sounds like Final Fantasy 7 to me.
anyway, nothing is original, they could have taken the idea from each other, or they could have taken the idea from another work, older than the two of them.

sounds like that story I wrote and made up a couple years ago... everybody's ripping me off!

He found it out! RUN! RUUUN!

Good that I searched the forum before creating a duplicate post.

Could it be that both games (series) had the same story writers? Did anyone compare the credits? :)
Come on, lets solve this mystery .

Wow, 8 years between the second to last post and 1 year between last and this post...

Bioware has been using the 'ancient super powerful society returns' storyline for ages. They used it in NWN, KotOR & Mass Effect.

Wow, I was going to post this and someone actually beat me to it.

The similarities are staggering.

Subspace is a Shivan trap in the same way that mass relays are a Reaper trap. Both species have advanced tracking on their respective FTL technologies, and that's how they seek out advanced civilizations.

Shivan physiology is similar in principle to Reaper technology - a fusion of organic and synthetic.

Shivan capital warships (cruisers and larger) heavily resemble Reapers - maintaining the overall "squid with tentacles" look. They also use the same "red laser" technology.

Shivans and Reapers exist ostensibly for the same reason: to prevent advanced species from dominating the galaxy. The original Freespace alludes to this a lot - humanity's crime is sin, extinguishing or conquering numerous species before bumping into the Shivans.

Admiral Bosch is more like the Illusive Man - deeply entangled with the secretive GTVI - that's why (as one of your squadmates in an early mission will accuse) "Command let Bosch escape!".

I'll take Nemo's comment (post #2) on humans teaming up with the alien species they fought with for many years a step further and point out that under the GTVA, humans and Vasudans built ships and equipment together.

I think it's just that they are both a mishmash of standard military sci-fi tropes and lovecraftian themes, there is something similar going on in Wing Commander Prophecy whose plot loosely resembles the plot of Freespace 1 only with standard alien invaders rather than something more mysterious and unknowable.

It's not uncommon for videogame narratives to fall into broad tropes to the point they often roughly resemble each other.

Of course execution in the case of Freespace is rather peculiar, Wing Commander and Mass Effect went more for Hollywood bombast/drama rather than existential dread.

Of course, the idea of an ancient, malevolent alien race is nothing new, but the specific story of a group of aliens with unknowable motives invading the galaxy every few thousand years to wipe out all technologically-advanced species (while leaving the rest alone, unless they happen to be unlucky enough to share a planet with one of those advanced species) is something I've only seen twice; once with Freespace and once with Mass Effect.

Considering the additional similarities between the Ancients and the Protheans, and between Aken Bosch and the Illusive Man, and also considering the fact that the Freespace games were published by Interplay in 1998 and 1999 (the same time period in which Bioware was publishing the Baldur's Gate games through Interplay) and it seems pretty clear that Bioware was cribbing off of Volition's notes.

And, of course, when Bioware ran out of source material with Mass Effect 3 they made a complete mess of things.