164 réponses à ce sujet

[Dean_the_Young]

While it's no secret I don't buy into the idea, plenty of people have insisted against saving the Collector Base on the grounds that no one is 'ready' for the technology, and that not only technology researched indegenously is moral, it is supperior to taking other people's development lines. Legion is a big proponent of this line, as are multiple characters after saving the base. Plenty of people point to this as proof of it being one of the big themes of ME2.

Ignore that human scientific advancement has always been based on people building and improving on the advances of others. Ignore that the very nature of our education system is 'catch up' to the advances made by other people long passed, and that we don't reinvent our own understanding every time. Ignore also the historical trend of what happens to peoples and civilizations that don't seize and adapt the advances of technologically supperior rivals.

Ignore all that, at least for now.


What I want to know is if indeginous technological growth and self-support is supposed to be so important, why does the entire rest of the game have you copy and take advantage of other people's advancements?

Every mission, you go and take the fruit of other poeple's knowledge. Sometimes you buy them, whether from the Asari on Illium or the quarian junk pile on Omega or the Turian weapon store on the Citadel. Sometimes you kill them for it: advances and upgrades taken from fallen mercenaries, from the strikken Collector Ship (who here hasn't taken the weapon upgrades, or the salvage tech options?). Some of these advances are available for immediate use via the Normandy's upgrade labs. Others are simply salvage tech bounties from Cerberus, a big source of revenue from any playthrough.

Very few can honestly be called indegenously developed by the Alliance or Cerberus.

It's not simply the weapon and armor upgrades, though those are a case in point. The entire multi-racial recruitment team shows a shortcut approach to power and knowledge from others that the theme is supposed to oppose. Mordin is on the team, for example, precisely because you want to take his alien genius for your own ends, to use his knowledge to combat the Seeker Swarms rather than develop your own technology to deal with it. Other aliens are also taken for their power: the powerful biotic Justicar, the mechanical genius of the Quarians, the ability of a Drell Assassin. You're taking their alien knowledge for a human mission.

An indegenously developed team of experts would be limited to humans. Jack, Jacob, Miranda, Shepard.

And the ship upgrades. Oh thank the squad, ship upgrades! Reaper-derived Turian reverse-engineered Thannix cannons? Quarian-supplied Multicore Shielding? Asari-developed Heavy Ship Armor? You can't just take one or two of them: if you want a perfect game, you have to take all of them to keep your squad alive. Where's the indiginous development theme? Wasn't the point that races should develop their own tech, being morally superior and technically diverse, rather than going on the easy path of taking other people's advances and slapping them on yourself?


If there's a theme of technological self-reliance in this game, it's certainly an ironic one considering that the moral path of strictly indigenous development would lead to a third of your squad dying before landing on the Collector base. Instead, the game guides you, encourages you, almost demands you be proliffic in reverse engineering other people's advances to improve yourself.

I wonder: an eggregious oversight between thematic and gameplay trends? Or a cynically brilliant ploy illustrating the doublethink of any perfect-achiever who refuses to lose a squad member but destroys the Reaper Technology on the grounds of the necessity of self-development? 

Modifié par Dean_the_Young, 01 mai 2010 - 04:54 .

[Thundertactics]

Thank you sir, you've made me feel much better on keeping the Collector Base.
Not that I had any doubts before, but this'll be a nice thread to link to whoever says "ZOMG! DA REAPERZ WILL TAEK OVAH TEH GALAXEH IF WE DON'T DEVELOP OUR OWN TECH!".
Who says you can't take advantage of your enemy's knowledge?

(And yes, I realise that wasn't entirely the point you tried to convey in your post, but it's a nice future reference regardless)

[Vegielamb]

Take from others = becoming like the Reapers

Developing you own = becoming like the Reapers



At this point, it's a rush to see if they can top the Reaper tech ladder of doom before "salvation" arrives. No one has time to be creative. The only way to escape becoming like the Reapers is to avoid using Mass Relays, and that means intergalactic civ stops.

[Onyx Jaguar]

Aren't they more or less additions rather than advancements?

EDIT:  These upgrades exist, but at the point where you buy it from is on the level with current expansion trends

Modifié par Onyx Jaguar, 01 mai 2010 - 05:00 .

[MrNose]

Man, my thought line was just "Reaper tech is evil, and we'll probably all be indoctrinated if we take it." But that's just me. At the end of my playthrough my Sith/Renegade Shep will be keeping the base anyhow.

[Dean_the_Young]

Onyx Jaguar wrote...

Aren't they more or less additions rather than advancements?

They're advancements. Various independently developed secrets to improve performance on a wide range of things.

EDIT:  These upgrades exist, but at the point where you buy it from is on the level with current expansion trends

Only because of incessant cross-grouping technological exchanges, which goes against the theme of the game. Humans (the Alliance or Cerberus) haven't developed these changes, and by the theme of the game that means you shouldn't take the easy route and take them, but independently invent all of them. Asari should not give technology to humans, or vice versa, and yet that's exactly what you're doing.

That they are at the level with current expansion trends is precisely the point of the alleged theme of the game: the current expansion trend is immoral and wrong.

[Onyx Jaguar]

Dean_the_Young wrote...

Onyx Jaguar wrote...

Aren't they more or less additions rather than advancements?

They're advancements. Various independently developed secrets to improve performance on a wide range of things.

EDIT:  These upgrades exist, but at the point where you buy it from is on the level with current expansion trends

Only because of incessant cross-grouping technological exchanges, which goes against the theme of the game. Humans (the Alliance or Cerberus) haven't developed these changes, and by the theme of the game that means you shouldn't take the easy route and take them, but independently invent all of them. Asari should not give technology to humans, or vice versa, and yet that's exactly what you're doing.

That they are at the level with current expansion trends is precisely the point of the alleged theme of the game: the current expansion trend is immoral and wrong.

Wouldn't this be more of a situation where the US and Russia trades Arms with the MIddle East and African nations who would not be in the capacity to develop such inventions I presume?  Kind of like what Mordin was saying in relation to Salarians uprooting the Krograns from their situation?  IE advancement before ability causes disaster?

[Andrew_Waltfeld]

I agree, I would not be surprised if the galaxy is in chaos due to this new technology. Sure we may build upon the advancement of others, but we don't know for sure when the reapers are coming, everything points to 2 years though, which could be more than enough time to develop tech of our own. Or... destroy ourselves with it.

Yes it's an theme, and it's an theme i fully support. Why should I follow the path that I know will let the reapers know what to expect? I already got the Thanix cannon, which if mounted on every single ship would mean that every ship has a lot of firepower from just that.

There has already been enough advancements though reaper tech to account for healthy advancement. I just don't like being shoe-horned into someone's path. It's just my personality, if you say follow this path, which probably means reaper tech, there is nothing new being developed. Your just setting some fires to beat the spreading fire before it gets here... which may or may not work, or just combine with the fire.

While off the beaten path may lie salvation thru an different form of technology.But it could mean that it could not be developed in time. Or not be developed at all. It's an gamble.

Modifié par Andrew_Waltfeld, 01 mai 2010 - 05:30 .

[MrNose]

The actual answer is purposefully ambiguous I'm pretty sure. On the one hand TIM could be totally right, but on the other hand, playing with that tech could be disastrous. Remember the fallout from the Reaper IFF? This is a lot more than a simple IFF.



The other question is the harvesting technology. What will happen if that gets reverse engineered? Will we start seeing people harvesting each other?

[Dean_the_Young]

Onyx Jaguar wrote...

Dean_the_Young wrote...

Onyx Jaguar wrote...

Aren't they more or less additions rather than advancements?

They're advancements. Various independently developed secrets to improve performance on a wide range of things.

EDIT:  These upgrades exist, but at the point where you buy it from is on the level with current expansion trends

Only because of incessant cross-grouping technological exchanges, which goes against the theme of the game. Humans (the Alliance or Cerberus) haven't developed these changes, and by the theme of the game that means you shouldn't take the easy route and take them, but independently invent all of them. Asari should not give technology to humans, or vice versa, and yet that's exactly what you're doing.

That they are at the level with current expansion trends is precisely the point of the alleged theme of the game: the current expansion trend is immoral and wrong.

Wouldn't this be more of a situation where the US and Russia trades Arms with the MIddle East and African nations who would not be in the capacity to develop such inventions I presume?  Kind of like what Mordin was saying in relation to Salarians uprooting the Krograns from their situation?  IE advancement before ability causes disaster?

For you metaphor, Shepard is the third-world nation taking technology from the technologically suppeior Asari, Turians, and even Quarians (depending on the field).

Modifié par Dean_the_Young, 01 mai 2010 - 05:44 .

[Dean_the_Young]

Since some people seem to be confused:

This is NOT another Collector Base decision argument thread.

This IS a thread about why the theme of the game culminating with the Collector Base decision, the idea of technological insularity, is so routinely violated in word and deed in all the rest of the game, even by the characters who espouse it.

The Collector Base and it's delimma aren't the focus. Tech salvaging, stealing, and purchasing are.

Modifié par Dean_the_Young, 01 mai 2010 - 05:53 .

[Dean_the_Young]

Andrew_Waltfeld wrote...

I agree, I would not be surprised if the galaxy is in chaos due to this new technology. Sure we may build upon the advancement of others, but we don't know for sure when the reapers are coming, everything points to 2 years though, which could be more than enough time to develop tech of our own. Or... destroy ourselves with it.

Yes it's an theme, and it's an theme i fully support. Why should I follow the path that I know will let the reapers know what to expect? I already got the Thanix cannon, which if mounted on every single ship would mean that every ship has a lot of firepower from just that.

There has already been enough advancements though reaper tech to account for healthy advancement. I just don't like being shoe-horned into someone's path. It's just my personality, if you say follow this path, which probably means reaper tech, there is nothing new being developed. Your just setting some fires to beat the spreading fire before it gets here... which may or may not work, or just combine with the fire.

While off the beaten path may lie salvation thru an different form of technology.But it could mean that it could not be developed in time. Or not be developed at all. It's an gamble.

If you salvage other races/groups tech, you're shoehorning yourself down those lines of development for the same reason you were down the Reaper lines*. If you stoop to using the Thanix cannon, you've already thrown aside the principle of technological self-development. If you use the Normandy's upgrades, you're doing the same thing as well, using other people's superior knowledge rather than developing it on your own. Unless you reject those salvage opportunities, you're already walking down a worn path rather than setting out on your own.


*Which were always most importantly about using the Mass Relay system to set up the trap of the Citadel. The actual technological variations are irrelevant as long as you used the Mass Relays and Citadel.

[Arawn-Loki]

Dean_the_Young wrote...

While it's no secret I don't buy into the idea, plenty of people have insisted against saving the Collector Base on the grounds that no one is 'ready' for the technology, and that not only technology researched indegenously is moral, it is supperior to taking other people's development lines. Legion is a big proponent of this line, as are multiple characters after saving the base. Plenty of people point to this as proof of it being one of the big themes of ME2.

Ignore that human scientific advancement has always been based on people building and improving on the advances of others. Ignore that the very nature of our education system is 'catch up' to the advances made by other people long passed, and that we don't reinvent our own understanding every time. Ignore also the historical trend of what happens to peoples and civilizations that don't seize and adapt the advances of technologically supperior rivals.

Ignore all that, at least for now.


What I want to know is if indeginous technological growth and self-support is supposed to be so important, why does the entire rest of the game have you copy and take advantage of other people's advancements?

Every mission, you go and take the fruit of other poeple's knowledge. Sometimes you buy them, whether from the Asari on Illium or the quarian junk pile on Omega or the Turian weapon store on the Citadel. Sometimes you kill them for it: advances and upgrades taken from fallen mercenaries, from the strikken Collector Ship (who here hasn't taken the weapon upgrades, or the salvage tech options?). Some of these advances are available for immediate use via the Normandy's upgrade labs. Others are simply salvage tech bounties from Cerberus, a big source of revenue from any playthrough.

Very few can honestly be called indegenously developed by the Alliance or Cerberus.

It's not simply the weapon and armor upgrades, though those are a case in point. The entire multi-racial recruitment team shows a shortcut approach to power and knowledge from others that the theme is supposed to oppose. Mordin is on the team, for example, precisely because you want to take his alien genius for your own ends, to use his knowledge to combat the Seeker Swarms rather than develop your own technology to deal with it. Other aliens are also taken for their power: the powerful biotic Justicar, the mechanical genius of the Quarians, the ability of a Drell Assassin. You're taking their alien knowledge for a human mission.

An indegenously developed team of experts would be limited to humans. Jack, Jacob, Miranda, Shepard.

And the ship upgrades. Oh thank the squad, ship upgrades! Reaper-derived Turian reverse-engineered Thannix cannons? Quarian-supplied Multicore Shielding? Asari-developed Heavy Ship Armor? You can't just take one or two of them: if you want a perfect game, you have to take all of them to keep your squad alive. Where's the indiginous development theme? Wasn't the point that races should develop their own tech, being morally superior and technically diverse, rather than going on the easy path of taking other people's advances and slapping them on yourself?


If there's a theme of technological self-reliance in this game, it's certainly an ironic one considering that the moral path of strictly indigenous development would lead to a third of your squad dying before landing on the Collector base. Instead, the game guides you, encourages you, almost demands you be proliffic in reverse engineering other people's advances to improve yourself.

I wonder: an eggregious oversight between thematic and gameplay trends? Or a cynically brilliant ploy illustrating the doublethink of any perfect-achiever who refuses to lose a squad member but destroys the Reaper Technology on the grounds of the necessity of self-development? 

I don't think that is the moral of ME2.

Not to get Heideggerian about it, but Reaper technology was developed with a mind to the ethical premise that organic life, and any kind of sapience short of the Reapers, is, as Harbinger put it, "Irrelevant." All of its applications are likely to run counter to the highest values of the organic races. It morphs organic life into something else.

In contrast, the technology developed by organic life and the Geth is developed with a mind to preserve and enhance what we already are.

[Ieldra]

Dean_the_Young wrote...

Since some people seem to be confused:

This is NOT another Collector Base decision argument thread.

This IS a thread about why the theme of the game culminating with the Collector Base decision, the idea of technological insularity, is so routinely violated in word and deed in all the rest of the game.

The Collector Base and it's choice aren't the focus. Tech salvaging, stealing, and purchasing are.

Not quite correct. These two themes are connected. You correctly recognize that setting up the destruction of the Collector base as the right decision on one side, on the ground of "every species should develop its own technological base", and the fact that routinely technology is exchanged, stolen, found etc. with no ill effects on the other side, that these result in a contradiction.

Most strikingly, why can we can use the Protheans' technology and knowledge, but not the Reapers'? For me, this is the strange fact. Exchange of technology is just normal and doesn't need to be explained.

BTW: very good post, your OP.  


 

[Ieldra]

Arawn-Loki wrote...
Not to get Heideggerian about it, but Reaper technology was developed with a mind to the ethical premise that organic life, and any kind of sapience short of the Reapers, is, as Harbinger put it, "Irrelevant." All of its applications are likely to run counter to the highest values of the organic races. It morphs organic life into something else.

In contrast, the technology developed by organic life and the Geth is developed with a mind to preserve and enhance what we already are.

There are no built-in values and ethics in knowledge, because it all depends on how it's used.
As I said elsewhere, knowing how an ICBM functions means we can build one, or we can build better defenses against it. Knowing how an indoctrination device functions may do likewise. Knowing exactly how this transformation of a species is intended to function will be valuable knowledge, maybe even the knowledge necessary to defeat the Reapers.

Modifié par Ieldra2, 01 mai 2010 - 06:07 .

[Dean_the_Young]

Ieldra2 wrote...

Dean_the_Young wrote...

Since some people seem to be confused:

This is NOT another Collector Base decision argument thread.

This IS a thread about why the theme of the game culminating with the Collector Base decision, the idea of technological insularity, is so routinely violated in word and deed in all the rest of the game.

The Collector Base and it's choice aren't the focus. Tech salvaging, stealing, and purchasing are.

Not quite correct. These two themes are connected. You correctly recognize that setting up the destruction of the Collector base as the right decision on one side, on the ground of "every species should develop its own technological base", and the fact that routinely technology is exchanged, stolen, found etc. with no ill effects on the other side, that these result in a contradiction.

Most strikingly, why can we can use the Protheans' technology and knowledge, but not the Reapers'? For me, this is the strange fact. Exchange of technology is just normal and doesn't need to be explained.

BTW: very good post, your OP.    

Except that the exchange of knowedge has had ill effects on other sides. Increased warfare, the rush for biotics, the increased capability for harm from crime and other such things (such as the recent Cerberus network story of a FTL ship being run into a planet as terrorism). Moreover, the arbiters of who is ready or not for technology are not only self-appointed (the Council), but also self-interested (keeping the Council to only two, then reluctantly three, for thousands of years).  Technolosy itself is inherently dangerous in that it gives the capability for harm, but it is not inherently moral. Prothean technology, to take your example: that in itself is just derived Reaper technology, but there is a galactic double standard towards the two.


Unless I misunderstood your post, for which I will go ahead and apologize for.

[Vegielamb]

Some general impressions:

The Reaper's path is inevitable. Eventually civ and the exchange of ideas will result in Reaper tech. The key to salvation will be deciding not to use it. All Shepard is doing is stalling; eventually we have to chose not to become Reapers.

I also get the impression that just because lots of other races existed before doesn't mean they worked together before. Perhaps this iteration of civ is more specialized and cohesive than the last?

Modifié par Vegielamb, 01 mai 2010 - 06:14 .

[Arawn-Loki]

Ieldra2 wrote...

Dean_the_Young wrote...

Since some people seem to be confused:

This is NOT another Collector Base decision argument thread.

This IS a thread about why the theme of the game culminating with the Collector Base decision, the idea of technological insularity, is so routinely violated in word and deed in all the rest of the game.

The Collector Base and it's choice aren't the focus. Tech salvaging, stealing, and purchasing are.

Not quite correct. These two themes are connected. You correctly recognize that setting up the destruction of the Collector base as the right decision on one side, on the ground of "every species should develop its own technological base", and the fact that routinely technology is exchanged, stolen, found etc. with no ill effects on the other side, that these result in a contradiction.

Most strikingly, why can we can use the Protheans' technology and knowledge, but not the Reapers'? For me, this is the strange fact. Exchange of technology is just normal and doesn't need to be explained.

BTW: very good post, your OP.  


 

No.

We destroy the Collector Base because almost all of its theoretical applications are hostile to our essence as a people. Geth Rifles are not. In fact, they are probably just a modified version of Quarian assault rifles.

Even the powerful shields enjoyed by Sovereign are probably generated at least partially by the organic aspect of the Reapers. So, we have to reduce organic life to batteries in order to make Reaper tech function properly, a parasitic relationship.

Modifié par Arawn-Loki, 01 mai 2010 - 06:12 .

[cachx]

Ieldra2 wrote...

Most strikingly, why can we can use the Protheans' technology and knowledge, but not the Reapers'? For me, this is the strange fact. Exchange of technology is just normal and doesn't need to be explained.

As far as I know, Prothean tech IS Reaper tech.

I think the trade, use and development of other technologies is completely normal and good for the advancement of civilizations. The problem with the Collector Base in particular (or it's main feature at least) is that, well, turns living beings into weapons, nothing good can come of that.

[Dean_the_Young]

Arawn-Loki wrote...

Ieldra2 wrote...

Dean_the_Young wrote...

Since some people seem to be confused:

This is NOT another Collector Base decision argument thread.

This IS a thread about why the theme of the game culminating with the Collector Base decision, the idea of technological insularity, is so routinely violated in word and deed in all the rest of the game.

The Collector Base and it's choice aren't the focus. Tech salvaging, stealing, and purchasing are.

Not quite correct. These two themes are connected. You correctly recognize that setting up the destruction of the Collector base as the right decision on one side, on the ground of "every species should develop its own technological base", and the fact that routinely technology is exchanged, stolen, found etc. with no ill effects on the other side, that these result in a contradiction.

Most strikingly, why can we can use the Protheans' technology and knowledge, but not the Reapers'? For me, this is the strange fact. Exchange of technology is just normal and doesn't need to be explained.

BTW: very good post, your OP.  


 

No.

We destroy the Collector Base because almost all of its theoretical applications are hostile to our essence as a people. Geth Rifles are not. In fact, they are probably just a modified version of Quarian assault rifles.

Assault rifles, like swords, are tools who's only purpose is to
kill. They are the epitome of existences who's purpose is to kill.

Even the powerful shields enjoyed by Sovereign are probably generated at least partially by the organic aspect of the Reapers. So, we have to reduce organic life to batteries in order to make Reaper tech function properly, a parasitic relationship.

Considering the Thannix Cannon was able to be reproduced without reducing organic life, there's little reason to believe that the strength of Reaper technology is dependent on the process of the Reapers, as opposed to the theoretical concepts underlying the technology.

Modifié par Dean_the_Young, 01 mai 2010 - 06:21 .

[superimposed]

Message is actually not to use Prothean/Reaper tech as that's there to shape how the civilisation forms, nott hat you shouldn't use other race's tech.

[Dean_the_Young]

Other civilizations are using Prothean/Reaper tech: following their tech not only still lets others shoehorn your development, it shoehorns your development down the exact same lines.

[Tlazolteotl]

Well, if it weren't for the mass relays, the galaxy would be pondscum.

Developing your own tech is a fine idea, if the species in question are actually intelligent enough to do so.

[Arawn-Loki]

Considering the Thannix Cannon was able to be reproduced without reducing organic life, there's little reason to believe that the strength of Reaper technology is dependent on the process of the Reapers, as opposed to the theoretical concepts underlying the technology.

I think retconning the Reapers from the purely synthetic beings they were in ME1 into cyborgs was a bad idea. I think having them consist partially of organic substances is a step out of science fiction into science fantasy. But the Reapers being amorous pragmatists, for the purposes of the story, the presence of those substances has to be vital to their high-level of functioning. Since it doesn't seem those substances can relate to their thinking (they are machine minds), it has to relate to their raw physical power in some way. Aka, somehow it translates organic life into raw power. Consider the Collectors and how their tech had a biological component and was very powerful. The biological component in the tech must be essential to that power. If their shields and guns and functions we haven't seen don't somehow relate to the organic substances inside them, then those substances are purposeless.

That's not hard science fiction. But it is the science of the Mass Effect universe.

Its not entirely stupid. Organic bodies actually generate considerable amounts of energy and waste most of it.  

Modifié par Arawn-Loki, 01 mai 2010 - 06:53 .

[Mister Mida]

You know, I actually wondered about this matter a bit before Mass Effect 2 came out because of what Sovereign said to me on Virmire: "Your technology is based on the technology of the mass relays. Our technology. By using it, you develop along the paths we desire." I figured that the only way we could have a chance against the Reapers was by developing technology of our own, not based on the mass relays, and that the galaxy would start this process after Mass Effect. Guess Bioware didn't think so too.