241: The Keepers

[SPEAKER_04]: I'm Commander Shepard, and this is my favorite lorecast on the Citadel. [SPEAKER_05]: Welcome to the Mass Effect lorecast. [SPEAKER_05]: I'm in seven the legend. [SPEAKER_03]: And I'm Genesis, join us. [SPEAKER_05]: As we explore along tides of light and through the shoals of dust to see where this lore began.

[SPEAKER_03]: And consider where it may go. [SPEAKER_05]: Specters, welcome back to a probably much belated episode of the Mass Effect Lordcast. [SPEAKER_05]: I am your host in seven legend and joining me as always is the wonderful genesis. [SPEAKER_05]: We have somehow managed to avoid having an episode on the keepers for 240 episodes now.

[SPEAKER_03]: How could we possibly forget the adorable little keepers with their vest and backpack? [SPEAKER_03]: I mean, come on, it's one of the first races we meet. [SPEAKER_05]: Yeah, that's, yeah, it is. [SPEAKER_05]: It is as soon as we get to the Citadel. [SPEAKER_05]: So, and I don't know how many people over the years have said, you know, you got to do an episode on the keepers and I probably just always said, well, we're getting to it.

[SPEAKER_05]: Well, we're here now. [SPEAKER_05]: Um, so I, the thought came to me because we were covering the virtual aliens and I'm like thinking, what other obscure races have we not really gone into detail on, uh, that we actually have lore for. [SPEAKER_05]: So we don't have like, you know, a ton of lore for the keepers, but we have a decent amount, uh, certainly enough to make them one of the more significant obscure races in Mass Effect.

[SPEAKER_05]: Uh, so I'm not sure how how long this episode is going to be and full disclosure to everybody. [SPEAKER_05]: It has been a hellish week for me because my son has been teething, he's getting multiple teeth in at the same time. [SPEAKER_05]: And uh, we don't have any family out here. [SPEAKER_05]: So I'm watching it by myself all the time.

[SPEAKER_05]: So, anyway, I do, I have not prepped for this episode, like whatsoever. [SPEAKER_05]: So, everything you're going to hear from me is completely off the cuff. [SPEAKER_05]: Genesis is more diligent than I am, and Jen, you actually read through the material before we went live. [SPEAKER_05]: I did not.

[SPEAKER_03]: Oh, yeah. [SPEAKER_03]: I mean, that's me. [SPEAKER_03]: I like to do as much research as I can about a topic before I start talking about it, but I think it'll be a little bit looser, which is good because, you know, that's how we became friends was just talking massive extra stuff. [SPEAKER_03]: So let's keep it going.

[SPEAKER_05]: great. [SPEAKER_05]: So let's see, where should we start here with the keepers? [SPEAKER_05]: Maybe with the codex entry. [SPEAKER_05]: I feel like that's probably a really good place to start. [SPEAKER_05]: That's where most people will have glossed over because it is a secondary codex entry, which means it's not voiced.

[SPEAKER_05]: And I don't know about you, but the ones that were not voiced, I just never really dug into unless I was extremely interested in the in the codex entry when it popped up. [SPEAKER_05]: uh... but here it is uh... it starts with when the assari discovered the citadel they also discovered the keepers a docile multi-limbed insect race that seemingly exists only to maintain and repair the great prothion station that's see the codex is not all-knowing important to remember it is a handbook guide [SPEAKER_03]: Exactly.

[SPEAKER_03]: It was written and the data collected in it can be incomplete. [SPEAKER_03]: We'll go with that. [SPEAKER_05]: And there's entries that do get updated throughout the games. [SPEAKER_05]: There's others that do not. [SPEAKER_05]: So the Keepers one. [SPEAKER_05]: Obviously we get this in Mass Effect one.

[SPEAKER_05]: the next part in the code X entry says early attempts to communicate with or study the keepers where failures and it's now illegal to interfere with or impede keeper activity. [SPEAKER_05]: Because they are completely non-threatening keepers have become virtually invisible to everyone else.

[SPEAKER_05]: and middle school me just felt that in his bones. [SPEAKER_05]: Similarly, they seem indifferent to other species, except for their tendency to help new arrivals integrate themselves into the citadel. [SPEAKER_05]: This part always made me laugh. [SPEAKER_05]: What does that mean? [SPEAKER_03]: Oh, so actually we do get a little bit about this and I find it kind of funny.

[SPEAKER_05]: Okay, so go on, what, how do the keepers help the new arrivals integrate themselves? [SPEAKER_03]: So when the, sorry, first encounter the keepers, they quickly began doing everything in their power to assist the, sorry, unsettling onto the station. [SPEAKER_03]: Their behavior was compared to servants surprised by a master's sudden return and scrambling to make everything ready.

[SPEAKER_05]: That's really interesting and also totally different than the mental image I had in my head, which was like the keepers like getting together like a fruit basket for people. [SPEAKER_03]: They've also been known to rearrange your paperwork or random furniture items in your office to make it more appealing to what they believe.

[SPEAKER_05]: I think Anderson says that, right? [SPEAKER_05]: Almost like we are a bother to them. [SPEAKER_05]: I think he says yeah that's hilarious can you imagine you have an office on the Citadel and you come back and all of a sudden your desk is on the other side of the room your computer's upside down on the ceiling for whatever reason.

[SPEAKER_05]: They're like those damn keepers added again. [SPEAKER_03]: I live my life in organized chaos. [SPEAKER_03]: I know where everything is. [SPEAKER_03]: If somebody comes in and helps clean up, my system is completely destroyed. [SPEAKER_03]: Please don't. [SPEAKER_05]: Yeah, yeah. [SPEAKER_05]: I would be pissed off.

[SPEAKER_05]: Actually, I'm pissed off when I like have my dad over visiting and like he changes like one thing in my office like let's say he needs to work from home from my office if he changes like one thing I get like you're to So I can only imagine what the keepers. [SPEAKER_05]: I'd be like listen here.

[SPEAKER_05]: Are you green little fuck? [SPEAKER_05]: Don't touch my shit [SPEAKER_03]: or like when your friends decide to change the background on your desktop. [SPEAKER_05]: Yes, like that, you know, just for argument's sake to maybe a nude garrison, who knows? [SPEAKER_05]: That's totally upathetical.

[SPEAKER_05]: So the next part says no matter how many keepers die due to old age violence, [SPEAKER_05]: or accident. [SPEAKER_05]: The violence part is really funny. [SPEAKER_05]: Who's the sadistic asshole who's killing geapers, right? [SPEAKER_05]: Like, they are the definition of non-threatening.

[SPEAKER_05]: But anyway, it says, no matter how many die due to old age violence or accident, they maintain a constant number. [SPEAKER_05]: So, man, are they busy? [SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, so the violence part, I'm seeing like, maybe they get accidentally shot. [SPEAKER_03]: I mean, firefighters break out on the citadel at times, or it could be, is there violence?

[SPEAKER_03]: Is there keeper on keeper violence? [SPEAKER_03]: Or maybe, you know, a pissed off [SPEAKER_05]: keeper on keeper violence. [SPEAKER_05]: That's what Western news won't tell you. [SPEAKER_05]: So, so I can only imagine how that, to me, I'm just thinking of a slapfight between two keepers because, like, how else are they, are they getting a bite each other, I guess?

[SPEAKER_05]: They kind of have have mandibles, but I, not really, it doesn't look like they could really ingest anything besides grass, maybe. [SPEAKER_03]: Mm, that's a very good point, noodles for sure, especially because in the lore that we have, they are designed to be sort of aphid-looking or praying mantis-like, so, I mean, praying mantises would eat some form of meat, but not aphids.

[SPEAKER_05]: What if there's like some really dark details we learned in the next Mass Effect about how they're eating, right? [SPEAKER_05]: Like all of these ducked rats in the war to go missing and no one knows where they end up, like... [SPEAKER_03]: Hmm, we do have bio vats to talk about a little bit later, so who knows?

[SPEAKER_05]: Hmm, bio vats. [SPEAKER_05]: Um, the last part in the Codex says that no one has discovered the source of new keepers, but some hypothesize they are genetic constructs, biological androids created somewhere deep in the inaccessible core of the citadel itself. [SPEAKER_05]: So they have such a constant number, it's almost like their reproduction is governed by a computer.

[SPEAKER_05]: And that is going to be extremely important as we go on and talk more about the keepers, but spoiler alerts, they were engineered by the reapers. [SPEAKER_05]: So yeah, [SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, no, especially with the way that they talk about them, just showing up and always at a constant rate, it's got to be some form of like cloning or bio-engineered in order to just be fully formed at birth.

[SPEAKER_03]: It's not that they're reproducing and growing a live form. [SPEAKER_03]: They're not having babies. [SPEAKER_05]: What do you think would happen if an assoring mind-emelted with a keeper? [SPEAKER_03]: Honestly, I believe that they would go into their self-destruct mode. [SPEAKER_03]: They would see that.

[SPEAKER_03]: Oh, well, it's like, uh, tamper. [SPEAKER_03]: Like aggression. [SPEAKER_03]: Yeah. [SPEAKER_05]: Yeah. [SPEAKER_05]: Yeah. [SPEAKER_05]: You didn't know you're probably right. [SPEAKER_05]: They probably would just blow up. [SPEAKER_05]: Yeah. [SPEAKER_05]: Hey, good looking pal. [SPEAKER_05]: Yeah, that.

[SPEAKER_05]: Oh, man. [SPEAKER_05]: I wonder if the first story that got there tried to do that. [SPEAKER_05]: Like embrace eternity. [SPEAKER_05]: with the key to me. [SPEAKER_03]: And I wonder what that did to the a sorry. [SPEAKER_03]: We've never really seen a situation where if your mind melted with somebody, what would happen if that person dies from it?

[SPEAKER_05]: Well, yeah, like for more info, it's not a problem, right? [SPEAKER_05]: For art, yeah, she, it's not a problem, but [SPEAKER_05]: I'm imagining because my meld goes both ways, so the assauray would be getting memories of the keepers, and that could be like horrifying enough to break their mind.

[SPEAKER_05]: So maybe it wouldn't be the most prudent idea to even succeed at doing that. [SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, considering how old the keepers actually are, I would not want to mind meld with something that ancient. [SPEAKER_05]: Yeah. [SPEAKER_05]: Yeah. [SPEAKER_05]: So, okay. [SPEAKER_05]: So, um, we know that they are basically, I mean, the way you put it is, is perfect.

[SPEAKER_05]: Aphid, they're very, um, praying mantis like, uh, they have these orange vests and little backpacks that, honestly, just look like transponders, like they each have like some kind of way to get a single signal from somewhere. [SPEAKER_05]: And those are not put on there by Chorbin. [SPEAKER_05]: the Selerian who's experimenting on them in Mass Effect 1.

[SPEAKER_05]: It just seems like they all have them. [SPEAKER_03]: Yes, that was actually brought up with Derek Watts, the art designer for The Keepers. [SPEAKER_03]: It was actually stated in the Art of Mass Effect book that The Keepers were one of one of the first races that were fully designed, drawn up, and animated within motion of the game.

[SPEAKER_03]: So the keepers are like the true OG Mass Effect Race. [SPEAKER_05]: That's so cool because they are the oldest race that we meet in the game. [SPEAKER_05]: They are older than the Proteins, too. [SPEAKER_05]: So that's really awesome that they made them in the same sequence like that as well.

[SPEAKER_05]: And it's also really cool that the first aliens they made in the game were so non-humanoid. [SPEAKER_03]: Yes, and especially if you look through the artwork, they started off very, very scary. [SPEAKER_03]: And like extreme level of insectoid upper half and then lower half that almost looked octopus tentatively and then it just kind of evolved from there.

[SPEAKER_03]: So it's really interesting if anybody's able to take a look at them through the art of Mass Effect Book. [SPEAKER_05]: Yeah, that book has so many great additional lore details that he would not guess unless you're reading through the captions and things. [SPEAKER_05]: Um, so essentially we know that the keepers are the oldest known alive race.

[SPEAKER_05]: However, [SPEAKER_05]: I don't know if it, like, could we classify them as sentient because it's honestly it's not clear if they are sentient since we can't communicate with them in any way. [SPEAKER_03]: So we can't communicate with them, but the little transponders that they're carrying on their back, it is hypothesized that that is what they use to communicate with each other and back to whatever centralized mind database computer, AI, Reaper, Leviathan, whoever is giving them the orders of what to do and what the Citadel itself means that that is how they communicate.

[SPEAKER_03]: It's just that we can't understand it. [SPEAKER_05]: So they also could possibly be organic synthetic beings. [SPEAKER_03]: They could be synthesis. [SPEAKER_05]: Yeah, they could be the archetype of if you choose synthesis. [SPEAKER_05]: Everyone's going to be a keeper. [SPEAKER_05]: No, that would suck.

[SPEAKER_05]: That would be horrible. [SPEAKER_05]: Can you imagine what a giant middle finger that would be to a lot of fans. [SPEAKER_05]: visual tells us that in regards to their origins, the keepers were either created, conquered or indoctrinated by the reapers. [SPEAKER_05]: And it may be that the keepers were the first race that they enslaved.

[SPEAKER_03]: Making them one of the oldest living things that we could possibly know about. [SPEAKER_05]: and with them being that old, it's no surprise that no one quite knows their exact origins because it's been so many. [SPEAKER_05]: How many billions of years have the reapers been doing this? [SPEAKER_05]: I forget now.

[SPEAKER_05]: It's been billions of years though. [SPEAKER_05]: I know that. [SPEAKER_05]: So, [SPEAKER_05]: Essentially, now they are just like butlers on the Citadel, uh, no matter where they originally came from, uh, I would have found it funny though, if you could have like gotten one keeper that was like kill me.

[SPEAKER_05]: Well, you're really dark, and it's like, oh, wow, they are sentient. [SPEAKER_05]: They are stuck in there, which I would not put past the reapers because of what we know about how indoctrination takes hold over someone's body with their mind still there. [SPEAKER_03]: Hmm. [SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, we've got the very descriptive versions of what it's like to be indoctrinated doing the grace and reading about the grace and books and everything like that.

[SPEAKER_03]: So thinking about if the keepers are still an indoctrinated species and obviously over time and just like, [SPEAKER_03]: Evolutionarily speaking would they change and just be more prone to indoctrination or do you think that they would start to build up a resistance to indoctrination? [SPEAKER_05]: Probably the latter.

[SPEAKER_05]: Yeah, I would think probably the latter. [SPEAKER_05]: I was just also thinking about the fact that it may have been intended, maybe it wasn't intended by the Reapers, because they're not the writers, not the Reapers, that the keepers are this kind of invisible infrastructure, right? [SPEAKER_05]: everyone kind of ignores them on the Citadel, because they've been there that, whatever, they're just like the maintenance guys.

[SPEAKER_05]: They don't say anything no one cares about them. [SPEAKER_05]: Just don't mess with them. [SPEAKER_05]: And they're this kind of invisible infrastructure that is key to keeping the Citadel up and running, but yet everyone ignores them or takes them for granted. [SPEAKER_05]: And I feel like that raises questions about how we, in our own world, how advanced societies kind of normalize these untouchable roles, right, normalize and we overlook essential workers and critical systems that we don't understand.

[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, yeah, there's definitely a lot of that that happens in the real world to relate it back to, uh, you know, and then the critical workers, uh, gosh, don't figure my COVID response here. [SPEAKER_05]: Or are you in a central worker? [SPEAKER_03]: I was. [SPEAKER_05]: I was not, I was not essential.

[SPEAKER_03]: I had to the state of Oregon required me to carry a letter in my car in case I was pulled over at any time so that way I could show that I was deemed any central worker. [SPEAKER_03]: No. [SPEAKER_05]: Yeah. [SPEAKER_05]: Good, good times. [SPEAKER_05]: Anyway. [SPEAKER_05]: So anyway, I'm just thinking about like it did where the writers trying to make like a kind of metaphor here with the keepers that that they are this such a bottom-wrong of society that everyone ignores them and yet they fulfill these roles that no one else can.

[SPEAKER_05]: So [SPEAKER_05]: How many times have you learned about a profession or a job where you're like, I didn't even know that that was a job, and now that I think about it, like, of course it is, because who else would be managing that, who else would be keeping that running? [SPEAKER_05]: And you just had never thought about it before.

[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, absolutely. [SPEAKER_03]: That stuff like that happens all the time. [SPEAKER_03]: And then to think about how, you know, this isn't a what if episode, but think about what would happen if the keepers didn't exist. [SPEAKER_03]: You know, let's sit it all maintenance. [SPEAKER_03]: The sovereign's beacon trying to get them to activate the mass relay into deep space, all these different things that would have that would be completely different if the keepers didn't exist.

[SPEAKER_05]: right and well they are the reason that the Citadel is such an attractive trap and that's what it is it's kind of like a Venus fly trap right the keepers maintain the Citadel specifically so they can attract and then later support whoever discovers it in this case the Asari were the first in [SPEAKER_05]: And they're basically like, yes, yes, come into my web.

[SPEAKER_05]: And then when the reaping is ready to go, they are the ones who send out the signal, right? [SPEAKER_05]: So it's because of them that so many thousands of cycles of intelligent species have perished, you could say. [SPEAKER_05]: These little green fuckers have so much blood on their hands that I don't think you should feel bad about killing them.

[SPEAKER_03]: To think of it that way, yeah, because if they never send the signal, the reapers never invade. [SPEAKER_03]: It is all because of the keepers. [SPEAKER_03]: They are the true enemy. [SPEAKER_05]: They're like the canary in the genocidal gold mine. [SPEAKER_05]: They're coal mine, not gold mine.

[SPEAKER_05]: They are like the creepy old lighthouse keeper who lures you in with tales of treasure and gets your guard down and then strikes you in the back of the head with a club. [SPEAKER_03]: Kinda yeah, they look so cute and non-threatening and everybody completely ignores whatever they are doing.

[SPEAKER_05]: They're, I think the best word to describe them is like innocuous. [SPEAKER_03]: Yes, it's a very good word. [SPEAKER_05]: They're completely innocuous. [SPEAKER_05]: They're not, they're not too cuddly. [SPEAKER_05]: They're not too cute. [SPEAKER_05]: They're not threatening. [SPEAKER_05]: They're not really anything.

[SPEAKER_05]: There's probably some people in your life that you can think of who also fit all of this criteria. [SPEAKER_05]: And I guess you could say that they are keepers. [SPEAKER_03]: Aw, they're a keeper. [SPEAKER_05]: They're a keeper. [SPEAKER_05]: I once signed out, I once made it tweet. [SPEAKER_05]: My most successful tweet ever.

[SPEAKER_05]: I took a photo of a keeper from like the wiki. [SPEAKER_05]: And I tweeted it out and I said, if your girl looked like this, she might be a keeper. [SPEAKER_05]: That's the stupidest, it's a stupidest thing, but anyway, that is besides the point. [SPEAKER_05]: We were talking about the keepers, are really the key to the reapers and tire plan with launching the invasion from the Citadel.

[SPEAKER_05]: We throw a wrench in that plan thanks to vigils help at the end of Mass Effect 1, and yet they're still around. [SPEAKER_05]: later in the series we definitely see them in two and three so look like their their their main job [SPEAKER_05]: got screwed up. [SPEAKER_05]: And they're still around, you've won has to wonder like, what are they doing?

[SPEAKER_05]: Are they essentially serving as the eyes and ears aboard the Citadel for the Reapers? [SPEAKER_05]: Are they intentionally sabotaging things here and there that would hamper the war effort? [SPEAKER_05]: Because they're still at every back and call of the Reapers, probably with the exception of whatever ones, Chorbin may have messed with, and Mass Effect 1.

[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, that's a possibility that the scan interrupted things, or maybe the fact that this was the first time that they ever got to truly ignore a command, you know, they were told to go and activate the relay and not being able to do that because of Shepherd broke their indoctrination [SPEAKER_05]: Well, I think you could probably credit the Prothians on I-Los, the Prothian scientists with that.

[SPEAKER_05]: They are the ones who kind of got the keepers to ignore that signal, right, from the Citadel. [SPEAKER_05]: And because of that, [SPEAKER_05]: I'm now putting two and two together about them being useless to the reapers after that. [SPEAKER_05]: And maybe that's why we see at the end of Mass Effect 1.

[SPEAKER_05]: You remember that scene where Seren is super angry, he's in the Citadel Tower and he approaches the console. [SPEAKER_05]: And as he's approaching the console, he picks up his pistol and just marks a keeper right there. [SPEAKER_05]: I always wondered why he did that. [SPEAKER_05]: Like just seemed like gratuitous violence.

[SPEAKER_05]: Like in something that isn't a threat to you whatsoever. [SPEAKER_05]: But now I get it. [SPEAKER_05]: He's obviously Seren's indoctrinated. [SPEAKER_05]: That's the Reaper's frustration coming out. [SPEAKER_05]: Like you useless sack of crap and just shoots the keeper in the head. [SPEAKER_05]: So now it makes so much more sense.

[SPEAKER_05]: I can't believe it took me this long to realize this. [SPEAKER_05]: no kidding. [SPEAKER_05]: Yeah. [SPEAKER_05]: So, all right. [SPEAKER_05]: Well, I think with that, let's go over to the mid break and we've got a planet card that we're going to read. [SPEAKER_05]: So no sound effect today, but we also do we have any new reviews?

[SPEAKER_05]: Yes, I should check that real quick, but regardless, let's hop over to the mid break, get some things to take care of and we'll be right back. [SPEAKER_04]: We have beef, bacon, we have beer, the foods of my people. [SPEAKER_00]: Young men have funny ideas of what a story are like. [SPEAKER_00]: I blame the extra net and computer games.

[SPEAKER_04]: Rex, Shepherd, Grant, Shepherd, Rex. [SPEAKER_05]: Alright, here we are in the middle of the show and this is the part where we will read out your five star reviews if you've left them on Apple. [SPEAKER_05]: We're also reading out comments that you can leave on our Spotify episodes. [SPEAKER_05]: We try to pull the comments from the most recent episode that we've posted just for latency sick.

[SPEAKER_05]: And I see that we actually have gotten a few comments. [SPEAKER_05]: on our episode 240 creating a new race for the next Mass Effect episode. [SPEAKER_05]: I see here one that says, found your podcast more recently, listened to you while at work. [SPEAKER_05]: So for a species, I'd love to see one that's like the tree ants from Lord of the Rings, or maybe a crystalline species.

[SPEAKER_05]: Also a question, what would you think if they brought back the elucid man as a clone and had EDI survive the destroy ending? [SPEAKER_05]: I think having 80 survived the destroying and could be plausible because you could probably write in some kind of explanation like, well, if Shepherd helped her achieve true individualization and true sentience, it insulated her from the signal.

[SPEAKER_05]: From the signal that would have destroyed her from the reaper tech. [SPEAKER_05]: I think you could probably write in that explanation. [SPEAKER_05]: Bringing back the elucid man as a clone, mmm, I feel like that's a bit gimmicky. [SPEAKER_03]: I agree. [SPEAKER_03]: He has already been such a great villain and had such a good, like he had a great ending because it felt satisfactory to the player.

[SPEAKER_03]: So bringing him back as a clone would kind of [SPEAKER_03]: mute that, make it not as impactful in that final scene. [SPEAKER_03]: So I don't like the idea of a clone Timmy boy, but Edie being insulated, like you said, from it, would also mean that potentially the guess that Legion helped to individualize could also be saved in that way also.

[SPEAKER_05]: that would be really cool. [SPEAKER_05]: Yeah, and you could program that with just like two questions at the beginning, you know, like how did you resolve the death quarry and conflict. [SPEAKER_05]: And how did you treat your conversations with Eddie. [SPEAKER_05]: Yeah, that would be like two questions.

[SPEAKER_05]: But yeah, that was from Rory Follon, so thank you so much for that review and comment, Rory. [SPEAKER_05]: We also have another one from Grant Tyler, U.S., who writes, hello, in seven, longtime Massive Lorkast Hater here. [SPEAKER_05]: I listen every week just to see what crazy topic you pull out next to try and keep this show going.

[SPEAKER_05]: I'm definitely not here because I think the show is cool or interesting. [SPEAKER_05]: No, no. [SPEAKER_05]: I'm definitely just a hater. [SPEAKER_05]: Oh, Grant, thank you so much for your kind comment. [SPEAKER_05]: That one made me laugh. [SPEAKER_05]: So I guess you'll just have to tune in next week when we do another what if episode and I piss off that one guy on YouTube.

[SPEAKER_05]: We'll see. [SPEAKER_03]: to the Lord, am I? [SPEAKER_05]: Yeah, whatever, man. [SPEAKER_05]: As if we're not talking about the Lord. [SPEAKER_05]: But yeah, thank you so much for those comments. [SPEAKER_05]: If you want to get your comment right out, go ahead and head over to Spotify or Apple or wherever you listen to this podcast really, we can gather comments and reviews from any of them.

[SPEAKER_05]: And that is the most useful way that you can kind of pay us back if you feel like you want to. [SPEAKER_05]: or just tell a friend, tell a friend that you know that likes Mass Effect because I also discovered because of this lorecast that the Mass Effect communities way bigger than you think it is.

[SPEAKER_05]: So it's just like a bunch of Mass Effect like closeted fans. [SPEAKER_05]: I don't get it, but it is the way that it is. [SPEAKER_03]: I cannot count the amount of comments that are centralized around that, like, when I got into the fandom, I didn't know that there were so many other people who loved Mass Effect as much as I do.

[SPEAKER_03]: Thank you for, you know, building this community. [SPEAKER_03]: Thank you for, you know, putting out all the lore that I missed throughout the games. [SPEAKER_03]: And so it's really cool that the Mass Effect community is able to gather and rally around. [SPEAKER_03]: I love it. [SPEAKER_05]: Yeah, absolutely.

[SPEAKER_05]: And that goes like even double-triple for me because like when we started the show five years ago, I just could not believe. [SPEAKER_05]: I could not believe that so many people were fans of Mass Effect that played Mass Effect that listened to lore about Mass Effect. [SPEAKER_05]: So anyway, [SPEAKER_05]: That's, that's that.

[SPEAKER_05]: We have some patrons that we want to shut out. [SPEAKER_05]: Number one, looks like we didn't have any new patrons since the last week. [SPEAKER_05]: However, we do want to shut out our tier five patrons that we shut out every week and that would be day. [SPEAKER_05]: Thank you all for your continued support of the show, you guys as well as all of our patrons make this show possible that we're able to do this going on, we are now on our sixth year.

[SPEAKER_05]: We are in our sixth year, so we've had five years behind us, but crazy. [SPEAKER_05]: Who knows, how many, how many more years until we get some new mass effect? [SPEAKER_05]: Maybe five more, fuck it. [SPEAKER_05]: I'll do it. [SPEAKER_05]: I'll I'll fucking do it. [SPEAKER_05]: Don't don't test me by or where I really will All right, and I think that's it besides the planet cards right.

[SPEAKER_05]: Oh crap. [SPEAKER_05]: I was supposed to bring one up [SPEAKER_05]: Do you have one up I actually have some I have a whole folder saved on my computer of planet cards that I am meaning to like read out on the show go for it so yeah, yeah, it's it's literally a sub folder within my mass effects screenshots folder [SPEAKER_05]: Alright, here's one.

[SPEAKER_05]: Let's bring it up. [SPEAKER_05]: This planet is named Logosiri. [SPEAKER_05]: I don't think I've said this one on the show before. [SPEAKER_05]: A step above a carbonaceous asteroid. [SPEAKER_05]: Logosiri is a planet with a carbon heavy crust and a trace atmosphere of CO2 in helium. [SPEAKER_05]: Its surface is cool enough to have liquid water, but it is rapidly drying out as it has lost the critical mass to have a self-sustaining [SPEAKER_05]: Nevertheless, the Beterians have colonized the world, forcing slaves to work in their minds and agrahabitants.

[SPEAKER_05]: The labor is hot, endless, and backbreaking, even in its low-gian environment. [SPEAKER_05]: Every horror story told by Slaves elsewhere in the cluster seems to be topped by one from Logosiri. [SPEAKER_05]: The most famous is that of the Slaver Silparan, who worked to death 420 slaves over the course of one galactic standard year, and ground up their bodies for compost in his greenhouses.

[SPEAKER_05]: He was eventually poisoned by his wife, but his shadow and his business model still hang over the miserable planet. [SPEAKER_03]: Well, when it is this, oh my god. [SPEAKER_05]: Yeah, right. [SPEAKER_05]: Logo Siri, L-O-G-A-S-I-R-I. [SPEAKER_05]: I remember, I screenshot of that because I'm like, Jesus, that's dark.

[SPEAKER_05]: Defense. [SPEAKER_05]: Really dark. [SPEAKER_05]: That's from Mass Effect, too. [SPEAKER_05]: So, all right, that's Logo Siri, um, and they're apparently super long days for the laborers there because the day length on Logo Siri is 49.7 earth hours. [SPEAKER_05]: So, double. [SPEAKER_05]: Double.

[SPEAKER_05]: how awful. [SPEAKER_05]: Anyway, that's all we got for the middle of the show. [SPEAKER_05]: Let's get back with the rest of the lore about the keepers. [SPEAKER_02]: After time adrift among open stars, a long tides of light and through shows of dust, I will return to where I began. [SPEAKER_01]: Celery and reproduction different, very little sex-tride.

[SPEAKER_01]: If intended to try human, would try you out my bakeries. [SPEAKER_05]: So we were talking about how Seren shot the keeper, the end of Mass Effect 1, and I wanted to bring up that after Seren's attack on the Citadel, the Reapers actually wanted to replace the keepers with a more malleable race, perhaps the Geth.

[SPEAKER_05]: and it's probably beneficial for the reapers that they did not succeed in doing that. [SPEAKER_05]: Because as we later learn in Mass Effect 2 and 3, Shepherd helps to free the heretics, the heretics who are written by the reaper code. [SPEAKER_05]: So it is possible for other organics to mess with Geth code.

[SPEAKER_03]: right and if the reapers are like using the death now as their main source, it could cause a lot of problems if the death code is rewritten. [SPEAKER_03]: It would be along the same lines as the keepers being rewritten by the proteins. [SPEAKER_05]: Exactly and I feel like that just means that the [SPEAKER_05]: they're too capable.

[SPEAKER_05]: Like they're too capable to just be laborers as the Koreans found out the hard way. [SPEAKER_05]: So that's probably beneficial for the reapers and yet after Seren's attack on the Citadel, the keepers actually start repairing the station. [SPEAKER_05]: and they touch up repair work that was carried out by other council and non-council species aboard the Citadel.

[SPEAKER_05]: So they are fixing the damage from the battle of the Citadel, and it's almost like we are in their way. [SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, they're going behind the other races and continuing to alter and touch up the repair work, which I think is adorable. [SPEAKER_03]: They're like, no, you did it wrong.

[SPEAKER_05]: Yeah, and this is where I was saying that I think is the greatest possibility for sabotage. [SPEAKER_05]: that the reapers are still like like I understand that the Citadel, the signal from the Citadel about, you know, commenced the reaping. [SPEAKER_05]: That was co-opted, but I don't think the keepers are completely free of the reapers influence because they're still at work.

[SPEAKER_05]: Like they're still doing like the menial tasks around the Citadel that require constant direction. [SPEAKER_05]: So no one else is giving the keepers this direction. [SPEAKER_05]: I'm pretty sure they're still at the behest of the reapers. [SPEAKER_05]: That being said, I feel like it is a massive oversight.

[SPEAKER_05]: that Shepard didn't just tell Ambassador Odena or Ambassador Anderson. [SPEAKER_05]: Hey, by the way, you got to get rid of these guys. [SPEAKER_05]: Like, these guys are just relying everything back to the keepers or the reapers. [SPEAKER_05]: You got to get them to go. [SPEAKER_05]: Like, I understand there is a ton of labor that needs to be replaced.

[SPEAKER_05]: And that's going to cause an economic problem. [SPEAKER_05]: But these guys are sabotaging. [SPEAKER_05]: No doubt. [SPEAKER_03]: It is quite interesting that the keepers are still around after Mass Effect One, and that we do just allow them to keep doing their thing, not knowing who these orders are coming from, not knowing exactly where even they get the materials to do these repairs are coming from.

[SPEAKER_05]: Right, yeah, well, like, hey, this is going to take a lot of steel, a lot of titanium. [SPEAKER_05]: Don't worry about it. [SPEAKER_05]: The keepers just, you know, they found it somewhere. [SPEAKER_05]: And it's a lot of like, it's a lot of big details that people just seem to just not care about, you know what I mean?

[SPEAKER_05]: Like, you think that it somewhere along the line of citadel governance, someone would be like, hold on. [SPEAKER_05]: The math ain't mathing here, guys. [SPEAKER_05]: Like we should look into this. [SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, they just ignore the keepers because it's what they've always done. [SPEAKER_05]: I need a comic about a C-Sec Investigator and it's going to be like a film noir and he's going to be investigating the keepers and how they're getting all these materials, how they're replacing their workers at alarming rates when they're working on like EVA repairs like they're [SPEAKER_05]: and they keep losing workers, but they were placing him no problem.

[SPEAKER_05]: And so there's a C-second vestigator looking into it, and his investigation leads him to the bowels of the Citadel, where he is standing on the edge of a platform, and if he falls off, he falls into the vacuum of space. [SPEAKER_05]: And behind him, he hears the click of a shotgun. [SPEAKER_05]: And it's just a keeper standing there when the shotgun.

[SPEAKER_05]: Oh, it doesn't say anything because it can't, and then it just cuts to black. [SPEAKER_03]: Um, so little known fact, they can make some noises, they making insectoid like noises, but we just can't track them and figure out if it's any actual speech or any pathology to it. [SPEAKER_03]: Uh, so now I'm picturing the shotgun and a couple little mandibles clicking together making an even ear ear sound.

[SPEAKER_05]: Yes. [SPEAKER_05]: Oh, man. [SPEAKER_05]: Oh, yeah. [SPEAKER_05]: Oh, that would be weird. [SPEAKER_05]: Anyway. [SPEAKER_05]: Oh, you know what else is creepy and Mass Effect 3 when we see the keepers at the very end. [SPEAKER_05]: After the beam, this the beam to the the run to the Citadel beam.

[SPEAKER_05]: Shepard gets beamed up and then you see keepers rummaging through dead bodies. [SPEAKER_03]: Yeah. [SPEAKER_05]: What are they looking for? [SPEAKER_03]: So, this is where it gets a little bit dark because, according to the lore, they are there to assist in processing the bodies. [SPEAKER_03]: Now, in addition to their maintenance duties, the keepers are also known to run protein [SPEAKER_03]: what else the keepers do with them is unknown to the general public.

[SPEAKER_03]: I'm sorry, but biomass in protein vats and processing dead bodies, that sounds a little soil and green to me. [SPEAKER_05]: Oh, yeah. [SPEAKER_05]: I was just going to say that. [SPEAKER_05]: What if that's how they're making the ramen? [SPEAKER_03]: No, not the noodles. [SPEAKER_03]: Keep the noodles out of this.

[SPEAKER_05]: Yeah. [SPEAKER_05]: So, okay. [SPEAKER_05]: So, I think we understand now how they are eating, right? [SPEAKER_05]: Now they are subsisting, or perhaps even worse, they are breaking down the biomass into different molecules, and that's how they're making more keepers. [SPEAKER_03]: That's what I'm thinking.

[SPEAKER_05]: Like, the keepers are just recycled people from perhaps this cycle, previous cycles? [SPEAKER_05]: Who knows? [SPEAKER_05]: Like, it's literally a genome template that the, that the, that the reapers created. [SPEAKER_05]: Right? [SPEAKER_05]: Oh, that would be super dark. [SPEAKER_03]: It's very dark.

[SPEAKER_03]: I mean, by the end of Mass Effect 3, we see them just picking at bodies. [SPEAKER_03]: We don't know what they're doing. [SPEAKER_03]: And who knows? [SPEAKER_03]: I mean, obviously, these were soldiers, people who were fighting, and we were asking where they're getting the materials to fix the Citadel, right?

[SPEAKER_03]: So what if they're also breaking down armor? [SPEAKER_03]: Weaponry, things that they find on the Citadel discarded, and that's where they're getting the material to help repair things. [SPEAKER_03]: So maybe that dead dudes gun is going to help reinforce a steel girders down the line. [SPEAKER_05]: Hmm.

[SPEAKER_05]: Okay. [SPEAKER_05]: Well, [SPEAKER_05]: that's honestly just awful. [SPEAKER_05]: I think that we should not feel bad about unmitigated violence toward these things. [SPEAKER_05]: And I didn't really feel like that originally. [SPEAKER_05]: I actually kind of thought that they were cute and I felt bad for the keeper that got shot in the head by Sarah.

[SPEAKER_05]: Now I don't. [SPEAKER_05]: now I don't because now that I know that it is essentially a high-level officer and the reapers genocide that they carry out every 50,000 years. [SPEAKER_05]: Now I feel like we need to put the keepers on trial at Nordburg. [SPEAKER_03]: I mean, if we can figure out a way for them to for us to communicate with them, yeah, for damn sure we need, we need their entire history.

[SPEAKER_03]: We need to know everything about these dudes. [SPEAKER_05]: Yeah, so do they have like any level of culture that might clue us into whether or not they actually have some kind of advanced cognition? [SPEAKER_03]: I mean, not really, they seem to undertake tasks that occasionally seem bizarre to the other races like we talked about, rearranging offices or sometimes completely changing the architecture down in the wards.

[SPEAKER_03]: you know, they will rearrange things to whatever fits the best purpose of the Citadel. [SPEAKER_03]: And still, we don't have any communication with them about their work, and they just work and work and work without letting any other species know what the plan is. [SPEAKER_05]: Yeah, that's the creepiest thing.

[SPEAKER_05]: And they're still around. [SPEAKER_05]: Post-mass effect three, [SPEAKER_05]: and yet the reaper's may not be, but if we think about it, like I want to know if they are reaper made or if they're Leviathan made, that's a possibility as well, um, now I'm wondering about the race that the Leviathan said were the where the first to get reaped.

[SPEAKER_05]: I can't, there, there was some kind of remark that the Leviathan's made about the other races at the time, and, and tell the Leviathan's were saved for the very end, and then that's when they got reaped. [SPEAKER_05]: I can't remember now, I'm gonna have to go back and look this up because maybe maybe that was the keepers.

[SPEAKER_03]: quite the possibility, especially looking at like the original first draft of the artwork, it seems more like a predatory species. [SPEAKER_03]: Something that would have been fighting, something that would have had more sentience and cognizance and being able to communicate. [SPEAKER_05]: Yeah.

[SPEAKER_05]: Well, I think that pretty much covers it for everything that we know about the keepers, right? [SPEAKER_05]: I wish that there was more hard Lorda talk about, but just a couple of final points, you know, like, [SPEAKER_05]: I think that there is disturbing implications for their origin, right?

[SPEAKER_05]: We've already kind of talked about that, but the evidence suggesting that the keepers may have once been this fully independent species, that was later transformed or enslaved, versus they were never a race at all, and their reapers made them from the recycled remains of others. [SPEAKER_05]: That is perhaps even more disturbing.

[SPEAKER_05]: And that they were deliberately designed to be unknowable. [SPEAKER_05]: You cannot communicate with them. [SPEAKER_05]: You cannot tamper with them or dissect them because they'll blow up. [SPEAKER_05]: And there's also enforced laws against studying them, which I find really interesting.

[SPEAKER_05]: I find that like that's like the Reaper's soft power. [SPEAKER_05]: The Reaper's soft influence over the Citadel government. [SPEAKER_05]: I bet in every cycle, there are laws against studying them. [SPEAKER_05]: It's just a really hyper-specific thing. [SPEAKER_05]: And you think that this would've come up earlier in the cycle about, hey guys, this very mysterious labor race that knows all the ins and outs of the most important space station in the galaxy, we can't really get to know anything about them and there's some kind of enforced ignorance and we don't know why.

[SPEAKER_03]: I mean, thanks, Corbin, for actually trying to do something along those lines. [SPEAKER_05]: Not Julie, Julie. [SPEAKER_05]: Corbin is the MVP, yeah. [SPEAKER_05]: So I agree. [SPEAKER_05]: And then there's also this whole system of like residual autonomy versus a broken control. [SPEAKER_05]: So after the Prothian interference, the keepers no longer respond to those repersignals, right?

[SPEAKER_05]: But yet they continue that maintenance role, like we talked about, and they do that without fulfilling their original function about carrying out a genocide. [SPEAKER_05]: So I guess maybe we'll find out in the next Mass Effect whether or not they are freed. [SPEAKER_05]: their freed from the indoctrination, right?

[SPEAKER_05]: Because that depends on are the reapers still around. [SPEAKER_05]: If they're not around, there's no one giving signals to the keepers. [SPEAKER_05]: Did the keepers just all simultaneously self-destruct? [SPEAKER_05]: If the keepers are still around, is it are they able to communicate now?

[SPEAKER_05]: Can we possibly engineer a way to communicate with them? [SPEAKER_05]: What might we learn from them? [SPEAKER_05]: and what if it's what if they weren't like what if it's not actually accurate to say that they were freed because what if we learned that they were going along with the reapers by their own free will.

[SPEAKER_03]: Oh, or what if the true mastermind of the person giving the signals and orders to the keepers was the catalyst? [SPEAKER_03]: I mean, if the catalyst has been on the citadel the entire time, just waiting, maybe he's the little star child is the one that is running the keepers. [SPEAKER_05]: And if you chose control, then maybe your shepherd lives on in the keepers.

[SPEAKER_05]: Yeah, exactly. [SPEAKER_05]: Like in the future, there's like, you know, garrisonly ours, funerals, and you see a crying keeper at the background. [SPEAKER_03]: In a little black vest. [SPEAKER_05]: Little black vest, and it takes off its little black hat. [SPEAKER_05]: That's it for its art.

[SPEAKER_03]: Okay, now we're humanizing them again and making them lovable. [SPEAKER_03]: No, these are scary little dudes. [SPEAKER_05]: We should not love them Scary little war criminals. [SPEAKER_05]: Um, all right. [SPEAKER_05]: Well I think that pretty much covers it for the keepers Any final thoughts, Genesis?

[SPEAKER_03]: I was not expecting this much lore and for it to get as dark as it did I don't ever want to read about protein vats and recycling biomass again [SPEAKER_05]: Yeah, definitely don't think about what their little claws on their three-fingered hands would sound like while scraping over metal.

[SPEAKER_05]: Don't think about that. [SPEAKER_05]: Alright, good night everybody! [SPEAKER_05]: We'll be back next week. [SPEAKER_05]: Genesis, do you have anything that you would like to shout out or anything you'd like to bring attention to? [SPEAKER_03]: uh... yes so we are taking a week off on my other two shows right now so uh... no episodes from the girls or from cyberpunk right now because hostie will be here in portland tomorrow which is going to be very awesome uh... so we're taking a week off from recording [SPEAKER_05]: Awesome.

[SPEAKER_05]: Yeah, that'll be that'll be so fun when tosties there. [SPEAKER_05]: You guys will have to get another drink for me because I wish I could be I Have Downloaded the new Starfield update and I'm thinking about streaming some Starfield now that I just it was so buggy with my old mods that were still installed That I was like I'm just gonna go through the unity and I'm gonna do new game plus [SPEAKER_05]: So now that I've got new game plus in the update and the new DLC, I might stream that.

[SPEAKER_05]: If that's your jam, if you want to see some star field, if you want to see some fallout, I've been streaming that as well, recently, fallout new Vegas. [SPEAKER_05]: And just give me a follow on Twitch at in seven the legend. [SPEAKER_05]: I wish I could commit to a solid schedule. [SPEAKER_05]: I cannot right now, but I will be streaming whenever I can.

[SPEAKER_05]: that I run. [SPEAKER_05]: So with that, I think that pretty much covers it and we will catch you next week expectors. [SPEAKER_05]: Take care. [SPEAKER_05]: Thanks for listening to the Mass Effect War Test. [SPEAKER_05]: Reach out to us on Blue Sky, Twitter, Discord, Patreon, or email us at Mass EffectLoreCast at gmail.com.

[SPEAKER_03]: Join us next week for more lore, same space, same time. [SPEAKER_03]: Or check out our live streams at twitch.tv slash Mass Effect WarCast.

241: The Keepers

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