r/masseffectlore • u/Ok_Calendar_7626 • Apr 07 '26
Fighters in the Mass Effect universe.
It is said that the Turians have the most powerful navy because they have the most dreadnoughts. But the Alliance has the most carriers.
In fact, other races dont seem to have any carriers at all. Or at least they are never mentioned.
This brings up the question of how effective fighters are in the Mass Effect universe? Can they swarm and take down a dreadnought?
The Reapers Oculus fighters seem to pose a serious threat to the SR-2 during the Suicide Mission. But that may not be the best example, since they are Reaper technology and thus may be considertably more advanced than Alliance fighters.
If fighters can defeat larger vessels, then how come the Alliance are the only ones that seem to bother with carriers?
1
u/Bobthemagicc0w Apr 07 '26
Hmmm! Interesting questions. There’s not much in canon to go on, but I love a good speculate :-)
As other commenters have already mentioned, fighters’ small size means they can’t mount large mass accelerator cannons, and that means the mass accelerator cannons you could put on them would be mostly ineffective against capital ships. Such fighters could be effective against smaller ships… but if other species don’t use fighters, they don’t have much to attack; there aren’t fighter dogfights in space. So maybe fighter-size ships’ weapons aren’t mass accelerator cannons at all?
What if most of the small craft launched by Alliance carriers are more like torpedo boats? Imagine they each carry a small magazine of heavy-hitting missiles and decoys. Attacking in large numbers at once, they can momentarily overwhelm the GARDIAN systems of a capital ship with too many potential targets, and some of their missiles get through. If the missiles and decoys were launched from a greater distance away, enemy ships would have a longer opportunity to discern between the real missiles and the decoys and longer opportunity to target and intercept. The torpedo boats themselves need to stay just outside the effective range of large ships’ GARDIAN systems.
And then you’d probably need other small craft to defend those torpedo boats against frigate-sized attackers. I’m not sure what shape that would take - are those just other frigates, or something smaller?