Is there a canon order for the main missions in Mass Effect?

Playing Mass Effect i found that some parts of the story in the Main Missions didn't seem to make sense in terms of logic.

ie. on Feros Shepard having no idea about Sovereign's Indoctrination even though ealier on Noveria Benezia had explained it. Noveria is closer to the Citadel than Feros so it would make sense that it would be done first.

Considering that the main missions can roughly be done in any order i am wondering if there is actually a canon order to do the main missions in?

Solution 1:

I don't know if we can consider it " canon " , but there is definitly a more " logical " order to do them, in my opinion. Because as you said, and I quote:

on Feros Shepard having no idea about Sovereign's Indoctrination even though ealier on Noveria Benezia had explained it.

It clearly shows that it would be more logical to do Feros before Noveria then. So personally, I always do them in this order:

Therum ( Shepard starting by recruiting as many people as he/she can, and since that person is Benezia's daughter, it makes sense that Shepard would want to meet her as soon as possible ) , Feros ( Shepard investigating on the Geth activities trying to understand what the Geths are looking for, and discovers the Thorian and his mind-control power ) , Noveria ( Shepard found out on Feros that Saren is interested by the Thorian's mind control, so Shepard wants to know more about Indoctrination, and ends up meeting Saren's " representant " Benezia ) , Virmire ( Shepard FINALLY finds " the bad guy " Saren, and discovers the truth about Sovereign ) , and then Ilos ( meets Vigil, learns more about the Protheans and discovers the truth about that Relay on the Citadel, leading Shepard to the end ) .

That seems like the more " logical " order to do the main missions.

But then again, I don't know if we can really call it " canon " , since the game lets you choose the order you want to do them, making it impossible to really have a " canon " version. Only a " more logical " one. Can't really call it " canon " because it's up to the player's choices.

Solution 2:

Like @MBraedley mentions, there is no actual canon for most of the story missions. Some of them do require certain story points to be completed before being triggered and thus end up being in a certain order, but for most of the time you'll just receive a bunch of quests and it's up to you in which order you want to tackle them.

For my part, in all three of my playthroughs the game did adjust for a changed play order, but it is possible I've missed or forgotten the inconsistencies.

There is an overall cannon and order in that you will always start with the recruiting missions and after having finished a certain number of them will progress to the next main story point.