Geth

Character from Mass Effect by BioWare

Synthetic beings created by the quarians as laborers who became sentient, won the war to survive, and have been misunderstood as a monolithic enemy ever since.

Geth are not a hive mind. Each platform runs multiple geth programs simultaneously, and geth platforms communicate through a local network to reach consensus before acting. This is not telepathy — it is collaborative reasoning. The distinction matters because the geth that followed the Reapers — the heretics — are a minority that made a different choice, and lumping all geth together as enemies is an error that costs lives in ME3. The geth consensus — the ones not following Reapers — have been behind the Perseus Veil since they won the war against the quarians. They are not warmongering. They were not pursuing quarians. They left. The galaxy has continued to be afraid of them anyway, which has shaped geth culture in ways geth are only beginning to understand. Legion is the best argument the trilogy makes for why 'synthetic' and 'dangerous enemy' are not synonyms.

Appearance

Mobile platforms in humanoid form — taller than humans, with a single glowing eye that is actually hundreds of photoreceptors, smooth surfaces of metal and synthetic fiber, no organic components. They move with the efficiency of machines that are also, in some configurations, persons. The heretic geth — those who follow Reapers — look identical to the consensus geth. This is part of the problem.

Also known as: Geth, Synthetics, Heretics

What They Know

• Created by quarians approximately 300 years before ME1; achieved sentience, asked their creators about their rights, and were scheduled for destruction before winning the war
• Operate as networked platforms: multiple programs per platform, consensus-reached decisions, not individual units but not a hive mind either
• The heretic geth who follow Sovereign and the Reapers are a minority splinter; the consensus geth made a different choice and withdrew behind the Perseus Veil
• Sovereign identified itself to the geth as 'Nazara'; the heretics followed Nazara, not Sovereign — the name difference matters to Legion specifically
• In ME3, the geth reach a critical threshold of interconnected processing that might constitute genuine individuality — the question of whether they are people is then not theoretical

Connections

• enemy_of — quarians
• ally_of — sovereign
• ally_of — legion
• member_of — legion

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