Mass Effect: Legendary Edition is set to hit shelves in 2021, remastering all three games in the original Mass Effect trilogy. Now, it’s been eight years since Mass Effect 3 was released, leaving some fans of the franchise eager to catch up on the series’ backstory before diving back into Mass Effect’s unique take on the Milky Way.
Fans can expect to see all their favorite alien races return in Mass Effect: Legendary Edition. One Citadel species in particular has among the strangest lore in the Mass Effect canon, including a tight hierarchy based on religion, hallucinogenic fish, and an interstellar movie star.
Hanar Culture
The Hanar are one of the strangest alien races in Mass Effect. With no eyes, mouths, or general facial features to speak of at all, the Hanar resemble large jellyfish, with their bodies based on the shape of a Portuguese man o’ war.
Hanar have two names, their Face Name and their Soul Name. A Hanar’s Face Name is the one it gives in public, and is considered far less intimate than their often-poetic Soul Names, which are only revealed to loved ones or close family friends. The species is very particular when it comes to self-reference as well. When talking to someone on face name basis, Hanar consider it egotistical to refer to themselves in the first person. Instead, members of the species tend to refer to themselves as “this one” or “it.” Occasionally, Hanar in places like the Citadel will adopt gendered pronouns for the sake of communication, though the species itself has no distinct sexes.
This isn’t the only example of the Hanar making some effort to integrate into the cultures of their fellow Citadel species. The Dirty Harry-style "Blasto" movie series pits a gun-wielding Hanar Spectre against the “scum” of the galaxy. However, the Hanar obsession with language has often caused irritation among the other races of the Citadel’s immense galactic bureaucracy. To the Hanar, however, language is sacred and has important ties to their religious beliefs.
Hanar Religion
The Hanar worship the Protheans, who left many ruins and artifacts on their home-world of Kahje. The Hanar call the Protheans the “Enkindlers,” believing them to be a lost race who helped raise the Hanar to their technology apex. At the start of Mass Effect 1, the species also generally believes the Protheans to be behind the creation of the Mass Relays that allow faster-than-light travel between the solar systems of the Milky Way.
One of the most important gifts the Hanar believe the Protheans gave them was the gift of speech, which is the center of their thirteen-day long religious festival known as “First Cresting Bloom,” or Nyahir. The holiday consists of many language-based festivities, including poetry duels and debates.
While the Hanar use translation devices to talk to Shepard in the Mass Effect games, they communicate with one another visually, using their own bioluminescence. It is possible to for a non-Hanar to have their eyes genetically modified to be able to pick up some of the subtler distinctions in this language, but most simply rely on translation.
Over the course of the original Mass Effect games, the realization that the Mass Relays were not created by the Protheans causes shockwaves throughout Hanar religious society. Cerberus Daily News describes the “denial and shock” on Kahje, as well as certain Hanar religious leaders calling for calm and commenting that it is “no heresy to say the Enkindlers themselves may have been Enkindled.” Javik, the Mass Effect 3 Prothean companion, reveals an even grimmer truth: he comments that, 50,000 years ago, the Protheans considered the Hanar appetizers.
Many Hanar, however, remain dogmatic in their approach to their religion. It is not uncommon for excavations of Prothean ruins to be protested or blockaded by those who believe the Enkindlers should be treated with reverence. Some even believe that the Enkindlers were mistaken to raise up the Hanar, and that they should be content to witness the universe instead of act to change it. When it comes to defending their beliefs more directly, however, the Hanar aren’t the most physically robust. When they need to fight, they often turn to the Drell, a species with whom they have a strange symbiosis.
The Drell
Several centuries before the start of the first game in the Mass Effect franchise, the Hanar discovered the Drell, a humanoid race of reptilians who had brought themselves to the cusp of extinction on their nearby planet of Rakhana. The Hanar decided to rescue a few hundred thousand Drell and bring them to Kahje, where the planet’s immense humidity often requires them to live in domed cities.
Many Drell serve Hanar families directly, a relationship which has been questioned by some observing species in the galaxy. Many Hanar argue that the relationship is not only advantageous to both parties, but stems from the Drell’s own belief in “the Compact” they made with the Hanar. Some Drell become so integrated in Hanar families that they learn their hosts’ Soul Names. While Blasto wields a gun with each available tentacle, most Hanar rely on Drell if they need a job carried out, from a parcel delivery to a political assassination. When the Reapers eventually invade in Mass Effect 3, the Hanar send the Drell to war.
The Hanar have a deferent relationship with their idea of the Prothean, and a host-like relationship with the Drell. However, they also brew hard liquors, with particular success among the Batarians. The Hanar themselves do not drink alcohol, but they do like to use something called a “mindfish” which bartender dialog in Mass Effect 3 reveals to be a type of fish which produces a hallucinogenic skin oil that can apparently cause a human to hallucinate for a full weekend.
Hanar aren’t always passive, and they don’t always use the Drell to do their dirty work. Mass Effect 2’s DLC companion Zaeed mentions nearly being strangled by a Hanar’s tentacles once, and Thane the Drell assassin also claims that the Hanar can produce a potent toxin. Knowing their history also reveals that the Hanar and their society are on the frontline of some of the revelations which come to light over the original Mass Effect trilogy. Though the Hanar are rarely in the spotlight, they help bring the galaxy to life as one of the strangest alien races fans will see return in the Legendary Edition.
Mass Effect: Legendary Edition is set to release in 2021 for PC, PS4, and Xbox One.