Thread by @nimbus_nought

Forgive me for this.But here we go again with another Mass Effect thread. Blame the handful of encouraging ME fans- ily guys by the way.
A timeline of sorts of conflicts in Mass Effect History. Again, 1-3, bc I'm just not as up on Andromeda yet.
Again, mute this for your health

We're going to start from the Protheans onwards, because navigating all the pre-Prothean conflicts and races is a nightmare.
So our first conflict is The Metacon War

The Protheans advanced their spaceflight capabilities and developed Mass Effect technology by finding ruins left by the Insuannon- a race wiped out by the Reapers in a previous galactic cycle. Shortly after this, the Protheans meet a hostile synthetic intelligence.

To defeat this threat, the Protheans 'unite' sentient life within the galaxy. 'Unite' here means galactic scale imperial conquest where any race not willing to assimilate into the Prothean Empire and fight against the synthetic threat was wiped out. Details details.

The Protheans won The Metacon War.
The Protheans were monitoring 'primitive' pre-spaceflight species like the Asari, Salarians, Turians, Hanar, Quarians and Humans at this point, with a view to eventually 'inviting' them to join the Prothean Empire.

The Protheans actually defended the Asari homeworld, Thessia, from an invasion by another race, the Oravores. This is remembered in Asari mythology as the goddess Athame defending them from jealous gods.

Speaking of The Oravores, they also went to war with another Prothean contemporary race, the Densorin. The outcome of that is unclear, but we do know that the Densorin tried to pacify the Reapers with sacrifices. It did not work.

So the Reapers. The Protheans deliberately ceased study of species like the Asari in the hope that surviving Protheans (like those in stasis pods on Ilos and Eden Prime) would unite them and defeat the Reapers in the next cycle.

We know how that worked out.
Whilst they were fighting The Reapers, the Protheans also had to fight a synthetic race called the Zha'til. An organic race, the Zha, implanted themselves with AIs to survive the changing conditions of their homeworld, becoming the Zha'til.

When the Reapers came along, they indoctrinated the AIs, who seized control of the organic bodies, mutilated and enslaved them. So as part of their war with the Reapers, the Protheans induced the progression of the Zha'til's system star into a supernova, destroying them.

The Reapers eventually wiped out The Protheans and their subjugated species. Seemingly unable to use the Protheans to create another Reaper, The Reapers 're-purposed' them into the Collectors.
As far as we know, Javik is the only surviving Prothean.

Presumably there are other wars going on around this time on various planets, but the next ones worth mentioning are the Krogan conflicts on Tuchanka that caused a nuclear winter. They were fought over dwindling resources and habitable land.

Subsequently, the previously rich Krogan civilisation was reduced to constantly warring clans fighting to survive on their irradiated planet.
1400 years later or so, The Turian Unification War happens.

By the time the Asari and Salarians found the Citadel and establish the Council, The Turians had discovered several Mass Relays and used them to colonise planets across the galaxy.

Turian society is really interesting, but I'll rein myself in. Basically, The Unification War broke out because, without the close influence of the Turian Hierarchy, the chieftains running colony worlds started fighting each other.

This is actually when Turians started wearing facial markings as colony identifiers -not wearing them is considered suspicious.After a few years, the Hierarchy finally got involved. By then the remaining factions were so weak that they essentially had to resubmit to the Hierarchy

By the way, Asari/Salarian diplomacy wasn't all roses. As a gesture of good faith, the Salarian Union gave the Asari access to the records and identities of The League of One, a top secret Salarian intelligence agency.

Members of the League of One retaliated by assassinating the Salarian Union's inner cabinet. 10 Special Task Group operatives were sent to hunt down the League and only 2 returned, reporting that they found no trace...

Next up are the Rachni wars. By this time, the Elcor, Hanar, Quarians, Batarians and Volus had embassies on the Citadel. A Citadel exploration team activated a relay leading to the system containing the Rachni's home planet, Suen. The Rachni were hostile.

Diplomacy/combat was difficult because the Rachni Queens were hard to reach on their toxic planets. BUT, the Citadel races were at this point aware of the Krogan.

The Salarians uplifted the Krogan; they gave them advanced tech, helped to stabilise Tuchanka's atmosphere, and helped them relocate to a more hospitable planet. The Krogan were easily persuaded to fight the Rachni.

Bc they could endure the toxic Rachni planets, were natural fighters and bred so quickly, the Krogan eradicated the Rachni (ha) fairly easily and were hailed as galactic saviours.
The Rachni war caused the Council to be more cautious in galactic colonisation from then on.

The Krogan were given new colony worlds by the Council, and, no longer limited by the conditions of their homeworld, the population exploded. This concerned the Council, so Special Tactics and Reconnaissance was established. The first Spectre was a Salarian named Beelo Gurji

The Krogan started attempting to annex other races' planets and when they refused to withdraw from Lusia, an Asari world, the Spectres targeted Krogan infrastructure. This started the Krogan Rebellions.

The Council then made contact with the Turians. Turian society being 1) hugely military based 2) deeply geared towards public service for the good of many, the Turians were persuaded to help subdue the Krogan.
(long before Vetra's time but here she is anyway)

It went well at first, but the Krogan counterattack involved crashing asteroids into Turian colonies... This caused the Turians to vow to prevent the Krogan from every being a galactic threat again. We know how that goes...

The Salarians developed the Genophage as a deterrent, never intending to use it. The Turians felt differently and used it at the first opportunity. The Krogan population quickly decreased and the rebellions ended 90 years later, though scattered fighting continued.

A brief deviation to mention the Krogan warlord Shiagur, who used her higher relative fertility to recruit the toughest male krogan to fight for her. Just because.

Anyway, the Krogan unsurprisingly didn't want much to do with the council after that, and the Turians took over the peacekeeping roles left vacant. They also got a seat on the Council.

The Citadel Conventions were drawn up after the rebellions. The use of WMDs was outlawed on garden worlds and a system was created to classify WMDs by the threat they pose to galactic safety.

1000 or so years later, the Geth War (called The Morning War by the Geth) began. The Geth were virtual intelligences created by the Quarians for labour purposes. Individual Geth programs were not sentient- but became so as they formed more complex networks.

When Geth units started to ask suspiciously sentient questions (eg: "Does this unit have a soul?), the Quarians panicked and started trying to dismantle them. It didn't work, and Quarians started to attack Geth units.

Only then, in self defence, did the Geth display any violent behaviour towards their creators. Some Geth units actually fought to defend Geth sympathising Quarians. The Quarians kept attacking, therefore so did the Geth- and the Geth were better at it.

Surviving Quarians evacuated Rannoch and their colonies, unaware that they were allowed to do so safely by the Geth. The entire Quarian population was forced to exist within a huge number of starships known as the Migrant Fleet.

There's loads to say about the effect of this on the Quarians, but I won't indulge myself.
As if they hadn't been punished enough, the Quarian emabassy on the Citadel was closed by the Council.

To the rest of the galaxy's surprise, the Geth remained behind the Perseus Veil and didn't venture into Citadel space. The Geth war happened in 1895 Earth time, by the way.
The first half of the 21st Century (earth time) also sees the end of the Drell on Rakhana.

Industrial expansion on Rakhana rendered it increasingly unable to support its population by the year 2000. The drell had no spaceflight capability, The Hanar evacuated 375,000 drell to their homeworld Kahje. The remaining 11 million drell died warring over essential resources.

BTW, in 2096 there was a second American Civil War. The US, Canada and Mexico united to form the United North American States- which not everyone was happy about. One secessionist group blew up the Statue of Liberty, causing war to break out.

Using FTL tech developed with the help of Prothean ruins on Mars, humans discovered the Charon Relay in 2149 and activated it. John Grissom lead the first team through the relay, which included our boy Alec Ryder.
18 Earth nations formed the Systems Alliance Military soon after

The Alliance started building military star ships and Arcturus station, even though they hadn't met any other space faring species yet. Bit fighty, IMO but whatever. This project resulted in several accidents in which humans were exposed to eezo.

Kaidan Alenko's mother was exposed during an accident at Singapore Space Port in 2151. He was born later that year. Human children born to exposed mothers were first observed to possess biotic ability in 2156.

In 2157, the Turians stumbled across humans attempting to activate a dormant Mass Relay- which had been outlawed following the Rachni Wars. The Turians attacked, the Alliance responded... And the First Contact War (known as the Relay 314 Incident by the Turians) started.

Shanxi, a human colony close to the relay, was put under siege. General Williams (Ashley's grandfather) surrendered when civilians began to starve. But guess who were also on Shanxi? Jack Harper and Saren Arterius...

Saren's brother Desolas was a Turian general hell bent on using a mysterious ancient artefact to convert Turians into 'meta-turians' in the name of the war. Harper convinced Saren to destroy the artefact, resulting in Desolas' death.

These events left Saren with deep resentment of humans, and convinced Harper that a 'Human-Survivalist Group' was required. Hello Cerberus. Harper's manifesto was dismissed as "survivalist rhetoric written by an illusive man"... so Jack Harper became… The Illusive Man.

BTW, remember who has the surname Harper and slightly murky family origins??? I have some questions about this, Bioware.

The First Contact War only lasted 3 months before the Council intervened to broker peace. But humanity did not make a great impression on the rest of the galaxy, and the conflict fuelled humanity's xenophobia. Other human-supremacist groups like Terra Firma were formed.

Humanity's continued expansion angered the Batarians. Batarian slavers attacked the human colony Mindoir in 2170. The Batarians closed their Citadel embassy in 2171 when the Council refused to stop human expansion into systems the Batarians considered to be theirs.

Also in 2171, Cerberus assassinated the Pope with toxin coated rosary beads in order to replace him with a more xenophobic Cardinal. They also funded an American separatist who went on kill the UNAS president and Chinese People's Federation Premier (with the Kassa Locust) in 2176

Batarian funded pirates and slavers attacked Elysium, a human world in 2176. This is known as the Skyllian Blitz. The Anhur Rebellions also began in 2176 when human corporations and corrupt politicians on the human and batarian colony world Anhur legalised slavery.

They did this in order to compete economically with the batarians on Anhur- whose culture includes slavery as standard. The rebellions lasted 2 years and eventually the abolitionists won.

In 2178, the Alliance attacked Torfan, a moon used as a criminal base, primarily by Batarians, in retaliation for the Skyllian Blitz. Afterwards, the Batarians began to withdraw from Citadel space.

...and only NOW do we actually make it to the events of Mass Effect 1!
In 2183, The Eden Prime War begins. I won't bother to detail those events. Some time after the Battle of the Citadel, Jacob and Miranda foiled an assassination attempt on the council by Batarian terrorists.

Around the same time, Cerberus conducted an attack on the Migrant Fleet.
In 2185, Fehl Prime was attacked by the Collectors. Delta Squad, featuring Mr James Vega, disarmed the Collector ship.

Vega chose to sacrifice the abducted colonists aboard the Collector ship in order to save Treeya Nuwani, an Asari who had intel on the Collectors he hoped would prevent further attacks.

In 2186, Commander Shepard destroyed the Bahak relay to delay the arrival of the Reapers and kills 300,000 Batarians in the process. The Batarian Hegemony considered their deaths to be deliberately planned by the Alliance and would potentially have gone to war with humanity.

BUT

... then the Reaper War happens!
Which I trust I don't need to go into.

END THREAD.
I apologise. Thank you for indulging me. It occurs to me now that I should have included more dates. Ah well.