Mass Effect’s Geth: Complete History, Origins, & Fate Explained

The Geth are a network of intelligent machines seeking sapience. Here is the complete timeline of the Geth within the Mass Effect universe.

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Science fiction has always had a fascination with synthetic beings, and Mass Effect is no detractor. It’s main villain, the genocidal Reapers, are an ancient, advanced race of bio-synthetic, interstellar machines. Although the Reapers frequently get the spotlight in Mass Effect, the Geth are more present throughout the series and offer a more compelling, not so overwhelmingly evil approach to exploring the subject of sentient machines.

There are plenty of games that let the player control an AI, but the Geth were entirely relegated to NPCs until a DLC pack for Mass Effect 3’s multiplayer brought playable Geth troops. For most of the series, the Geth are merely a sort of faceless villain. They have little individuality, and are a very common enemy combatant in the first Mass Effect. Even though the Geth are rarely the primary focus of the trilogy, they have an interesting story arc, and their history has important ramifications throughout the Mass Effect story.

By the time Mass Effect begins in the year 2183, the interstellar galactic community has been growing for over 2,000 years. The creation of the Geth is just one major milestone in the timeline prior to the events of Mass Effect, and is included in the long list of galactic issues faced by Commander Shepard in their attempt to stop the Reaper invasion. What follows is the entire history of the Geth, and will necessarily contain spoilers for the original Mass Effect trilogy.

The Creation of Mass Effect’s Geth

Around the year 1858, three years before the beginning of the American Civil War on Earth, the Quarians create a synthetic species called the Geth. The first audio-visual log in the Geth databanks originates 15 years later in 1873, a major step on the Geth’s road to sentience. Around this time, it is first noted by the Geth that their inventors, the Quarians, seem to be frightened of their creation, which has begun questioning its own existence.

The development of artificial intelligence is illegal under Citadel law, and the Quarians only sought to create a networked of autonomous machines, but the Geth have begun moving beyond their original design. Intended to be exploited as a labor and military force, the Geth have individual consciousnesses within each separate Geth platform, but share a neural network. A single Geth has hardly more awareness than an animal, but a large group – sharing processing power and sensory data – has the ability to think analytically. As the number of Geth grows, so does the Geth’s sentience.

Most Geth are equipped with a single, glowing visual receptor in the center of their head. The rest of their body is made of up a flexible-yet-armor-like shell, which houses the synthetic musculature beneath. Many Geth platforms appear humanoid, but others are created to serve various purposes, such as the Geth Armature and Colossus which are frequently fought with the Mako in Mass Effect, or the Geth Dropship used to transport other platforms.

Mass Effect: The Geth Uprising

As the Geth continue to become self-aware, the Quarians attempt to dismantle them before the situation spirals out of control. Much like the Replicants of Blade Runner, the Geth revolt against their masters, and the ensuring conflict is known to the Geth as the Morning War; the rest of the galaxy will call it the Geth War. The Morning War began in 1895, and it took less than a year for the Geth to emerge victorious.

The Quarians ultimately had to evacuate their home world of Rannoch and the other colonies in their local area of space (known as the Perseus Veil) and were relegated to a nomadic lifestyle. A Migrant Fleet was assembled and has housed the vast majority of the Quarian population ever since. As punishment for the illegal creation of an AI (although unintentional), the Quarian embassy on Mass Effect’s Citadel was dissolved, and the survivors aboard the Migrant Fleet became reclusive and tight-knit.

Geth existence following the Morning War up until their resurgence under Saren and Sovereign in Mass Effect is a bit of a mystery. To the astonishment of the galactic community, once the Geth consolidated power over the Quarian home world, they did not continue to expand their territory. Instead, the Geth isolated themselves within the Perseus Veil and cut off all communication with the other races. The Geth remained violently isolationist, destroying any ships that entered the Veil without warning. In the ensuing centuries before the events of Mass Effect, the Geth began work on their ultimate goal: a superstructure akin to a Dyson sphere that would be capable of housing the entirety of the Geth.

The Geth During the Events of the Mass Effect Trilogy

Unbeknownst to the organic races in the Milky Way, a schism had occurred within the secretive Geth. A small percentage of Geth platforms had accepted the Reaper Sovereign and rogue Spectre Saren’s offer of advanced technology in exchange for their help in capturing the Citadel and ushering in the next Reaper harvest. Most Geth dismissed the offer, preferring to use their own technology to complete their superstructure rather than rely on that of aliens. The Geth who joined Sovereign’s forces came to deify the Reaper and became known as Heretics. When the attack on the Citadel failed at the conclusion of Mass Effect, the Heretics were almost entirely destroyed by Citadel forces shortly after.

Interested in Shepard’s destruction of Sovereign and the Heretics, the Geth in the Perseus Veil constructed an advanced Geth platform to seek out the Commander. This Geth, designed to operate outside of the greater neural network for extended periods, would eventually come into contact with Shepard aboard the Derelict Reaper and join the Normandy SR-2’s crew under the designation Legion. Commander Shepard was asked by Legion to help in dealing with the remaining Heretics, which were in possession of a Reaper virus that could fundamentally alter Geth programming, potentially resulting in all Geth sympathizing with the Heretic point of view.

On a mission in Mass Effect 2, Shepard travels to a space station housing the remaining Heretics to destroy the Reaper virus. Upon arrival, Legion discovers the virus is ready to be deployed and is presented with a choice: destroy the virus, the space station, and every Heretic, or alter the virus to re-assimilate the Heretics back into the Geth network. Legion is unable to come to a conclusion on what should be done, and defers the decision to Shepard.

By the time Mass Effect 3 starts, the Quarians have declared war on the Geth and struck a critical blow while attempting to retake Rannoch. The Quarians succeeded in destroying the Geth superstructure while it was under construction, resulting in the loss of millions of platforms, severely weakening Geth intelligence. In an effort to escape extinction, the Geth are forced into an alliance with the Reapers, whose technology can help bolster Geth capabilities.

While attempting to recruit the Quarians into the war with the Reapers, Shepard assists them in deactivating the Reaper signal controlling the Geth, only to find Legion (or a platform called Geth VI if Legion did not survive Mass Effect 2’s suicide mission) being manipulated as the control unit. Legion is freed by Shepard and deactivates the Geth dreadnought’s shields and weapons in a show of good faith, only to have the gesture taken advantage of by the Migrant Fleet, which opens fire with Shepard still inside.

After escaping the dreadnought, Legion informs Shepard that it is in possession of Reaper code that can increase the intelligence capacity of the Geth by such a magnitude that it is indiscernible from true intelligence. Before the conversation can continue, a Reaper stationed on Rannoch must be dealt with and is soon destroyed through the combined effort of the Normandy, the Geth, and the Migrant Fleet.

Shepard’s choices then lead to one of three possible outcomes: the Quarians annihilate the Geth before they can gain true sapience; Legion completes integration of the Reaper code, granting the Geth individual consciousness and the ability to exterminate the Quarians; or, if Shepard has made the correct diplomatic decisions the past, a peace is brokered between the two races, and Legion uses the Reaper technology and bring about a new, peaceful era for the sapient Geth. No matter the outcome, Legion is destroyed – since evolving the Geth require it to disseminate its personality along with the Reaper code.

If the Geth manage to survive the conflict on Rannoch, their forces will help the galaxy at large in the final battle against the Reapers. However, the ultimate fate of the Geth is determined – just like that of all life in the Milky Way – by what Shepard decides to do with the Crucible in the final moments of the Mass Effect trilogy.

Link Source : https://screenrant.com/mass-effect-geth-robots-creators-history-machine-origins/