170 réponses à ce sujet

[DPSSOC]

marshalleck wrote...

The difference may come into play in ME3. A new Council may be more willing to act decisively, while paragon Shep will have to deal with the three stooges doing air quotes and trying to isolate their new human council counterpart.

True, I suppose I should wait until I accuse the series of being unbalanced.

[ATKT]

Basically Paragons have been made so that flowers grow in their footsteps and they poop mint-smelling bunnies. It's stupid, IMHO, but that's kind of how they made it--paragons never get bitten in the back despite renegades being constantly reminded how many toes they stepped on.

I'm waiting in ME3 for some actually dire consequences.

[Nu-Nu]

Neither paragon or renegade have saved the galaxy yet, you've only temporiarly stalled the reapers, that is what the last battle in me1 is about, just stalling them, not saving the galaxy. Whether you make allies or not on your way to the final battle is up to you.



Soverign found a way to get to citadel without the conduit, the other reapers will to as well, it'll just take them longer.

[Hukari]

ATKT wrote...

Basically Paragons have been made so that flowers grow in their footsteps and they poop mint-smelling bunnies. It's stupid, IMHO, but that's kind of how they made it--paragons never get bitten in the back despite renegades being constantly reminded how many toes they stepped on.
I'm waiting in ME3 for some actually dire consequences.

The reason they're being constantly reminded how many toes they stepped on is -because they step on a heck of a lot of toes-. It's a rational consequence, and Paragons suffer consequences as well. The 7 ships lost during the battle for the Citadel? Letting the murderer go free on Illium? Not having the luxury of reducing the amount of enemies (such as in Miranda and Mordin's loyalty missions, or during Garrus' recruitment) before the battle begins?

[DPSSOC]

XtremegamerHK47 wrote...

DPSSOC wrote...

marshalleck wrote...

The difference may come into play in ME3. A new Council may be more willing to act decisively, while paragon Shep will have to deal with the three stooges doing air quotes and trying to isolate their new human council counterpart.

True, I suppose I should wait until I accuse the series of being unbalanced.

I dont want to rain on your parade, but the human council shuts you out, because they think your to human centric, and they ignore Anderson entirely.
Great alternative.

Yeah that was a little strange.

[DPSSOC]

Hukari wrote...

ATKT wrote...

Basically Paragons have been made so that flowers grow in their footsteps and they poop mint-smelling bunnies. It's stupid, IMHO, but that's kind of how they made it--paragons never get bitten in the back despite renegades being constantly reminded how many toes they stepped on.
I'm waiting in ME3 for some actually dire consequences.

The reason they're being constantly reminded how many toes they stepped on is -because they step on a heck of a lot of toes-. It's a rational consequence, and Paragons suffer consequences as well. The 7 ships lost during the battle for the Citadel? Letting the murderer go free on Illium? Not having the luxury of reducing the amount of enemies (such as in Miranda and Mordin's loyalty missions, or during Garrus' recruitment) before the battle begins?

True but those are all immediate consequences.  You make a decision you deal with the consequences and that's it.  With Renegades we make a decision, deal with the consequences, and get constantly hounded by them til death.  Heck I'd settle for the occasional news report that someone a Paragon let go did something bad, never happens.

[Hukari]

DPSSOC wrote...

Hukari wrote...

ATKT wrote...

Basically Paragons have been made so that flowers grow in their footsteps and they poop mint-smelling bunnies. It's stupid, IMHO, but that's kind of how they made it--paragons never get bitten in the back despite renegades being constantly reminded how many toes they stepped on.
I'm waiting in ME3 for some actually dire consequences.

The reason they're being constantly reminded how many toes they stepped on is -because they step on a heck of a lot of toes-. It's a rational consequence, and Paragons suffer consequences as well. The 7 ships lost during the battle for the Citadel? Letting the murderer go free on Illium? Not having the luxury of reducing the amount of enemies (such as in Miranda and Mordin's loyalty missions, or during Garrus' recruitment) before the battle begins?

True but those are all immediate consequences.  You make a decision you deal with the consequences and that's it.  With Renegades we make a decision, deal with the consequences, and get constantly hounded by them til death.  Heck I'd settle for the occasional news report that someone a Paragon let go did something bad, never happens.

The murderess on Illium. Returning Nirali Bhatia's body. Letting Fist go. I could go on, but the point is, Paragons have as many consequences at Renegades. The problem is, Paragons are diplomatic, whereas Renegades aren't, and that inherently abrasive style is always going to leave bad impressions. Paragons are peacemakers, Renegades basically force everyone to come with them, or kill those that disagree.

Edit: Formating error... DERPA DERRRR. >.<

Modifié par Hukari, 04 avril 2010 - 07:35 .

[wizardryforever]

Alright, consider this.  What if Sovereign would have won regardless of what you did (the opposite of how it is now)?  It would be much better to have the symbol of galactic unity (as well as the most powerful dreadnaught) with you for the final confrontation.  Or would you rather have chaos as the galaxy reeled from the loss of its government in the war?  My point would be that having an established government for an inevitable Reaper invasion would be much better than not having one.  This is exactly the situation in which we find ourselves at the end of ME2, the Reapers invading.  So stopping Sovereign doesn't do much to stop the Reapers, just delay them.

Funny how everyone always thinks they can make a difference.

[marshalleck]

wizardryforever wrote...

Alright, consider this.  What if Sovereign would have won regardless of what you did (the opposite of how it is now)?  It would be much better to have the symbol of galactic unity (as well as the most powerful dreadnaught) with you for the final confrontation.  Or would you rather have chaos as the galaxy reeled from the loss of its government in the war?  My point would be that having an established government for an inevitable Reaper invasion would be much better than not having one.  This is exactly the situation in which we find ourselves at the end of ME2, the Reapers invading.  So stopping Sovereign doesn't do much to stop the Reapers, just delay them.

Funny how everyone always thinks they can make a difference.

If Sovereign brought the Reapers in from dark space, they would have killed every living being on the Citadel, destroyed every ship in the system and deactivated the relay network so that not a single one in the galaxy could be used. There would be no war. it would be Prothean Extinction 2.0. The survival of the Council in such a situation would be absolutely inconsequential.

Modifié par marshalleck, 04 avril 2010 - 08:39 .

[Nu-Nu]

marshalleck wrote...

wizardryforever wrote...

Alright, consider this.  What if Sovereign would have won regardless of what you did (the opposite of how it is now)?  It would be much better to have the symbol of galactic unity (as well as the most powerful dreadnaught) with you for the final confrontation.  Or would you rather have chaos as the galaxy reeled from the loss of its government in the war?  My point would be that having an established government for an inevitable Reaper invasion would be much better than not having one.  This is exactly the situation in which we find ourselves at the end of ME2, the Reapers invading.  So stopping Sovereign doesn't do much to stop the Reapers, just delay them.

Funny how everyone always thinks they can make a difference.

If Sovereign brought the Reapers in from dark space, they would have killed every living being on the Citadel, destroyed every ship in the system and deactivated the relay network so that not a single one in the galaxy could be used. There would be no war. it would be Prothean Extinction 2.0. The survival of the Council in such a situation would be absolutely inconsequential.

And the humans lives saved would be inconsequential too.

[thedoncarnage]

You know, I understand the hostility in making an all-human council. I also understand that if you rebuild a multi-race council with a human chair then the other races could view their politicians as puppets of humanity.

What I DON'T understand is why there wasn't an option to simply elect a new multi-race council without humanity as the chair.

Think about real life. Even if the American President and his entire cabinet died there's still a line of succession. An interim President would be put in charge to serve out the remainder of the term. Did the aliens simply never think about the fact that their politicians could be assassinated one day? Don't they have a backup plan?

So a few politicians die. So what? Why do the aliens need humanity to rebuild the government? If the White House was destroyed do you think the US would turn to Canada for a new President? Pfft, no. Canada might help the US rebuild but they wouldn't try to assume control of government.

Modifié par thedoncarnage, 04 avril 2010 - 09:14 .

[marshalleck]

Nu-Nu wrote...

marshalleck wrote...

wizardryforever wrote...

Alright, consider this.  What if Sovereign would have won regardless of what you did (the opposite of how it is now)?  It would be much better to have the symbol of galactic unity (as well as the most powerful dreadnaught) with you for the final confrontation.  Or would you rather have chaos as the galaxy reeled from the loss of its government in the war?  My point would be that having an established government for an inevitable Reaper invasion would be much better than not having one.  This is exactly the situation in which we find ourselves at the end of ME2, the Reapers invading.  So stopping Sovereign doesn't do much to stop the Reapers, just delay them.

Funny how everyone always thinks they can make a difference.

If Sovereign brought the Reapers in from dark space, they would have killed every living being on the Citadel, destroyed every ship in the system and deactivated the relay network so that not a single one in the galaxy could be used. There would be no war. it would be Prothean Extinction 2.0. The survival of the Council in such a situation would be absolutely inconsequential.

And the humans lives saved would be inconsequential too.

You're right. Which is why the rational course of action is to put everything you've got up against Sovereign, as hard as you can for as long as you can until it's either destroyed or it puts the galaxy in checkmate by opening the dark space relay. Literally nothing else matters more in that moment than trying to prevent Sovereign from activating the Citadel. If it does, that's the end of everything.

Modifié par marshalleck, 04 avril 2010 - 09:17 .

[marshalleck]

Shandepared wrote...

marshalleck wrote...

That said, I'd agree that the base would be such a poorly defensible position that it's better to let EDI salvage what she can and then blow the thing up. I viewed it more as a hit and run, sabotage style operation than an actual land grab. Poor TIM. Oh well, he'll just have to deal with it.

I am very disappointed in you. I think I'm going to have you liquified. Such a shame.

We don't want the turians getting their paws on that technology, do we? We both know what they'd do with it.

Modifié par marshalleck, 04 avril 2010 - 10:06 .

[wizardryforever]

marshalleck wrote...

wizardryforever wrote...

Alright, consider this.  What if Sovereign would have won regardless of what you did (the opposite of how it is now)?  It would be much better to have the symbol of galactic unity (as well as the most powerful dreadnaught) with you for the final confrontation.  Or would you rather have chaos as the galaxy reeled from the loss of its government in the war?  My point would be that having an established government for an inevitable Reaper invasion would be much better than not having one.  This is exactly the situation in which we find ourselves at the end of ME2, the Reapers invading.  So stopping Sovereign doesn't do much to stop the Reapers, just delay them.

Funny how everyone always thinks they can make a difference.

If Sovereign brought the Reapers in from dark space, they would have killed every living being on the Citadel, destroyed every ship in the system and deactivated the relay network so that not a single one in the galaxy could be used. There would be no war. it would be Prothean Extinction 2.0. The survival of the Council in such a situation would be absolutely inconsequential.

Not necessarily, as some ships, notably the Destiny Ascension, could have used the re-activated relay network to escape (narrow window before the Reapers arrive), meaning the government would survive.  This is definitely preferable to being disorganized when the Reapers invade, which is, again, the situation at the end of ME2.  Also, I love how you never answered my question.  Strange, that.  <_<

Modifié par wizardryforever, 04 avril 2010 - 10:10 .

[wizardryforever]

damn double post

Modifié par wizardryforever, 04 avril 2010 - 10:10 .

[Nu-Nu]

marshalleck wrote...

Nu-Nu wrote...

marshalleck wrote...

wizardryforever wrote...

Alright, consider this.  What if Sovereign would have won regardless of what you did (the opposite of how it is now)?  It would be much better to have the symbol of galactic unity (as well as the most powerful dreadnaught) with you for the final confrontation.  Or would you rather have chaos as the galaxy reeled from the loss of its government in the war?  My point would be that having an established government for an inevitable Reaper invasion would be much better than not having one.  This is exactly the situation in which we find ourselves at the end of ME2, the Reapers invading.  So stopping Sovereign doesn't do much to stop the Reapers, just delay them.

Funny how everyone always thinks they can make a difference.

If Sovereign brought the Reapers in from dark space, they would have killed every living being on the Citadel, destroyed every ship in the system and deactivated the relay network so that not a single one in the galaxy could be used. There would be no war. it would be Prothean Extinction 2.0. The survival of the Council in such a situation would be absolutely inconsequential.

And the humans lives saved would be inconsequential too.

You're right. Which is why the rational course of action is to put everything you've got up against Sovereign, as hard as you can for as long as you can until it's either destroyed or it puts the galaxy in checkmate by opening the dark space relay. Literally nothing else matters more in that moment than trying to prevent Sovereign from activating the Citadel. If it does, that's the end of everything.

Yeah but you've still not  saved anyone, the threat is still there, the final battle in me1 was to stall it, I rather save what allies I could have . 

[marshalleck]

wizardryforever wrote...

marshalleck wrote...

wizardryforever wrote...

Alright, consider this.  What if Sovereign would have won regardless of what you did (the opposite of how it is now)?  It would be much better to have the symbol of galactic unity (as well as the most powerful dreadnaught) with you for the final confrontation.  Or would you rather have chaos as the galaxy reeled from the loss of its government in the war?  My point would be that having an established government for an inevitable Reaper invasion would be much better than not having one.  This is exactly the situation in which we find ourselves at the end of ME2, the Reapers invading.  So stopping Sovereign doesn't do much to stop the Reapers, just delay them.

Funny how everyone always thinks they can make a difference.

If Sovereign brought the Reapers in from dark space, they would have killed every living being on the Citadel, destroyed every ship in the system and deactivated the relay network so that not a single one in the galaxy could be used. There would be no war. it would be Prothean Extinction 2.0. The survival of the Council in such a situation would be absolutely inconsequential.

Not necessarily, as some ships, notably the Destiny Ascension, could have used the re-activated relay network to escape (narrow window before the Reapers arrive), meaning the government would survive.  This is definitely preferable to being disorganized when the Reapers invade, which is, again, the situation at the end of ME2.  Also, I love how you never answered my question.  Strange, that.  <_<

Think about what you're saying. What good would saving the Council be if the Citadel is lost? So maybe they temporarily escape through the relays. The network will shut down, and the Reapers will systematically purge the galaxy of advanced life. They are persistent and will work at it for centuries. The Council aren't even military leaders, they are politicians. Do you think they are going to lead some kind of uprising against the Reapers? Come on. This isn't Battlestar Galactica.

Your entire argument seems to be "well so what if the Reapers take over the Citadel, as long as the Council survives it won't be that bad." Ridiculous. Did you listen to Vigil when he described how the Reapers caught the Protheans by surprise and utterly devastated their entire civilization? Star systems were cut off from each other, no organized retaliation could be made. Each system stood alone against the entire Reaper armada. There wouldn't be an epic naval battle in your scenario, it would be a slaughter of individual garrisons putting up meaningless resistance against the wholesale slaughter of non-combatants by planetary bombardment and armies of husks.

Would I prefer the chaos of dishevelled government to that? Absolutely, yes. As I said before, galactic civilization could survive the loss of the Council. They would not survive losing the Citadel to a Reaper fleet.

Modifié par marshalleck, 04 avril 2010 - 10:20 .

[marshalleck]

Nu-Nu wrote...

Yeah but you've still not  saved anyone, the threat is still there, the final battle in me1 was to stall it, I rather save what allies I could have . 

This just sounds to me like a meta-game argument. Sure, if you pretend Shepard is psychic and knows that he can save the Destiny and stop Sovereign, then why wouldn't he? No reason not to, of course. But Shepard isn't psychic and doesn't know that he'll win either way. At least, that's how I play my Shepards.

[wizardryforever]

marshalleck wrote...

wizardryforever wrote...

marshalleck wrote...

wizardryforever wrote...

Alright, consider this.  What if Sovereign would have won regardless of what you did (the opposite of how it is now)?  It would be much better to have the symbol of galactic unity (as well as the most powerful dreadnaught) with you for the final confrontation.  Or would you rather have chaos as the galaxy reeled from the loss of its government in the war?  My point would be that having an established government for an inevitable Reaper invasion would be much better than not having one.  This is exactly the situation in which we find ourselves at the end of ME2, the Reapers invading.  So stopping Sovereign doesn't do much to stop the Reapers, just delay them.

Funny how everyone always thinks they can make a difference.

If Sovereign brought the Reapers in from dark space, they would have killed every living being on the Citadel, destroyed every ship in the system and deactivated the relay network so that not a single one in the galaxy could be used. There would be no war. it would be Prothean Extinction 2.0. The survival of the Council in such a situation would be absolutely inconsequential.

Not necessarily, as some ships, notably the Destiny Ascension, could have used the re-activated relay network to escape (narrow window before the Reapers arrive), meaning the government would survive.  This is definitely preferable to being disorganized when the Reapers invade, which is, again, the situation at the end of ME2.  Also, I love how you never answered my question.  Strange, that.  <_<

Think about what you're saying. What good would saving the Council be if the Citadel is lost? So maybe they temporarily escape through the relays. The network will shut down, and the Reapers will systematically purge the galaxy of advanced life. They are persistent and will work at it for centuries. The Council aren't even military leaders, they are politicians. Do you think they are going to lead some kind of uprising against the Reapers? Come on. This isn't Battlestar Galactica.

Your entire argument seems to be "well so what if the Reapers take over the Citadel, as long as the Council survives it won't be that bad." Ridiculous. Did you listen to Vigil when he described how the Reapers caught the Protheans by surprise and utterly devastated their entire civilization? Star systems were cut off from each other, no organized retaliation could be made. Each system stood alone against the entire Reaper armada. There wouldn't be an epic naval battle in your scenario, it would be a slaughter of individual garrisons putting up meaningless resistance against the wholesale slaughter of non-combatants by planetary bombardment and armies of husks.

Would I prefer the chaos of dishevelled government to that? Absolutely, yes. As I said before, galactic civilization could survive the loss of the Council. They would not survive losing the Citadel to a Reaper fleet.

My original question has still not been addressed, I see.  What if there were no way to stop Sovereign?  It was a lose-lose situation in which you either have a government or you don't.  In that situation, would you rather save the council, or let it die?  Again, this is how things are at the end of ME2, so it really isn't that far out there.  You either save the council and DA, or you flee, saving as many human ships as you can.  Give me order versus chaos anyday.  Besides, Shandepared and I have argued this to death already, here.  So I'll not go into all the different reasons why it makes sense to save the council.

[In Exile]

If Sovereign won, there wouldn't be a dreadnought. Hundreds (thousands?) of Reaper ships would be entering from Dark Space and would genocide the lot of us, so it doesn't matter. Thinking about it the other way doesn't really work, because Sovereign winning means the end of our existences.



The problem with talking about the tactical soundess of saving the Ascension is that we know nothing about the battle. What we see is that the Ascension is getting anihilated; their kinetic barries are down, the ship is heavily damaged, and it's sorrounded by geth.



In general, the issue with the tactical soundness of not saving vs. saving the Ascension is that we don't know what the battlefield was like. For example, where was the Citadel fleet, where was the geth fleet relative to the Citadel fleet and the Citadel itself, and where was the human fleet?



Consider these scenarios:



A) The humans come in from Arcturus. There is a single Mass Relay in the Serpent Nebula next to the Citadel; they enter exactly from where the geth entered. In front of them is the geth fleet, who are engaged with the Citadel fleet. Behind this engagement is the Citadel. For the Human fleet to reach the Citdal, they have to break through the geth, or swing around them. To entirely avoid the geth would take far too much time; they have to break through them to reach the Citadel.



The humans come in from Arcturus. There are mutiple Mass Relays (plausible, since the Codex says the relays come in pairs). The relay the humans enter from is different than the geth. There are two points of interest: one off to one side, where the Citadel fleet engages the geth. The other, the Citadel. The humans can avoid one engagement and hit the Citadel directly. The Citadel fleet will eventually be anihilated, but not without heavy losses to the geth. If humanity defeats Sovereign, they could plausibly mop up the geth,



In Scenario A, it makes sense to hit the geth hard and save the Ascension, To reach the Citadel ASAP you have to break through the geth; engaging the geth to defeat them exclusively is stupid, but if you have to break through them regardless, it's logical to save the Citadel flagship while you're at it. Even if you try to move past the geth without engaging them, there's no guarantee this will happen. It's tactically sound to save the Ascension.



In Scenario B, the opposite makes sense. You could preserve your entire force and reach the Citadel faster if you avoid the Citadel/geth battle. Yes, you're sacrificing lives, but that's war. The only victory condition for the Alliance is stopping Sovereign. Tactically, it makes the most sense to go directly for the Citadel when the arms open and stop Sovereign, then save the remnants of the Citadel fleet and/or mop up remaining geth.



Note that there is one scenario, IMO, that never makes sense, and that's the idea that the Citadel fleet could disengage the geth to save Sovereign after the Alliance saves the Ascension. The geth have no reason to allow them to escape. All that would happen is that instead of sorrounding Sovereign, you'd have given it extra firepower because not only is it destroying a ship every time it gets a shot, but the geth may well be ganging up on ships as well.



So basically, I think in actual tactical terms, the geography of the battlefield is all that matters. Of course, we have zero information on this (can't rely on the cutscene, IMO, because it actually shows things that directly contradict the condex entries on how ship battles & ship-to-ship weapons work). Since the soundness of tactics is totally speculative, I don't think we can really argue out a "better" choice.

[marshalleck]

wizardryforever wrote...

My original question has still not been addressed, I see.  What if there were no way to stop Sovereign?  It was a lose-lose situation in which you either have a government or you don't.  In that situation, would you rather save the council, or let it die?  Again, this is how things are at the end of ME2, so it really isn't that far out there.  You either save the council and DA, or you flee, saving as many human ships as you can.  Give me order versus chaos anyday.  Besides, Shandepared and I have argued this to death already, here.  So I'll not go into all the different reasons why it makes sense to save the council.

Okay, you asked several questions in that post I was responding to. If you wanted a specific answer you should have told me specificially which question you wanted an answer to. I'm not psychic.

Answer: if Sovereign were going to open the relay no matter what, I would still say focusing on him would be the best option. At least then you know that the current species put up the most resistance they could muster and it was still not enough; in that situation, saving the Council would serve no benefit at all.

Besides, it's a question which requires meta-game knowledge and I am arguing from the perspective of my Shepard, who is not omnipotent, so I think your question ultimately has little bearing on the conversation.

[In Exile]

marshalleck wrote...

Besides, it's a question which requires meta-game knowledge and I am arguing from the perspective of my Shepard, who is not omnipotent, so I think your question ultimately has little bearing on the conversation.

I think his argument is that the rational choice (for a fallible Shepard) is to consider all outcomes. His argument is that saving the Ascension is a superior strategy if Sovereign does not win, while the outcome is irrelevant if Sovereign does.

Of course, this misses the point, because the entire thing at issue is that we're screwed is Sovereign wins, and the best decision is the one that makes Sovereign's chance to win the smallest.