Character from Mass Effect by BioWare
Enigmatic beings from beyond the Omega 4 Relay who trade in biological specimens and have been abducting human colonies — revealed to be Protheans, converted by the Reapers into their instruments.
The Collectors have been myths in the Terminus Systems for centuries — appearing briefly to trade in unusual biological artifacts, then vanishing. Nobody who goes through the Omega 4 Relay comes back to explain them. Their purpose in ME2 is the systematic abduction of human colonies for genetic material to build the Human-Reaper. The reveal — that Collectors are converted Protheans — retroactively changes the meaning of every Prothean artifact in ME1. The Reapers didn't just exterminate the Protheans; they preserved the useful ones as tools for the next cycle. This is what Javik was lucky enough to avoid. Harbinger controls the Collector General directly and sometimes possesses individual Collector units during combat, which is how Shepard has their first real conversation with a Reaper.
Insectoid humanoids with carapace biology and the specific wrongness of Reaper conversion — something that was once fully organic and is now something else. They move in coordinated patterns that suggest hive consciousness at the unit level. The Collector General, who is directly controlled by Harbinger, looks like the others but isn't.
Also known as: Collectors, The Collectors, Harvested Protheans