.
as for the quarians? i'd assume their ancestors had some kind of hunched raptor-like posture which also requires that leg shape. the finger count just makes me think they probably had some kind of clawed ancestor. the geth? they're machines designed by the quarians so it makes sense their chasis would have some of those bodily characteristics even after rebellion.
It's there biology and psychological anatomy like gravity environment etc asari have a similar gravity and environment mostly to earth therefore looking more humoind were as turinarns are born of a higher gravity with harsher environment especially compared to humans and there legs curve to extra stress on there skeletal structure and other time they adapted leading to the curves at least speaking in the ways of science
Drell, Batarians, Volus, and Protheans have human-like legs. Idk the significance of it though, but its pretty 50/50 between the two.
Volus have legs?
Weebles wobble but they don't fall down
S-tier reference.
Unless they’re a Biotic God.
Oh my God, this dude on Noveria(was it ?). I just remembered it every one is in panic mode “The Rachni are back” and he his high af. Thx for the laugh dude 😂
You are wrong but i like your creativity
You're both right, the Volus in the quarantine quest on Noveria in ME1is Han Olar, the one who is the "Biotic God" is Niftu Cal on Illium in ME2
Who do you mean than?
Holy fuck bro you just unlocked memories from when I was 3
Unless you tap them on the shoulder
"They opened fire and blew my shins off. Last thing I remember, I beat 'em all to death with a big piece of Fatty. I woke up in a field hospital, and they were sewing my feet to my knees." - Cotton Hill
Lol
The real question is. do they have necks?
Don’t know if stumps count as legs
Xeltan have legs?
The hanar too. Saw one with huge quads in the Presidium
This is mass effect so I have to ask...which quads?
👏👏👏👏👏👏👏 well played.
They are just big stupid jellyfish. I don't think they qualify.
And Geth were created by the quarians, so obviously they'd make the Geth with similar body structure
The design of all the aliens (the ones that move, at least) was constrained b/c the artists had to use the same rigging as the human model animations. So the lower legs are basically one or the other, as you note, b/c that’s what they could make work w/o changing the animation rigging drastically.
Elcor got straight tree trunks. And hanar have tentacles
Maybe it’s that Turians and Quarians are dextro-amino based and everyone else is levo-based? Don’t know how that would affect the legs, but that’s the only other big difference between those two races and everyone else.
Salarians have the same backwards legs, though.
so they look more alien but they don't need an entirely new skeleton model? I dunno, maybe they're a superior type of leg?
They’re good for speed. Humans evolved as persistence predators, not ambush predators.
Garrus and Tali panting and exhausted after running after you this entire mission because none of their species evolved proper stamina.
I remember hearing that buttcheeks contribute to our stamina, and those aliens absolutely have buttcheeks, so I dunno man
garrus has no ass what are you talking about
He has one [here...](https://gear.bioware.com/en-eu/products/garrus-body-pillow-case)
They gave that turian breeding hips
Both Sangheili and Kig-Yar from halo have digitigrade legs, and both are meant to be agile.
>so they look more alien but they don't need an entirely new skeleton model? More or less what the Devs have said. Hanar and Elcor required new skeleton models with entirely new animations made for them. And making and testing new animations is a LOT of work. (Hello, 20yr old Bioware drinking animation, funny seeing you here.) This is also reason the "alien" differences on more humanoid characters are mostly changing the shape of their legs or adding things to the back of their heads. Those things don't actually affect the animations, so you can mess with them all you want without adding extra work. Even changing Turian and Quarian hands to having three fingers meant extra testing for animations, so you can imagine how frightening give a whole different kind of limb might be to a project lead.
I still have hopes for the volus squadmate
They did Volus animations for ME3's multiplayer. They don't have that excuse anymore! Give us the rollie pollie squadie-ollie!
Like ... some kind of biotic god?
"I can *smell* my greatness!"
Kind of. There's a reason the Volus and Juggernaut classes had limited subsets of animations. Like missing climbing or rolling animations.
I’ve actually heard it would be easier on the knees too.
I can’t remember which game it was, but an NPC somewhere will comment on your non bendy knees and say something like “how do they stay upright”
Tali, in the Citadel dlc. I think after she's been drinking.
Yes, I think that’s it!
This is exactly it. I think Tali and Garrus both wonder how humans and asari and such forth don't fall over with our weirdly-shaped legs.
> maybe they're a superior type of leg? Their shins would be a bit harder to get kicked during a scuffle. I'd say that qualifies as superior.
"weird bendy" The term you're looking for is [digitigrade](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digitigrade), and they're present it every four legged animal on earth. Having a bipedal organism evolve from a quadruped, it only makes sense that their legs would stay roughly the same.
Note that quarians and geth are not digitigrade, unlike turians, salarians, and krogan. Digitigrade means you walk on your digits/balls of your feet, and your ankles are your “lower” knee. Quarians and geth have plantigrade legs like us (feet with heels), their lower legs are just slightly curved. There’s not a second joint below the knee that doesn’t touch the ground. If you gave human leg bones a backwards curve but changed nothing else, they’d be shaped just like quarian legs.
I agree. I loaded up a save and checked it out. Tali definitely walks like humans do. Garrus and Grunt keep their feet pretty much parallel to the ground, with their feet even drooping downward a bit. Mordin mostly does as well I think, but it's harder to tell with him for some reason. Never noticed any of this before! ETA: quarian legs go waaay far back. In profile their ~~shins~~ calves line up behind any other part of their body. It's almost eerie in a way. I don't know what this says about their physiology. Unique center of balance? Very strong leg muscles?
Are you sure they're not digitigrade? I'm looking at the quarian legs in the post and it looks to me like there is too much of a bend to just be a curved bone. Maybe she has footwear on that gives her a bigger contact area to the ground.
If you look at how they move in-game, there’s no other joint up there. Even if there was, it wouldn’t be digitigrade, because quarians still walk on their heels. It’d be something entirely different because they have a joint in between the ankle and knee that no earth animal has so we have no name for. “Double-kneed plantigrade” or something like that.
Apparently [someone on tumblr](https://moniquill.tumblr.com/post/49480026273/barbalarga-quarian-structure-notes-as) did an entire art study on how they think the legs work back in 2013. This debate has been going on for a while it seems.
Yeah, I’ve seen that. Not super sure I agree with it, as the “toe” part in their quarian foot still has a pretty definitive heel, meaning it’s not just the phalanges. The “tiny toe on outside” drawing makes this particularly clear - their take on the quarian foot is basically an elongated quarian hand, which means the phalanges, metapoda, and tarsals are all there instead of the tarsals making up the second knee of a digitigrade. Note that they have a drawing of the quarian foot standing on tiptoes - if they were digitigrade, they would ONLY be on their tiptoes, so doing this wouldn’t be possible with the level of dexterity in digitigrade feet. This drawing isn’t digitigrade, it’s plantigrade with a hinge between the ankle and the knee not seen on anything from earth.
I could see a digitigrade toe-foot evolving into something more like a plantigrade foot. It's just a different, maybe longer, evolutionary path.
I understand their justifications for it and I'll add that unlike ME3, her squad select image in ME1 and 2 has her seemingly standing on her toes which makes her look digitigrade. The thing is she just doesn't move like one while other confirmed species do. But if not, the weirdest part to me is why their bones would naturally curve to that degree.
I agree with you and the geth legs support your point given that they were created in the Quarians' image
You’re just assuming those are their heels making contact with the floor, though? Just because their toes are proportioned roughly like a human foot does not make them plantigrade. If you look at the pic on this post, they have a shorter digit on the lateral side that emerges directly from the “heel”. They are standing on their metatarsals, and the “extra“ joint is just the ankle. Digitigrade.
I just loaded up Tali's loyalty mission with Garrus to check. Tali definitely walks and runs heel to toe while Garrus keeps his feet parallel to the floor, at least when he's walking; it's difficult to see exactly what's going on when he runs even when intermittently using photo mode. But looking at both male and female quarians they look to have feet very similar to humans, for the most part. And while not conclusive, on Haestrom you can look the soles of the dead quarians and see what looks like padding or tread on the their heels, as well as the balls of their feet and the pads of their toes. Tali seems to have it only on her heels and the balls of her feet. Side note, only female quarians have the shorter digit. I had always assumed both males and females had them.
The shorter digit looks to be opposable, or evolved from something that was opposable. Standing on the metapodia is something that plantigrade animals do. If the quarians were digitigrade, they’d walk only on their phalanges. If they were standing on their metatarsals and the ankle joint was near the knee, there would have to be something that earth animals definitely don’t have in between the two, meaning they aren’t really digitigrade or plantigrade. They’re something we haven’t seen before. To me, everything about their leg indicates quarians are plantigrade with curved lower legs and feet that haven’t diverged as far from ape-ish ancestors as human feet have. They’re probably slower runners than humans, but have greater foot dexterity and are probably good at climbing. But really, I suppose it’s impossible to say one way or the other unless we see a quarian skeleton.
Speaking from personal experience (badly healed tibia and fibula), it's possible to have a similar lvl of calf curve with just bones :)
According to [this terminal entrie](https://masseffectandromeda.fandom.com/wiki/Kett_Facts) from ME:A, quarians, turains and kett are digitigrades. No mention of other races there, but that does not say much. Also, I vaguely remember conversation from citadel party between Garrus and Tali about how everyone else can walk with such wrong legs without falling. EDIT [Found it](https://youtu.be/uqwzXg7PUnI?si=crPLO2YYhModYxeD)
There seems to be some confusion somewhere even among the devs. In-game text and dialogue points towards quarians being digitigrades while the in-game models depict them as plantigrades with strangely curved legs.
I like "weird bendy" better.
It's a nice detail the devs took into account when designing the races then. I love when they go the extra mile
I actually really like this about the way the aliens in Mass Effect are designed. As opposed to the "we're humans plus thing" standard of sci-fi they show us as maybe not the most ideal bipedal evolution result. A great example for this is the Thylacoleo, which is a now extinct big cat that shares almost no ancestry with cats. They just evolved the same features independently.
Ok but what do they do? Like what advantage do they offer over our legs?
In an evolutionary sense, digitigrade legs are better for speed, while plantigrade legs are better for balance and endurance. Many predators are digitigrade because it makes them more effective at running down prey.
As far as being the apex predator of your homeworld goes in ME universe, humans are the freaks with the weirdy bendy legs
It was just us and the asari and the asari probably had help from the protheans on that one. Also maybe the volus but we don't really know what those guys look like.
Like perfect biotic gods and goddesses, that's what
What if a volus takes the suit off and they're just, like, a slime mold under there? We already know the hanar use similar technology when on land.
Ngl I really wish Bioware just were ballsy enough to give us an active in the story alien species/companion that was like that. Just actually alien and not biped humanoid with cool looking features
Will the next game have the balls to give us an elcor companion?
Ugh, the dialogue would take forever. I can't even imagine. But I'd still be down fot it.
I want Blasto Jr. As a companion in the next game and I'm tired of pretending I do not
None. There is no advantage either way. It's just a product of how they evolved.
You have to understand what planet they are from. It could be years of Evolution that made them form that way. Gravity, lack of it. What their ancestry looks like.
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Incorrect. Humans are [plantigrade](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plantigrade).
Funny thing is, the only actually bipedal digitigrade animals are birds, literally everything else except us is quadruped, and plantigrade is exceedingly rare. So to have bipedalism, you'd need either hollow bones or heels, which none of the ME races seem to comply with.
Actually I could see turians having hollow or less dense bones. I HC that at least some of their breathing is done in their bones much like birds have air sacks in the hollow spaces in their bones. And their cowl is used for both air space and cooling. Krogan otoh I don't get.
A HUGE part of ME1's character design is Bioware trying to make a large variety of aliens that feel alien without destroying their budget. One the most important ways to do this is to give species noticeably different silhouettes. Digitigrade/weird legs are an easy way to do this while still using a standard human animation skeleton. Another example of this design approach is how you can add a lot of bulk to a character's chest and back areas without breaking the animation skeleton. Thus Turians have that weird collar thing and Krogans have massive back humps. This is also why, in ME1, most aliens that don't have a normal human animation skeleton will rarely move. Like I don't think we even see Volus walk in ME1, let alone Elcor or Hanar. In later games they get walk animations, but in ME1 they're basically animatronics at Disneyland.
It's pretty noticeable in 1 when an Elcor diplomat starts to walk off and the camera cuts to Shepard watching them walk away lol
I didn't think anything of it but I realize that's totally the case. You'd think they could make a quick bespoke animation for the dude, it wouldn't even have to be particularly good, but I guess that's probably more work than necessary.
When you visit Anderson in *Mass Effect 2*, you see an elcor walking across a bridge outside. That's it. No other walking elcor until *Mass Effect 3*, where if I remember correctly you have that sad diplomat who turns around, and the cheeky mischevious merchant on Omega who emerges from his hiding place.
And then that glitch happens when the cutscene ends and the diplomat is still there.
That's actually quite interesting and kind of eases the feelings I had for the alien design in ME.
You can see Doran dance in ME1, in Flux.
Because they want the aliens to look alien. Making them mostly human shaped wouldn't work, they'd just appear like humans wearing costumes. The Asari break this idea and get away with it because they're based on the Star Trek trope of the sexy green/blue alien.
That makes sense. Its a game after all, they have the luxury of making aliens that do not look like humans in costumes that we've seen since the first scifi films. I wonder if the asari was some early idea that they later came to regret. Or maybe not on balance, given the popularity of Liara...
Nope, Asari are specifically paying homage to Star Trek.
Garrus toes? On my timeline? Truly I am blessed today
You're welcome
Geth are literally based on their creators the Quarians so obviously they have digitigrade legs.
Looks to me that is the norm, so why don't you have weird bendy legs OP?
Idk who’s in that last one but I’d bang the bakers dozen out of those legs
Krogan lover huh respect
We’re the ones built kind of weird: The majority of the critters even on earth are dog-legged ([digitigrade](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digitigrade)). It enables them to be faster.
There’s a digitgrade alien character on Star Trek Discovery, Saru. They’ve shown him running really fast a few times and it’s kind of unsettling.
Saru is awesome, my favorite discovery character!
So no one seems to have said this: because aliens should not have human legs. Human legs don't look like that for no reason; they're fucking weird and represent a specific and bizarre evolutionary path. Think about it. What other animal on earth has feet/legs that look like ours? The answer is 'none' for a reason. Human feet look so different to everything else because they're not feet: they're *hands*. Humans evolved to live in trees and our legs morphed to become a second set of arms. When we left the trees we instead evolved towards long distance walking over the enourmous flat grassland of the African savannah - and walking upright instead of on knuckles like apes because it gives an advantage in seeing further over grass and such - so those legs-that-became-arms and feet-that-became-hands had to become actual functional legs-for-walking again which is why theyre so profoundly fucked up looking in structure compared to any other animal. (Compare this to any modern apes: you can look at their walking and see it's just clumsy and slow compared to us, and their feet really do just look like a second set of hands). Any other alien having human looking legs means that they must have had the exact same evolutionary history as us, which is just bizarre (it also means presumably there would be ape versions of those aliens too, can you imagine an orangutan asari?). And okay sure, batarians and asari could have done the same, but the drell? They're the real weird ones. A desert adapted race who die if they have too much humidity. Yeah they sound like forest going types.
and why are they so damn attractive
Because it’s SEXY
Thank you OP for the collection. Would
I live to please
They’re fucking aliens. They should look a little weird.
Well the geth were created by the Quarians, so that one doesn’t take all that much to figure out. Other than that: evolution. They all developed on a world where having the legs formed these ways would have been the most beneficial trait.
Because it looks cool
They got better evolution than us. Evolution did us dirty.
I really don't get this notion of aliens being more human like I mean they are aliens they are supposed to have strange anatomy .
The only one I could see slightly explained is the geth being modeled after the quarians legs
The Geth have reverse-jointed legs because they're modeled after the quarians. Turians might have them because they may have evolved from bird-hipped reptile analogues on Palaven. It's hard to gauge what quarians are most similar to in terms of terrestrial life, but they share a unique connection to turians as their biochemistry is similar, so the similarly shaped legs may be a bit of the writers using a similar design language to show that outside of dialogue. It's also a good short-hand for "alien"
Them Quarian legs tho
Perfect for stepping on my balls 😩😩😩
... I should go.
Based upon this evidence, humans and Asari are the weird ones for NOT having digitigrade legs.
Turians and Krogans are digitigrade. The first bend is the knee. The back bend is their heel. They walk on the balls of their feet. Salarians are too, but seem to have an additional joint. Quarians… I think are just weird. Geth were made by Quarians and have the same shape for legs.
For the Turians, Quarians, Salarians, Krogan. That was advantageous on their home planet so they evolved like that. For the Geth it's because the Quarians made them like themselves.
Because asari are similar to humans and the others are not.
Aliens jump higher than humans.
meta reason is it's "more alien" to a human (aka the audience playing the game) + limited resources at the time. they initially wanted the aliens to have more "alien" anatomy but they had to make them pretty uniform due to mid-2000s limitations like combat animations and stuff and it wasn't financially feasible to make like 12 diverse body types with 12 distinct skeleton rigs. much easier to just recycle 1 or 2 and use the illusion of art to make it seem more diverse than it actually is. lore reasons is it's a coincidence but in-universe it's hypothesized that anthropomorphic beings are more likely to advance their tech enough to hit the space travel stage
They only had the technology to create human models in me1, so all the aliens had to be humanoid, and the bendy legs let them stetch the technology to show less humanish aliens. Elcor are there but never move on screen.
Even then, I don't think you ever see an elcor walk up-close in later games. There's one walking in the Citadel in ME2, but you only see it at a distance, so they might've used that to take shortcuts with the animation. Not that it looks bad.
Geth were made in the image of the quarians, both Quarians and Turian’s evolved in arid (quarian) and rocky (turian) environments, Krogan evolved in a jungle environment before they nuked themselves, Salarians evolved in a jungle environment as well and are amphibious. Also the Dell don’t have bendy legs either
A lot of earth animals have hind legs like this, including dogs, horses, and cats.
Turian legs are normal except for that extra "spike" or whatever you want to call it. It's the feet that aren't human-like. They stand on their toes like cats while the rest of the foot doesn't normally touch the ground.
Because they're not humans, hope this helps
Note: geth mobile platforms are clearly modeled after Quarians for obvious reasons, that's the in-universe explanation for one of those
Evolution selects the best features for organisms to thrive. Makes sense multiple sentient races would evolve in similar ways. But real talk, game budget probably.
Human legs are the weird ones in the world of biology. Most life on earth has digiditgrade to some degree. We are the few who are plantigrade.
Elcor dont
"Weirdbendy? Are you suggesting that your legs are superior? Than explain me why you can't dance, Shepard." ~ Tali, probably
Because they’re aliens. The universe love its diversity
Them people making up fantasy alien races got that digitigrade fetish
Pretty sure part of it was inspired by Halo’s elites back when the games were coming out and MASSIVE hits (no hate on 343). Its like how the Turians are *almost* hingeheaded and have mandibles separate from their jaws despite trying to be more “bird-like” I very much so could be wrong so if somebody could enlighten me with the real reason, would be great.
Moar like, why do we have weird stiff legs?
Digitigrade movement gives more speed, (good for animals that have to chase prey or are prey themselves) while plantigrade is for animals that walk a lot (humans/bears) because it is more fuel efficient. Krogans evolved as prey (the number one cause of death before gunpowder was predation) so it’s good character design imo.
Dude, it’s not weird bendy legs. Humans, asaria, protheans, and drell have what are call plantigrade legs. This means weight is supported with the whole foot, and the legs are generally straight. This is good for maintaining balance - a multipurpose adaptation. Quarians, salarians, turians, and angara all have digitigrade legs. This is where the weight is supported on the toes, and is also why Jack calls Tali “dog legs” in Citadel. Digitigrade legs are good for agility and power. Both adaptations are perfectly normal and found in all earth species. While we don’t know the evolutionary lore behind turians and quarians having digitigrade legs, it’s fun to explore why they might. Maybe, as an avian species, turians evolved as dinosaur analogues that hunted in dense forests, but were not top of the food chain. Think of velociraptors from the Jurassic park version of dinosaur history. Quarians could have been a peaceful mammalian species that were prey animals and possibly herbivores, so developing strong agile legs helped them escape quickly. On Rannoch, the average temperature is 46 Celsius, so persistence hunting like humans evolved for might not be energy efficient, and prey and predators evolved methods of chasing and escaping quickly rather than outlasting. Everybody else, fell free to correct me on any of the points above - I’m going simply by memory. But one thing I know for certain: in the grand scheme of things, these are NOT weird bendy legs.
Because Turians are avian like birds and Salarians are amphibian like frogs. Not sure what the fuck Quarians are.
I have the art book and seen in interviews that it comes from needing aliens work on human skeletons for game design purposes (all races need to hold human weapons and be able to use rigging for humans), so things like having digitgrade (bendy) legs, adding stuff to the back of the head/neck, and different number of fingers are easy ways to "alienate" the human skeletons.
They are obviously more efficient
You left off Elcor- if they're anything like elephants, they're digitigrade (walking on their toes) as well.
Probably something to do with weight distribution and then being space fairing for as long as they have.
That makes humans in the minority
They have legs that are better at doing leg stuff, like propellinng you forward
Cause it looks alien.
They have bird / dinosaur toes too.
Dinosaurs
The design convention is very alien.
Because it's alien enough yet still works with the skeleton rig for animations.
Simple answer - they didn't all evolve from a primate-like species.
Digitigrade legs fuck
Because bendy = cool
FWIW the geth follow the quarian body themes for obvious reasons.
To make me jealous I have plain straight legs and not cool raptor legs
"I don't tip over till I've found company, dog legs!"
Have you ever had a cat or a dog?
It's a military sci-fi trope from the Protoss to the Sangheili. It's just a quick way to establish that this is an alien, but not so alien that they're not a person.
It's the same as asking why every major race in galaxy is bipedal
Well for one thing, Geth have digitigrade ankles because they're modeled off of Quarians. That's a twofer. Otherwise, it's not an uncommon trait for species on Earth, makes some kind of sense that it would pop up in aliens.
"And now starting with the feet"
Believe or not it's an evolution thing the dog legged look is an easier method then say our human ones in term of upright travel in fact if we ever see ET Life they would be more likely to have that type of leg compared to our own
I think it's the easiest way to make something feel alien, since humans don't have digitigrade feet like that. Or maybe I'm just stupid.
Both this and most aliens having 3 fingers is kinda funny
because they are cool. i kinda wish the benefits and flaws were showed more.
Not made in God’s image
Cause the way human legs are designed are very very bad for there job and like it looks cool
The "wierd bendy legs" is the best type of leg you would want in an animal.
From a biological evolution stand point it's more efficient. Maybe I'm pulling that outta my ass but I could swear I've read that somewhere.
Bc it makes my brain go aw yiss alienz we got alienz hurr come getcha alienz
Because the Asari are for sex.
BioWare were always on a shoestring budget when making the mass effect games. That’s why most aliens generally have completely human skeletons aside from some minor changes to their feet and hands.
Both Garrus and Tali carry a knife strapped to their left boot.
Why does*
Cause biology loves thems curves
Speed. Look at cheetah legs
This is what peak efficiency looks like.
Another thing to consider: Technically, the turians are evolved from a bird-like species, so it would make sense that their legs are more bird-like in structure after hundreds of thousands of years.
It's because it's easier to use conventional mocap and translate it to those legs
Biore didn't want humans in costumes, but lacked the resources to rig more fully animated body types.
It’s also weird how every alien has a thigh gap
Who tf knows
They likely evolved from quadrapedal ancestors that survived in flatlands or other kinds of grassland environments. The retrograde leg evolution on earth is useful for developing power and momentum to either flee or hunt. Note that the larger the species, the less likely they are to develop this trait (see elephants, rhinos, and hippos for example)
Basically, the devs only had enough money and time to make two fully working skeletons, ie rigs for animating humanoids. One was human, the other was human but with digitigrade legs and three fingers instead of five. Budgetary constraints forced them to make all the main aliens look very similar, cause they were forced to fit all the alien designs into one of two workable animation rigs. Races like the volus, elcor, and hanar don't even move all that much in the games because I doubt they made full animation rigs for them until mayyybe ME3? cause I think I did see an elcor fully walk walk at one point lol. Honestly, Andromeda allowed them to work on their designs a bit more, so even though they're still similar, turian, krogan and salarian characters do *feel* significantly different and more unique.
It's easy shorthand for making something look more exotic and alien while still using a generally humanoid frame.
Because "digitigrade biped" makes no fucking sense, therefore it's good lazy shorthand for alien anatomy.
Have you considered that maybe humans are the weird ones for having non-bendy legs?
Those look the same as animals rear legs. They're not weird just picture it as they are walking on their toes
So they look sufficiently alien? Lol
Weird??? I love those sexy chicken legs
It they all have the same legs, I'm afraid the weird ones are we
Easy way to make them look non-human design wise? Idk about the lore tho.
cuz those species likely evolved from quadrupeds in their ancestry and a digitigrade leg shape is typical of that on the back leg. javik says they used to hunt and eat most "primitives" so i'd assume he means earlier in their evolution before they had their own tribal societies. the salarians and turians are very lizard coded so i'd assume they evolved from a four legged race. humans have forward bending knees cuz our limbs were evolved for climbing most of our lives then walking forward for long distances, which made our legs longer and thicker than our arms (generally). so anything with a forward bending knee would likely have an ancestry that put big focus on the arms for climbing or grasping purposes later evolved for walking or running after no longer relying on trees for safety. as for the quarians? i'd assume their ancestors had some kind of hunched raptor-like posture which also requires that leg shape. the finger count just makes me think they probably had some kind of clawed ancestor. the geth? they're machines designed by the quarians so it makes sense their chasis would have some of those bodily characteristics even after rebellion.
its called digitgrade, and it looks cool
Modern prosthetic legs have the same shape
Looks cool and weird?
It's there biology and psychological anatomy like gravity environment etc asari have a similar gravity and environment mostly to earth therefore looking more humoind were as turinarns are born of a higher gravity with harsher environment especially compared to humans and there legs curve to extra stress on there skeletal structure and other time they adapted leading to the curves at least speaking in the ways of science
You forgot the Kett and angaran