Bioware tells us about our need for exploration and whatnot. That's what I base my beliefs on.

I agree, from the trailer and everything we've seen so far, it's very possible that BioWare will go the route of "we go because we can". This may very well be the case. Personally, I hope there is more to it because even in the ME universe as shown so far, mankind (and in fact all the races in the Milky Way that we know) follow very much the same patterns as we do today. Just read the descriptions of colony worlds in the Galaxy Map and you'll see that for all of them, there are sociopolitical, strategic or economic reasons for the state of their development.
I always like this approach because it is a "realistic" scenario (within the universe of course). For a project as massive (and central to the plot) as the trip to Andromeda, I'd hope they come up with a very good backstory.
At least the fact that they want to dedicate an entire novel to it bodes well, IMO. I am also curious to see what they come up with in the end.
 

If Reapers are an added cause then so what? We are still curious as to what's out there and we know Andromeda is out there. Exploration is a large chunk of why we do things. If we are going to Mars because of resources or Overpopulation than whatever. But I want to explore that place. You can patronize and criticise me all you want, I'm just going off what bio has been saying. What about explorers who explore the Amazon or the deep ocean, many of the people going to Andromeda are probably no different. They volunteered to go. They're curious and despite its "secret" motive they believe they're on an expedition to colonize and explore. And that's what they are gonna do. You have to think about colonising a galaxy in a different context compared to colonising something like a continent or a single planet.

Yes, lot's of individuals have an explorer's spirit. I dare say, I am one myself and I made my life choices accordingly. But as someone who is constantly trying to secure funding for research without an immediate tangible benefit, let me tell you it is dam hard (I wish it weren't, would make my life a lot easier) and the bigger and more expensive the project, the more tangible profit investors want to see, no matter if that's governments, businesses or other organizations. There may be individual philanthropists that sponsor truly abstract research but they are usually far and few between and I think having something like the Ark program financed by one or two people would simply be too much of a stretch (hope it's not frigging TIM ).

And of course, I also want to explore Andromeda. I just wouldn't want the entire experience of playing the game and going forth and exploring being based on a premise that I deem completely implausible (both in the real world and in the ME universe as we know it). That's the one thing that could ruin it for me even if the rest of the game turns out great. So I am just hoping that BW will give us a background to this entire setting that doesn't make me cringe all the time at least.

No one went to America, just to explore, they wanted to find a trade route to India, i.e. they wanted to make a profit. Also, no one from Europe colonized America for the sake of exploration, they did so because they needed resources/land to settle and claim, i.e. they wanted to get rich (and the people who sent them wanted to get rich from exclusive trade).

 

No one went to the moon simply for the sake of exploration, it was a political mandate brought on by the dynamics of the cold war (and the possible strategic importance of space). And look, we never went there again when it turned out there was not much to be had there for the moment. The next plans for possible trips to the moon are meant for when mining very rare substances like rare minerals or helium 3 might become cost effective.

 

Same is going to be true for Mars, the real push to go there will at least have an economic or political component.

 

Most importantly, all of the above mentioned projects had plans for a return trip, which makes the whole thing all that much more viable, both, for those that go as well as for those that don't go but develop and finance the whole thing. Even if you were to go just "for science", there isn't really much point for anyone who's not coming along to help you if you don't plan on coming back and share what you've learned. If the Ark ships really are both, exploration AND colony ships that were never supposed to return, than there must be a dam good reason to send them.

You mean that battle they won? Great argument for defeatism there.

Yes, I maean the battle in which the entire military might of the galaxy got their asses handed to them by a single reaper, you know, the battle they won because of not reproducible circumstances.
 

It's not dumb luck if you actually made an effort to actively increase your chances of finding such things by going to look for them. The Citadel was previously saved by Prothean tech (Vigil and Ilos) someone just happened to discover because they were looking. Mobilizing the proper elements of society to start digging through ruins couldn't possibly hurt. Neither could spilling the beans on the Thessia beacon (well, hurt anything except maybe the Asari's racial pride, which will hardly matter when they're reduced to slushy in a big robo-Cthulu body, anyway).

I don't disagree that they could have done more (as I said). But the rather idiotic situation at the beginning of ME3 is not made any worse by them actually doing something (like an Ark program).
 

A possibility, but I don't see how more people putting their input to the project could possibly hurt. Even if you are limited by raw resources (say magic, impossible to reverse engineer Reaper drive cores), you'd still reduce the time it took to get the project off the ground and moving, or been able to further refine all other aspects of the "Ark" ships (say improving their carrying capacity, or reliablity of non-Reaper systems).

It could hurt indeed because of the point I after (alerting detractors and reapers alike). Combine that with the fact that they may have anticipated minimal gain and we are set.
 

Once again, a silly concern (protect the people from killing themselves because someone is going to kill them?) that categorically proves not to be true. If this is the Council's reasoning, it simply proves their incompetence at decision making when this eventually isn't the case.

We also have a perfect case study they could've used without even mentioning the responses of the admittedly rather "alien" societies of the Rachni and Geth. The quarians didn't turn tail and run. They were publicly discussing strategies against the Reapers as early as Ascenscion and actively putting plans to counter into motion as of ME2. Why the hell would the Council societies composed of similar humanoids act any differently. Are the billions of them all complete wusses who are incapable of confronting their own mortality?

Not really that silly. Saying "who cares when people kill each their if we are being killed eventually anyway" is way more defeatist than having a secret contingency plan, wouldn't you say?

As for the quarians in Ascension, IIRC, their debates were anything but public (it was a highly secure meeting between Sanders and elect members of the Conclave and Admiralty Board. But even if I remember wrong they were, look at where that got the quarians, it's not like they were any better prepared.
 

The Reapers are still stuck in dark space looking for a way in as far as the Council knows. As far as anyone knows, they are already trying their damnedest to get there and start the invasion (until ME3 of course, when they suddenly decide to activate their Plot Engines). Why should the Council care if the Reapers know what they're doing? What are they gonna do in response, turn them into slushie more painfully? Will Harbinger use more scathing one liners or a more sex-offendery sounding voice as punishment?

You care because you can't be entirely sure of the exact capabilities of the reapers or what other resources they might actually have within the galaxy (as I said above). And they wouldn't even be wrong, look at the collectors or artifacts like object rho.
And if you are working on a plan for some guys to escape the thread and give them a new start that is not threatened by the reapers, than yes, you dam well want to make sure they don't know about it. Hell, after ME1, the council might not even have been sure if the reapers might not be able to follow any Ark ship to Andromeda if they got wind of it. They did however know about Indoctrination and given the existence of QECs, the reapers are not necessarily blind and deaf in dark space.
 

Yes, this is another leadership failure and a perfect reason to get rid of them. Under the Council's direction, multiple genocides have occured, virtually everyone hates and distrusts everyone else, no one communicates and no one is using their resources effectively. Further, when the perfect opportunity for unification comes up (existential threat to everyone) they somehow manage to make relations worse by actively or passively intensifying antagonism of groups they've ostracized (quarians, geth, krogan, rachni etc.). As much as we make fun of them, the UN is literally more effective in the real world. They don't kick out member states for petty political reasons or small violations of the charter, nor conduct genocides in response to conflicts, as at the very least it's better to have leverage over someone.

"Smarter" by the standards of the Council's previous plan isn't really saying much. They were pretty much actively trying to lose the war and get everyone killed, and the only reason they don't succeed is because the Reapers are seemingly trying to lose even harder (why didn't they "floor the gas" immediately when Sovereign got into trouble instead of dithering for three years? Why use the Heretic geth instead of Collectors? Why didn't they just take the Citadel first instead of pointlessly attacking irrelevant Earth?).

C'mon, I know you're a smart guy given previous analysis of narrative elements I've read from you. You don't have to defend this nonsense. The entire main plot was unplanned and poorly executed. As a result leadership characters act more like obstructionist plot devices than real, believable people reacting to the setting around them. The current sideproject is a contrived band aid for a setting that was intended to be killed with the ME3 ending. We can still enjoy it despite this.

As I said, I don't necessarily think it's a great plot. The only thing I was arguing is that it wouldn't make the council more stupid or malevolent in any way (which was in the post of yours, I initially quoted). In fact, I think there is only one alternative plot that might be better and that is if the ARK program would actually only take shape during the time of ME3 (possibly with a much more long term preparation, done for a different project that then gets jury rigged into an escape plan).

However, from the trailer, it looks like people are boarding the Ark ships from an unoccupied earth, so I have to assume that they start either before or after ME3. IMO, having the plot start after ME3 is not an option as it has a lot of drawbacks that were discussed elsewhere. Having them start without a need to escape the reapers means that there would have to be a whole other lot of questions to be answered, such as "Why did they go?" (as I said, pure exploration won't really work) and "Why have we never heard of this?".
I do believe, that given all the information we have right now, this plot (council secretly launched the Arks before ME3) - while admittedly also requiring a lot of pushing and shoving to make work - is the least problematic one to go with and IMO it even has the positive side effect to make the council look a bit better than they do right now.

- The council couldn't be sure that they couldn't win conventionally? They must have heaps of combat data from the battle of the Citadel. I say, they might have been sure.

- They had the tech because it lies under Mars? Well, they don't know about it, so they don't have it at the relevant time. Can't really blame them for not counting on dumb luck.

- Have more Arks built by the public? My guess would be that they can't, the tech to go to Andromeda must be something really crazy in the first place, thus I think it's likely that the number of Arks would be limited, no matter how many workers you put to the task. In any case, this is easy to write up properly (if BW will do it is another matter entirely).

- Mass hysteria doesn't break out? In the case of the invasion, there are no alternatives anymore. Give the same information to people 2 years earlier with a limited number of seats on a boat to get them out of danger and things might very well be

different.

Besides, this is not the primary reason to keep the project secret. The primary reason for that is the reapers themselves. With a smaller circle, chances of them finding out are limited. Tell everyone and you basically make sure the reapers find out about it (no one could know if there wasn't another sentinel like Sovereign monitoring).

- Why didn't they try to prepare the galaxy for the reapers more in other ways? I agree, this is stupid, but then, maybe they did through back channels and failed. The council actually has pretty bad relations with almost everyone who is not already part of their community.

 

Look, I am not saying that the council is suddenly great or that this story wouldn't have its problems (far as I can see, it's barely possible to come up with one that doesn't). What I am saying is that having gone with the Ark plan would have been one of the smarter things for the council to do and it certainly wouldn't make them into war criminals or otherwise malevolent people.

So the Council go from being unbelievably incompetent amnesiacs to horrendously vile war criminals willing to allow billions to perish in an attempt at self preservation?

 
Can someone explain this to me (either QMR or someone who liked the post) because I honestly don't get this point. How do they become war criminals? How do they "allow billions to perish"?
 
The way I see it, there is nothing they can do for the "billions of people" no matter what. You can't build an armada to defeat the reapers in 3 years, even if you had the tech to do it (which they don't). So in that sense, whether there was an ARK program during ME2 or not is completely irrelevant to how the reaper war goes.
It's also not self preservation (the council itself is not leaving) but preservation of the species (plural). I really don't see how there is anything bad about this contingency plan.

 

We don't do science because of exploration and curiosity.

 

Also, this! If you ever tried to get funding for a science project, you know you need tangible gains in order to justify the effort and expenses. Pure intellectual curiosity does not get you anywhere, unless you happen to be rich enough to pay for everything with your own money (which I doubt would be the case for the ARKs).

 

Just an expansion of that video because all the important arguments are not in the short one:

https://youtu.be/N22eMZP5phI?t=1905

 

Tyson for the win yet again.

I am all for sophisticated dialogue. I always love to come by this little gem in Deus Ex:

 

In general, I think there should be more philosophy in video games.

 

That said, Mass Effect has always been more on the cheesy side. Honestly, When it starts with "Is this the kind of person we want to protect the galaxy?" - "It's the only kind of person that CAN protect the galaxy!" What do you expect?

(This is not a criticism, I am just saying that a little bit of cliche fits and was always part of this series.)

I doubt Microsoft would go for that.  They're already known to be pretty anal about how much space individual games take up on Xbox drives etc.  (It's a huge complaint among the Minecraft crowd.)

 

Ok, but in that case, you have a problem anyway because no matter how you implement the replay feature in the UI, you need to save the data for how to start it over again, right?

Besides, a typical Mass Effect 3 save was less than 100kb. Even if you had over 100 chapter saves at the end, that's still less than 10 MB. Given how many GB of data modern games use, that doesn't seem like it would cause a problem on a console like XBox One (but then, I don't play on XBox, so I don't know MS policies).

IMO, it would be enough not to overwrite chapter saves. Just keep them all and put them into a separate tab in the load screen (so they don't crowd up your normal saves) and people have an auto save at the beginning of every mission, which they can load up whenever they want -> Problem solved.

That said, this wouldn't be for me. I rather like to just play through the game.

My favorite in this regard is still Gothic (1 and 2). Not sure how well the English translations worked (played in the original German version) but the descriptions of the NPCs really worked well, also because the world wasn't super big but very diverse with lot's of distinguishable landmarks.

If an NPC told you "go to the tower on the hill behind the bridge in the west", then it was perfectly clear where you had to go, no markers, not even maps (unless you bought or found one).

 

Since I imagine the actual search areas on the planets in ME:A will not be bigger than, say the world of Gothic, I could see that working. It would be cool if some NPCs would just give you coordinates for quests when appropriate, while others would not because they can't. Example:

Quest NPC 1: "I need you to check in on our outpost on the planet Teloria. I'll upload the exact coordinates to your omnitool."

-> You get a quest marker and everything.

Quest NPC 2: "You want to talk to Dr. T'Laris? Last I heard, she was on an excavation of Remnant ruins in the Fallija System. I don't exactly know where they are but keep an eye out for Remnant structures and I am sure you'll find her and her team."

-> The only note you'll get is to go to the Fallija System. From there on out, you are on your own.

 

Another nice approach could be something similar to what they did in Leviathan, where you have to search for clues in order to nerrow down the location of a target.

I completely agree with Sylvius' OP. Especially if exploration is a corner stone of this new game, let us actually explore instead of just going for the next quest marker!

 

That said (and while I do really agree, especially for gameplay reasons), markers at least for some quests would make more sense in a scifi RPG than they do in a fantasy world. At least here, I could see how scanners, accurate maps and augmented reality systems could be used to actually have these markers (like we even do these days in the real world - looking at you google maps ). So in terms of lore, I wouldn't be opposed to it. But in terms of gameplay, there should really be at least the option to turn it off. In fact, the more customization is allowed in the HUD, the better.

You have to learn to seperate game play from story.
[snip]

This could be a great argument (though I do agree with with voteDC that there should be at least some indications in gameplay that support such a central theme) but unfortunately, the story itself doesn't support the idea either. We have had this discussion and it ended with you trying to tell me what I should think about genocide, so I am not having this again. Suffice it to say that no instance of AI described or shown in the game fits with the catalysts predictions. Hence there is no evidence for his claim (rather the opposite) and hence it remains a purely theoretical issue in the context of this story.

I understand that most of the catalyst's logic seems totally sound when operating under the same preconditions. I also can completely get behind that first axiom.

(Your 'silly example' seems to be exactly what it did. )

What I don't get is the 'jump' and sudden exaggeration done in the following thesis.

 

(The following is based on this transcript from an IT page. It seems to be the pre-EC conversation, but those lines didn't change afaik. So it's still just as valid)

The catalyst's statements go on like this:

Axiom: "The created will always rebel against their creators"

            -'creators' here could simply mean organics in general. On the other hand it could also mean specific entities.

A bit of exposition: "We harvest advanced civilizations, leaving the younger ones alone"

            -So the catalyst does differentiate between organics in general, more specific 'advanced civilisations', (i.e., civilisations with the ability to create synthetics in the foreseeable future) and less advanced 'younger species'. This means that the previous mentioned 'creators' are narrowed down to at least the level of 'advanced civilisations'.

Thesis: "Without us to stop it, synthetics would destroy all organics."

            -Suddenly it is all organics that are threatened. No longer just 'creators' or 'advanced civilisations', but all organics. Also every younger Species, every animal, every mushroom, every bacteria even.

If it would state that "some/several synthetics will destroy some/several/most organics", sure -why not. But with the specific 'all' thrown in there it becomes more than far fetched. And at least that part should have had an explanation, imo.

 

It should be added here that the "all organics" is absolutely essential to the catalyst's construct of logic. If it were just "some", than the cycle solution is not an improvement at all because it already facilitates exactly what the catalyst wants to prevent. The only thing that would be worse than the cycles is the destruction of all organic life forever (and keep in mind, since organic life can develop on it's own, this doesn't just mean a one time extinction campaign but rather would require the synthetics to perform everlasting galaxy wide maintenance to maintain sterility, an enormous task that even the reapers are incapable of performing).

My question is... what makes people say that AI CAN'T win? No one can prove what will happen in the future, but the reason for the Catalyst's axiom is in the game and perfectly clear. Exponential growth of AI, improving upon themselves to the point where they easily surpass any organic. If not the geth, then another form of AI in the future. The potential is there. Just look what the geth could do in their infancy.

 
The issue I have with this interpretation is that
a) it doesn't change the fact that it is inelegant writing to only show counter-examples to a purely philosophical problem within your story and
b ) it diminishes the reaper's previously set up awe inspiring vastness of perspective to them essentially being afraid of the future and
c) it ultimately renders the cycle meaningless as well
 
For further detailed discussion about these issues, this thread has an old discussion on them.

I get this to some extent, but I don't know what you mean about the characters. They're just as detailed in the other games. 

 

And I was just thinking how ME2 sort of fleshed out some elements from ME1. Like Jack embodies all the crazy biotics from the first game. And Miranda gives a face to Cerberus. Later on, Javik gave a face to the Protheans and EDI gave a face to the Luna VI from the first game.

 

edit: how could i forget Legion

 

I don't mean so much the characters themselves but more how they act and develop inconsistently in some cases in the trilogy. No doubt, ME2/3 did have great characters but some were changed for pure drama without regard to what they were all about (think of the Virmire survivor encounter on Horizon in ME2, the changes to Legion between ME2 and 3, Kai Leng, etc.).

 

Also, I am not saying that ME1 was perfect (you are right about the crazy biotics, that was handled badly for example), but when I mean "details first", I don't necessarily mean that they need to flesh out every detail of everything but rather that they should keep details that have been shown in mind when dealing with their own material.

 

In short, I don't expect them to get everything 100% consistent and right (there is already too much stuff there) but I do want to feel like they do respect their own lore as much as us hardcore fans do. I didn't have that feeling when playing ME3 for example.

Yes, Andromeda should make Mass Effect great again!

 

 

But seriously, what distinguishes  a "great" game from a "good" game? IMO, it's something different for each of us. I want BW to get some very specific features right, which I wouldn't mind some flaws in other ares. For other people, the opposite priorities might apply.

 

For myself, I would like it if BW goes back to the "details first" approach, that they used in ME1, with their story, with their lore and with their characters. I want to feel like the whole team took a long time and made a lot of effort to make all the little pieces fit, from the writers getting a story together that is coherent fits into the existing universe, to the level designers creating believable locations that correspond with descriptions made by characters to  game mechanics and design decisions that are made to immerse me into this world more than to just provide player occupation.

 

THAT would be require to make the game great in my eyes and yes, I definitely expect them to deliver on that. If that happpens, it will be a release price buy for me. If not, then I may wait a few months or a year to get the game with DLCs on the cheap.

Here is the old thread, discussing this in detail.

Shadow Broker.......Harbinger.....Sovereign.......Illusive Man.........what is this, Gotham? Or The X-Files? All we're missing is the Cigarette Man and the cheeseburger-munching Hamburglar.

 

Get serious plz.

 

This actually always made a lot of sense to me. For example, the reapers never gave their names, so the protheans named them for what they did and that was taken over by the races today. Sovereign and Harbinger were clearly "misunderstandings" if you will.

When we first meet Sovereign for example, he says "I am sovereign!" We learn later that his name was actually Nazana, so this was not a name, it was what he felt he was -> sovereign (probably introduced himself to Saren the same way and he took it up as a name).

Same with Harbinger: "I am the harbinger of your salvation through destruction".

 

 

So no, I have no problem with those kinds of names, as long as they are not used for something that would give itself its own name already (such as races and their home/colony planets). So far, I think ME did fine with the naming and it looks like they'll keep it up in this way ("Khet" is rumored to be the name of a reace that lives today -> can name and introduce itself, the "Remnant" is probably the name of an extinct race, the original name of which we don't know -> we use a descriptive name).

If Tali dies in ME3, a mournful Garrus will take a moment to recall the word "angel," and apply it to what he imagines she looked like.

 

This is the guy who styled himself Archangel because some people he rescued called him their guardian angel. Either he's abnormally forgetful or the writers are.

 

If you are feeling generous, this may be an issue of translation.

I guess it is possible that the word "Archangel" in turian actually is a word that has nothing to do with angel, maybe something that would more literally translate into "spirit general" but which the translator - taking human cultural etymology into account - references as "Archangel". In the Tali scene however, Garrus specifically refers to "what do you humans call it? An angel", which in turian maybe a fairly unrelated term (or even a concept that doesn't quite exist in the turian spirit based religion).

 

This kind of thing can happen quite a lot even when translating between languages on earth today. But yea, as I said, that's a generous interpretation. More likely the writers really did just forget.

I thought it was fantastic in how it perfectly capitalized on what the ME series had set up for 3 games, i.e. the connection you built towards your team. It shows how these diverse characters genuinely care for each other. The main plot with the clone is of course a bit silly but it works in the context of this DLC I think and I did enjoy the lighter tone, compared to the rest of ME3.

 

However, I do think the DLC doesn't work at all in ME3, exactly because of that light tone. It feels completely jarring to play it in the middle of the game, like something foreign that doesn't really belong in there. Playing it as an epilogue (e.g. with Deager's Citadel Epilogue Mod) works a lot better than playing it during the game itself.

I am certainly not negative about Andromeda. In fact, I am quite positive about it. Everything they have announced so far makes a lot of sense to me and seem to be decisions (in terms of design) that I can absolutely support. Of course, we don't know very much yet but what we do know is all great IMO.

 

Does that mean it will be a good game in the end? I honestly don't know as there are too many unknowns.

 

Certain design failures in DA:I have me a bit concerned but actually, I am optimistic that BW will learn from those, rather than repeat them, they have a history of being very perceptive of gameplay weaknesses and dealing with them (pretty rigorously if the past is any indication).

 

In terms of negativity, I have said before that I will not pre-order this game (even if there will be further info to indicate that it will be a great game). Why? Because of the past of this franchise and the company. Mass Effect started out as the most ambitious and promising video game project of all time and that potential got squandered badly IMO, culminating (but not at all beginning) with ME3's ending. The OP says it's been the most consistent series ever, that is simply not true, in fact, it is one of the most infuriatingly inconsistent settings I know. To me that means that BW set themselves up with promises they couldn't keep and the handling of us fans when we did complain became a big part of the problem as well. The only way to punish a company for these mistakes, the only way to enforce reflection and hopefully change on their part, is to withdraw financial support from their product and that's what I am going to do, at least for a time (note: I didn't buy DA:I either, it was an unexpected gift from someone and frankly when I unwrapped it, it bothered me a little that someone did actually spend money on it on my behalf).

 

If BW pulls it back together and delivers a great game, I'll consider a full price buy after release, but honestly, it would have to be spectacular and I would have to see an honest attempt to change back towards the kind of franchise I fell in love with for them to regain me as a fully committed customer.

 

So my negativity is less about this game than it is about BW as a company itself. I think with Andromeda, BW does have a chance to repair that loss of trust but as long as that hasn't happened, I will have to remain skeptical.

How does that disprove my point? Okay, let me get this straight. You think the relays work like a bridge, something you can just build as you go? You honestly think that you can make a relay, launch off without a destination, magically stop without any outside force or object pushing against them (Newton's law), and then build another relay? Either that or you think you can make two relays and fire one of them through the other and the other one somehow stop exactly where you wanted it to without some kind of opposing force to stop it? You... Actually... Think this, either idea, is how it works?

Uh ... no, that's not at all what I wrote about.

It's a fact that they must have been able to fly infinitely even back in ME1's lore, simply because of the fact that the only way you can make two pairs in a relay network is to manually fly to the location you plan to build one of them. If you want to make a relay in such-and-such system, you'll need to manually fly at FTL to reach it to begin construction. And the only way they could make two mass relays out in dark space (one to the Citadel, one to the Alpha Relay) is to fly out into dark space to begin construction. I see no plot hole here, I assumed even back in ME1 that the Reapers would be showing up by just traveling until they hit out galaxy.

 

Where in ME1 is that stated?

 

Counter-indications:

a) In ME1, the relay network is described as consisting of primary (fixed relays) and secondary relays that realign frequently => Relays can be aligned after being built.

b ) In ME1, they can align the Mu Relay to the Refuge system relay (where Ilos is) despite the fact that it moved after being hit by the super nova shockwave => Relays can be aligned after being moved

c) In ME3, they can just move something as big as the Citadel (granted, that is an ME3 one and by that time, things got really weird anyway but in ME1, there was no reason why one (especially reapers) couldn't tow a relay either) => It is possible to tow something as big (or bigger) as a relay.

 

==> You could build the entire network in the same manner that I described earlier.

 

 

 

RE: Arrival plot: This is actually interesting. I always interpreted arrivals plot such that the reapers fly into the Bahak system from dark space via FTL. This is because of two things:

- First time I played Arrival, it was after finishing ME2

- Kensen says that the specialty of the Alpha Relay is that it links directly to the Citadel (which is why the reapers want it. On the shuttle, she says "We found proof that the reapers will be arriving in this system. When they get here, they'll use its Mass Relay to travel throughout the galaxy" (this implied to me that they do not use the relay to get to this system in the first place.) She goes on "Doing that [destroying the Alpha Relay] would stop the reaper's invasion. Even at FTL speeds it would take months or years before they got to the next relay." )this implied to me that after Arrival, the reapers would be "stuck" in the Viper Nebula and it takes them that long to get out). It's mainly the way she says all this stuff, how she pronounces things, that just lead me to think this way (and I know I am not the only one with this interpretation)

 

But I will admit, ultimately, no one specifies clearly how the reapers get to Bahak and the interpretation that there is a second dark space relay that leads to Bahak has a bunch of advantages:

- Playing Arrival before the ME2 ending makes a bit more sense (at the ending of ME2, we clearly see the reapers still in dark space, I always assumed this was just an inconsistency between Arrival and the main game)

- Given that ME3 reveals the reapers speed to be over 24 ly/day they should not take months or years to get to the next relays (always took that for an inconsistency between Arrival and ME3)

 

So, that's interesting. Would be cool to find out if it is stated for certain anywhere how the reapers are supposed to arrive in Bahak, I couldn't find any reference that makes this clear.

Ok, one note about the reapers being trapped in dark space and Vigil contradicting himself:

Here is how I interpreted this when first playing ME1 (before ME2/3 came out). The chain of events would be:

- Sovereign activates Citadel relay

- Reapers come in and do their thing

- Reapers leave again through the Citadel relay into dark space

- Sovereign stays behind and closes realy

Rinse and repeat every 50.000 years.

 

At the time of ME1, it made sense that the reapers would be trapped in dark space because at the time of ME1 it wasn't established that reapers could fly FTL as long as they want without discharge points yet, that notion was only introduced in ME2/3 (on the contrary, even Sovereign needed the Mu relay to get to Illos back then). So if the Citadel's partner relay was beyond their discharge range, they would be trapped. While this is an incredibly vulnerable position to put themselves in, going that far out would also absolutely ensure that - even if discovered somehow through telescopes or whatever) - they could basically not be reached there (and Sovereign's arrogance also makes it pretty clear that they felt so surperior they just never considered this could become a trap).

 

Arising question: How did the reapers get the Citadel's partner relay into dark space?

Answer: Tow it as far as possible with FTL -> connect to the citadel -> fly the towing vessel through the relay -> discharge towing vessel -> fly back -> Tow relay further.

 

So back at the time of just ME1, there was no contradiction that I could see, the contradictions were really introduced with ME2 (especially it's ending and Arrival). Or did I miss anything?

I like the idea behind this. I'm mostly curious why all the arts would be sent to the same galaxy. I'll admit my space knowledge is fairly limited so it could totally be a distance thing, but I wouldn't put all my chickens in one basket. Having multiple races on each ark and sending them in different directions would maximize the potential for survival, wouldn't it?

Andromeda is the closest major galaxy to the Milky Way, so the distance might be the reason.

It's an fun little theory. However, one prerequisite would be that the ARK ships are all built (or at least that the project is directed) by the Alliance. If the different races build their own ships, why would they name them after creatures of ancient earth mythology? Since I personally hope that humanity will not again be the absolute super-power that really shouldn't be one, I also have to hope that this naming scheme doesn't happen.

 

I like how you matched some of the Titan's traits with the races though (although, I doubt the Drell will get their own ARK)