The turians are a fictional extraterrestrial humanoid species in the Mass Effect multimedia franchise developed by BioWare and published by Electronic Arts. Turians are the first alien species to have come into contact with humanity within series lore, which inadvertently sparked a brief but vicious period of conflict which is eventually de-escalated due to the intervention of the Citadel Council, a multispecies governing body based on the Citadel space station. The aftermath of the so-called First Contact War as well as the underlying tensions between humanity and the turians form a recurring narrative theme in the Mass Effect series, which began with the franchise's debut work, the 2007 novel Mass Effect: Revelation. Turians are conceived as an avian humanoid species with an exoskeleton,