Mass Effect

UNDER CONSTRUCTION

Mass Effect. Preston Watamaniuk, Drew Karpyshyn, and Casey Hudson, creators. BioWare, Edge of Reality, Demiurge Studios, Straight Right, developers. Microsoft Game Studios (2007) Electronic Arts (2008–present [=2020]), publishers. Xbox 360, Microsoft Windows, iOS, PlayStation 3, Android, Windows, Phone, Wii U, PlayStation 4, Xbox One, platforms. First Release: 20 Nov. 2007, latest: 21 March 2017.[1]

Wikipedia entry identifies Mass Effect as "a military science fiction media franchise based on the third-person role-playing shooter series developed by BioWare [...]." Relevant here,

The original trilogy largely revolves around a soldier named Commander Shepard, whose mission is to save the galaxy from a race of powerful mechanical beings known as the Reapers and their agents, including the first game's antagonist Saren Arterius[, ... who functions] under the guidance of Sovereign, a Reaper left behind in the Milky Way 50,000 years before, when the Reapers exterminated all sentient organic life determined to have met or exceeded a threshold of technological advancement in the galaxy as part of a recurrent cycle of genocide for an unknown purpose. Sovereign's purpose is to trigger the imminent return of the Reaper fleet hibernating in extra-galactic dark space, restarting the process of extermination.[2]

Cf. and contrast the Reapers with Fred Saberhagen's berserkers, the "Doomsday Machine" in the original "classic" Star Trek series,[3] and, on a smaller scale, the Terminators of THE TERMINATOR series and Colossus in COLOSSUS: THE FORBIN PROJECT.

Joey Eschrich notes the series as "one of the most sprawling and popular science fiction texts in games, and very interested in machine intelligence and AI issues (and human enhancement [...])" — e-note 31 July 2020.

RDE, with thanks to Joey Eschrich, 31July20