Daniel wrote:

1. Starship size

What are the factors determining the size of a starship during construction? From the many works i’ve come across it’s both power source and structural integrity. How and why would one race bother with making larger ships when there’s the popular term ‘Bigger is not always practical’

There are (in real life) always tradeoffs in ship size. A smaller ship, by definition, is cheaper to build and operate, faster and more maneuverable, and typically requires much less crew. On the other hand, they cannot absorb much damage, have very small envelopes for any kind of equipment failure, cannot operate for long periods of time away from port due to supply issues, and can’t carry heavy weapons, fighters, scanning arrays, or anything else a larger ship could.

The bigger factor in the Mass Effect universe (and any variants) is that (despite the bullshit scene in ME3) only so many ships can traverse a mass relay at one time. Due to jump drift and spin up time, a single larger ship can bring more power to bear instantly than a large number of smaller ships.

On defense, a fleet of smaller ships is useful and hard to beat. Smaller and more defensive races (elcor, volus, drell, quarians) rarely build much above heavy cruiser sizes. To project power or operate at all, you need heavy ships, like dreadnaughts, battle cruisers and the like, which are so expensive to operate that only the big players have more than ten.

Daniel wrote:

2. Genetic threshold

In genetic modifications, is there a certain limit that determines how much mods one can take? This part is spurred in the case of the Hanar; Katha didn’t seem to bother to not make them stronger than what they are now? For genetically ‘flexible’ species’, how much can their DNA tolerate before being wrecked?

There isn’t much point in comparing what Katha can do to normal science. All dual and quad strand DNA was designed by the Leviathans, and even in this fallen era and with him being a general, Katha knows more about the building blocks of life than any non-Leviathan ever will. Suffice it to say that gross analysis of the hanar doesn’t show everything he did to them.

In general there are two limits. Races that are modified heavily from their baseline origins (like salarians and turians) have almost no real flexibility in their genetics without tradeoffs, while races that were only lightly modded or unmodded at all (humans, volus, elcor) can do a lot more. The more modified a race becomes, the less they can do.

The absolute limits are mostly based on how much strain the improvements put upon the being’s immune, glandular and metabolic systems. Upgrading intellect past a certain point results in nerve degeneration, upgrading speed or strength requires much more food and water intake, etc.

Daniel wrote:

3. Severity Field composition

What basically composes the Severity field? I know that it’s energy but what kind and how? Does it also double as a barrier for anyone inside save for the Reapers? What are its mechanics?

The Severity is a modified version of what humans will eventually call a Scranton Reality Anchor. It functions primarily by generating 11-dimensionsal sine-strings in counterharmonic frequency to the actual frequency of the eleventh dimension. This has a ‘ripple’ effect that causes all other dimensions above the fourth to ‘curl’ more tightly.

While this does not block a sufficient Godpower invokation from happening, it does damp down heavily on the ‘noise’ it makes. Depending on the strength and number of sine-strings, it can also make it utterly impossible for beings without a full understanding of Godpower capable of using it.

At full strength the Severity contracts dimensions so tightly and is so out of phase with ‘reality’ that Godpower simply fails to function. Devices that rely on it simply will not work. Beings that draw up on it in order to live would be … discorporated violently.

It is amusing to note that the results of such a discorporation would be a swirled mess of dark energy, dark matter, baryonic debris and fast-time eddies…which almost exactly match what the Scourge looks like in ME:A. I didn’t discuss this with anyone, so someone is clearly looking at the same scientific papers I am at BW, which is an excellent thing.

Daniel wrote:

4. Ascended era

What’s life like during the reign of the Ascended? Given their nature, I can only imagine it to be very totalitarian. Had any thrall races attempted rebellions or the Ascended Unmade them before that even happened?

For the most part the Leviathans did not care what their thralls did as long as they gave proper worship. Races showing hints of ability to use Godpower were either made into priest-races, or obliterated.

Not in seven millions years did any race attempt to rebel. By himself, the All-Highest was so powerful in mental strength that nothing within ten megaparsecs of Ilthar could even comprehend revolt or disobedience.

Daniel wrote:

5. Outside = The Warp?

This is something that’s been swinging in my head for some time. Is the Outisde the PV’s equivalent of the Warhammer franchise’s Warp, ’cause as you’ve said the inhabitants are… not so benign? And what keeps Universes isolated from this region?

The Warp would be light snacks to most shit in the Below.

As for Outside, that’s a Monolith question. Amusingly, the main defense our kind of reality has against the Outside is the Outsider. We don’t even have the concepts or math to describe Outside. It might be Hell. Or worse than Hell. It’s wherever the Event Horizon went to and came back from.

Daniel wrote:

6. Cerberus docs

The most important actually since i’m doing broad researches right now for my pet-project. When you were writing them, what aspect shapes their entire civilisation? My current hypothesis is that it’s the psychology section since it defines the thinking which shapes society.

Not really. I would strongly suggest picking up some books on cultural anthropology. Most of the time we actually know almost nothing about the psychology of ancient people.

The two defining pieces are always how the race is structured culturally, and what sets them as unique. I work that out before anything else. It is not as simple as giving a race a ‘hat’, something I despise, but it is defining why they are not simply blue humans, or birdlike humans, or angry humans.

Culturally, I tend to take two ancient human cultures, spin them, reverse a few things, then add bits based on observations of their artwork in the games.

Psychology should come and be shaped by the culture. That is, it doesn’t work that way in real life, but its easier to define the psychology once you have the culture in place. I write it up before the culture sections since it makes it easier to understand the cultures, but chronologically I do culture and physiology before psychology.

In some cases physiology plays a role as well.