164 réponses à ce sujet

[Andrew_Waltfeld]

Dean_the_Young wrote...
The Reaper Plan of advancement stops at the Citadel and the Keepers. Their plan has always been for no one else to go any further, on account of being wiped out. Taking the Reaper technology from the Collector Base isn't following the Plan, it's running over the plan, folding it into a paper football, and running a hundred more yards for good measure.

There's no assuming the base is full of tech: the game tells you that as the foundation for your decision. It can be taken to the bank.

Yes and I assuming of course the reapers don't have backup plans. Which i highly bet they do. You don't go 37 million years of reaping and then have one **** up or one time where the plan didn't work. I highly doubt we are the first to cause this type of mayhem.

Presenting both sides of an argument is countering your own position: the point of bringing the other side is to refute it, not acknowled it.

Coming back from the dead has no bearing on whether the Thannix is
Reaper-derived. Either you accept it, at which point you've rejected the
theme, or you don't, at which you accept it.

Actually no. You are not accepting my opinon/position which is an composition of both yes/no to the theme. You never have, you never seemed to grasp it despite me giving plenty of analogies for it.

Sometimes in order to get off the path, you must follow the path for an ways before being able to go off onto the beaten path. That is what I think.

Think about what I just said in context of technology advancement.

The importance isn't who's technology: the importance is equivalent technology (which, as has already been mentioned, is not an infinite field of options). You need equivalent technology, as best as you can, to oppose the Reapers. It's the only way to overcome technological superiority.

Actually no, sometimes the non-technological route is more superior then the equivlant technologoical route. It's been shown before as how they can occur. Sometimes progress is no progress at all.

The thing is, there are three routes: a direct route through the Collector Base, deemed Reaper-technology, advancing the current Galactic Standard, which is based on the Reaper plan and would develop the same way but nowhere near as surely, or go back 200 odd years of human development and try hitting something from there. But 200 years of development is still 200 years, and without a shortcut that's how long it will take just to catch up with the galactic equivalent.

/sigh. You honestly think I am saying you should go 200 years in the past and ignore all advancements? I am not. I am stating that you can use reaper technology to a point to help you get off the beaten path and progress on your own technological advancements. I don't even get why your saying I'm going backwards or how it would not be with Galactic Standards. Everything is meant for progress. Freedom from Mass relays is progress regardless - it means you don't need to stop by an mass relay in order to jump. Or the reapers don't flip the switch and you get stuck.

It also means that using the galatic standard to develop your own unique technology is progress. To assume that just because your going off the beaten path means the reapers technology is superior is stupid. You don't know that, it could easily lead to that bomb I said could happen. Suddenly, ditching the base is infinitely more valuable then keeping it if it meant between reaper tech and the bomb. We do not know what will happen because of this decision.

All scientists won't be working on the Collector Base: Cerberus scientists will. The rest of the scientists may not be as effective as if Cerberus were joined with them, but there's no reason they can't work.

The assumption that there is a non-Mass Effect FTL is something we have no basis for in Mass Effect, since Mass Effect fields are the one way around e=mc^2. Saying 'eventually someone would have struck gold' presupposes that an alternative FTL method does exist... and when there is nothing suggesting that it does, or is anywhere near effective.

Yes well some people think quatam physics dont exist either. I say the impossible is possible. It just depends upon giving enough time/passion and an little luck.

The assumption that it wouldn't be as effective comes from that the Reapers set their system: they'd have little to no reason to support an inferior technological path. The Reaper strategy focuses first and foremost on travel control, and methods better than their own would risk invalidating the trap. Since the point of the Reaper tech path is to lead to the Citadel, offering the goodies of the most effective path would be the best bait.

True, my point being tech development opposing using mass relays means greater help in disrupting said trap and the soon to be invasion. The whole point of Mass relays in the first place was to have them go along tech routes the reapers wanted them to. If someone goes off the unbeaten path and creates an energy source capable of powering an large mass accelerator cannon to shoot down an reaper... then the reapers aren't expecting that. My whole point, they throw it in your face that you should create technology that the reapers aren't expecting to encounter. Geth are making technology in hopes to have their race as an whole surivive.

Moreover, Mass Effect FTL drives aren't turned off when the Reapers come. The Mass Relays are, but they're not even a drive, something else entirely (their scope and scale being galactic, not merely FTL). Actual FTL drives, like when you fly around the various clusters, are independent of the Reaper's influence.
There wasn't much left to say, or disagree on, so perhaps you left a bit too soon? 

Never said I left. Just said the debate so far I have enjoyed.

ok Touche on the Mass Effect FTL drives, forgot about that.

Modifié par Andrew_Waltfeld, 02 mai 2010 - 01:11 .

[Dean_the_Young]

I'm tired at the moment Arawn, but I will argue against saying that Reaper tech requires revisions in biology, society, and culture. The Reapers resorted to their form of cybernetics because indoctrination and cloning ruined the Collectors: this is not an issue with humans. The Collectors are culturally dead due to Reaper domination: this is not an issue with humans.

Disregarding the nature of organic and synthetic relationships isn't the issue. The issue is relationship. The Reapers combination isn't the same as the Collectors isn't the same as what the humans already do and can do with the technology.

The Reapers are primarily synthetic: the organic components, such as they are, are subjugated and turned into metalic materials. They do not consider themselves organic, nor should we, and the only 'biotics' they have demonstrated in their form are the universally emulated mass effect technologies (which is what biotics are).

The Collectors are a parasitic relationship between synthetic and organic, with synthetic dominating and making up for the failures in an over-engineered organic base which is deprived of most of what makes organics 'alive'. The organic component is only a requirement for whatever reason the Reapers kept the Protheans in the first place, when they had acted so many times before.

Reaper technology allows both to exist, but once learned does not demand either relationship. The nature of technology is that it's effect varies with the intent of the user, and humans have their own relationships with synthetic technology: cybernetics, in which organic and synthetic have a relationship in which the organic component isn't a weakness to be supplanted but an integral part to be supported. Reaper technology would not necessarily supplant organic any more than what synethic already does (and does not).

Modifié par Dean_the_Young, 02 mai 2010 - 01:20 .

[Dean_the_Young]

Brief points...

Andrew_Waltfeld wrote...

Actually no. You are not accepting my opinon/position which is an composition of both yes/no to the theme. You never have, you never seemed to grasp it despite me giving plenty of analogies for it.

Sometimes in order to get off the path, you must follow the path for an ways before being able to go off onto the beaten path. That is what I think.

Think about what I just said in context of technology advancement.

That's a fine philosophy for yourself, but it's contrary to the theme of the game (which is what I was talking about). You disagree with the theme for various reasons, but it is a binary relationship of either you agree or disagree. The theme that you can't take tech shortcuts applies to your philosophy as well, even if you want to end at the same place. (Then again, both sides want to end at the same place, tech progression, regardless, so...)

Actually no, sometimes the non-technological route is more superior then the equivlant technologoical route. It's been shown before as how they can occur. Sometimes progress is no progress at all.

In most cases in which technologically inferior factions have won against technologically supperior forces, it is nearly always because the tech difference is not as great as believed: primarily, the ability to harm the foe remains, and numbers/weight allows it to be exercised.

With the Reapers, however, it returns to what almost invariably happens when on side loses the ability to harm the other: Reaper barriers eat dreadnaught fire like it's breakfast, and without overcoming those barriers the war will be lost.

/sigh. You honestly think I am saying you should go 200 years in the past and ignore all advancements? I am not. I am stating that you can use reaper technology to a point to help you get off the beaten path and progress on your own technological advancements. I don't even get why your saying I'm going backwards or how it would not be with Galactic Standards. Everything is meant for progress. Freedom from Mass relays is progress regardless - it means you don't need to stop by an mass relay in order to jump. Or the reapers don't flip the switch and you get stuck.

It also means that using the galatic standard to develop your own unique technology is progress. To assume that just because your going off the beaten path means the reapers technology is superior is stupid. You don't know that, it could easily lead to that bomb I said could happen. Suddenly, ditching the base is infinitely more valuable then keeping it if it meant between reaper tech and the bomb. We do not know what will happen because of this decision.

It comes from the stated desire to develop original technologies not on the Reaper development branch. Well, here's a fact: climing higher along a branch doesn't change where it's derived from. If you want to go up another branch that you can't already see, you have to go down to the fork in the tree and climb again.

Anything derived from the galactic standard is derived from Reaper-desired routes, and no amount of going further down the path changes that you're still on a path derived (and therefore deligitimized) by Reaper intent. There was never a singal technolog progression that the Reapers dictated and you can defy, but the broad trend of Mass Effect technology that all space civilizations have followed. To get around that obstacle you have to start your development from before you were influenced by Reaper-intended technology, all of which is fundamentally Mass Effect technology. For Humans, that's before the discovery of the Prothean data cache, which Anderson describes as having raced humanity forward 200 years in a matter of decades.

200 years of technological development can only be shorter when you're reverse engineering. When you're developing it, 200 years is rougly 200 years of technological development.  200 years from mid-21st century to current Galactic standard. Another 200 from Galactic equivalent to Collector base. To have a truly independent tech path, you have to develop that... and without Mass Effect technology, because that would still be research derived from Reaper intended tech.

Yes well some people think quatam physics dont exist either. I say the impossible is possible. It just depends upon giving enough time/passion and an little luck.

A fundamentally untrue conceit. The impossible is never possible, hence the name. Things called impossible that are later done were never impossible, but that does not mean that there are no impossible things.

True, my point being tech development opposing using mass relays means greater help in disrupting said trap and the soon to be invasion. The whole point of Mass relays in the first place was to have them go along tech routes the reapers wanted them to. If someone goes off the unbeaten path and creates an energy source capable of powering an large mass accelerator cannon to shoot down an reaper... then the reapers aren't expecting that. My whole point, they throw it in your face that you should create technology that the reapers aren't expecting to encounter. Geth are making technology in hopes to have their race as an whole surivive.

Actually, the whole point of the Mass Relays in the first place was to lead them to the Citadel. The Reapers weren't concerned so much with technology: they didn't step in and keep people on certain paths, for example. What was important was that the Citadel would trigger, and then they'd come and all the space-faring species would be killed. The Reaper development path is only as important in that it leads people to the Citadel. It wasn't a matter that the galaxy must have this type of tech, but rather the galaxy will have this type of tech and be centralized so we can launch the surprise attack.

Nothing suggests the giant mass accelerator was anything but a conventional mass-effect accelerator cannon, the technology of which is basic across galactic history. It requires a lot of e-zero, a lot of superstructure, but technically it's something that was already developed by the humans prior to the First Contact War. Mass-accelerator cannons are from Reaper lines of development. It's the same sense that a cannon and a pistol aredifferent sizes, but use the same fundamental technology (gunpowder).

[Zurcior]

I only destroyed the base because I didn't want T.I.M. to have it. I honestly don't trust him.

[Ooga600]

Taking the reaper tech isn't like humans developing upon another human's work, it's like if someone found a new element on Mars and used it to create super nukes. All we get is a more destructive way to achieve our goals.

Modifié par Ooga600, 02 mai 2010 - 03:13 .

[khevan]

I stopped reading the thread at page 2, so if this line of thinking has already been proposed, and argued for / against, my apologies.

I think the OP has a very well thought out point, but I disagree with the basic premise: ie, the moral of the Mass Effect universe is that technological exchange is immoral in and of itself.  I think that is painting the picture with too broad of a brush.

I more view the "moral" of the Mass Effect universe (if it can truly be called a moral) in the same sense as the Prime Directive from the Star Trek universe.  Technology obtained before a society is ready for it leads to disaster.  Example:  The Krogan uplifiting by the Salarians.  The Krogan had yet to work out their societal aggression issues, and giving them access to modern technology, including weapons tech, FTL travel, etc, was a blunder of vastly monumental proportions.

The technology upgrades that we "harvest" (see what I did there?) throughout the game are incremental increases in the effectiveness of our weapons, armor, tech and biotic abilities.  They are abilities that we already have access to, but slightly different ways of using that technology.  Read the upgrade descriptions sometime.  Interesting stuff, at least in my opinion.

The Thanix cannon, in the same vein, is merely an upgraded main weapon system that we already have access to, at least in a weaker version, so choosing to aquire an upgraded version of it isn't in line with the "tech we aren't ready for is bad" theme.

Another example of what I'm talking about:  It's as if you gave a culture that already had access to matchlock firearms access to wheellock or flintlock firearms.  The later are more effective, certainly more powerful and more reliable, but do not significantly alter the society using the upgraded weapons.  On the other hand, giving a society that has access to only matchlock firearms access to nuclear weapons is such a huge leap forward that such a "primitive" society isn't socially equipped to handle the technology.  This is the difference between the tech upgrades that we find throughout the game and the Collector base.  We have no frame of reference to the technology required to build a Reaper.  It's beyond our societal experience, and so it could easily be the equivalent to uplifting the Krogan.  Obviously, it could very well not cause that extreme of an outcome, but it could. 

I think I wrote that so that I at least can understand it.  Hopefully it isn't so convoluted that my point doesn't get across.

[Wildecker]

Let me start with the very basic "There's more than one way to skin a cat".

There always are several approaches to a technological problem. When thei dea of the car came into being, it was "Take a carriage, fix an engine, hit the road." The first automobil was a machine designed for towing atrillery in France as far back as 1769 and ran on steam power. Steam engines ruled for almost a century until electric power and combustion engines entered the competition. They all got abandoned for petrol-based combustion engines, the technology was abandoned, and no one but a few freaks spent time on improving those other concepts.

Way back when videotapes were the medium to conserve TV shows, there were three different industrial standards competing for the market. In the end, on won - not because of technical superiority, but because there was a wide net of shops where you could rent videotapes from one of these standards, so the others got abandoned.

Science and technology need people who "tilt their head" and look at things in a different way than the established paradigm. If you get superior tech dumped into your lap, most of the scientists and engineers will stop that, because the basic problems already have been solved. There could have been other ways. There could even have been superior ways to tackle the same problem. But they will not be explored, even in retroengineering. 

There may be other ways of FTL travel. Superior ways, even. No one cared after the relays were discovered.

There sure are other ways to kill than firing slugs at each other. But apart from the Geth and their pulse stuff and the Collectors with their particle beams, anybody else sticks to mass drivers/railguns. What happened to lasers and plasma? Abandoned for mass effect boomsticks.

The late Poul Anderson wrote a fine short story in 1950, "The Helping Hand". I'll grab  someone else's summary (Kingsley Amis, in "New Maps of Hell", for sake of quotation rules):

"There can be no mistake about what is being said in [Anderson's story] The Helping Hand . . . Of two alien cultures, one accepts the proferred technological aid from Earth, the other refuses it. The closing scenes show us the independent aliens respected and prosperous, their native culture in fine shape, while those that received help are miserable second-rate copies of Earthmen, their languages, religion, art, and social customs dying out."

And having read it, I can tell you the Earth influence on the receivers is not limited to the culture. You get a scene where an Earthmen holds up a scientific paper written by the non-receivers and mocks: "That theory is just a load of crap. We have devoted research to it and dismissed it decades ago." - and this theory paves the road to a different and superior technology at the end of the story.

If you send your engineers and scientists to the Collector Base, they will arrive under the impression "This is Reaper Tech. The best there is, with millions of years of development behind it." None of them will tilt his head and mutter "What a silly way to do this ... why didn't they just ...?"

While you take the Asari armor and the Quarian shields and say: "Interesting. Now we could have come up with something not exactly like it, but similar ..." - but we didn't, in time. Maybe our human approach would have resulted in a better solution, maybe not. We can still think about it, but for the time being this will do."

Because you know the Asari and the Quarians do not work miracles, while deep inside you believe the Reapers do ...

Modifié par Wildecker, 02 mai 2010 - 08:16 .

[KalosCast]

Mass Effect 2 doesn't have a moral.

[Ieldra]

khevan wrote...
I more view the "moral" of the Mass Effect universe (if it can truly be called a moral) in the same sense as the Prime Directive from the Star Trek universe.  Technology obtained before a society is ready for it leads to disaster.  Example:  The Krogan uplifiting by the Salarians.  The Krogan had yet to work out their societal aggression issues, and giving them access to modern technology, including weapons tech, FTL travel, etc, was a blunder of vastly monumental proportions.

The technology upgrades that we "harvest" (see what I did there?) throughout the game are incremental increases in the effectiveness of our weapons, armor, tech and biotic abilities.  They are abilities that we already have access to, but slightly different ways of using that technology.  Read the upgrade descriptions sometime.  Interesting stuff, at least in my opinion.

The Thanix cannon, in the same vein, is merely an upgraded main weapon system that we already have access to, at least in a weaker version, so choosing to aquire an upgraded version of it isn't in line with the "tech we aren't ready for is bad" theme.

Another example of what I'm talking about:  It's as if you gave a culture that already had access to matchlock firearms access to wheellock or flintlock firearms.  The later are more effective, certainly more powerful and more reliable, but do not significantly alter the society using the upgraded weapons.  On the other hand, giving a society that has access to only matchlock firearms access to nuclear weapons is such a huge leap forward that such a "primitive" society isn't socially equipped to handle the technology.  This is the difference between the tech upgrades that we find throughout the game and the Collector base.  We have no frame of reference to the technology required to build a Reaper.  It's beyond our societal experience, and so it could easily be the equivalent to uplifting the Krogan.  Obviously, it could very well not cause that extreme of an outcome, but it could. 

I think I wrote that so that I at least can understand it.  Hopefully it isn't so convoluted that my point doesn't get across.

You make a good point, and I mostly agree.

The problem is, this principle can only be put into action if you're the one with the higher technology, for only then you have the capability and the knowledge to simulate the effects your technology will have on a less developed society.

You cannot even attempt to understand how Reaper technology will influence your own society, because to make any predictions you'd have to know exactly what that technology is capable of, for good and bad. And if you had that, it would be too late. This is why, in any remotely realistic SF scenario involving a technological civilization, people will, faced with something new, try to understand it. I can't imagine any such scenario where people would not send a science team to decipher the technology. Maybe they would throw this particular machine away because it had been tainted by what it was used for, maybe they'd never build another one, but any decisions would surely be postponed until a thorough understanding of what they're dealing with had been obtained.

 

Modifié par Ieldra2, 02 mai 2010 - 08:18 .

[khevan]

Ieldra2 wrote...

khevan wrote...
I more view the "moral" of the Mass Effect universe (if it can truly be called a moral) in the same sense as the Prime Directive from the Star Trek universe.  Technology obtained before a society is ready for it leads to disaster.  Example:  The Krogan uplifiting by the Salarians.  The Krogan had yet to work out their societal aggression issues, and giving them access to modern technology, including weapons tech, FTL travel, etc, was a blunder of vastly monumental proportions.

The technology upgrades that we "harvest" (see what I did there?) throughout the game are incremental increases in the effectiveness of our weapons, armor, tech and biotic abilities.  They are abilities that we already have access to, but slightly different ways of using that technology.  Read the upgrade descriptions sometime.  Interesting stuff, at least in my opinion.

The Thanix cannon, in the same vein, is merely an upgraded main weapon system that we already have access to, at least in a weaker version, so choosing to aquire an upgraded version of it isn't in line with the "tech we aren't ready for is bad" theme.

Another example of what I'm talking about:  It's as if you gave a culture that already had access to matchlock firearms access to wheellock or flintlock firearms.  The later are more effective, certainly more powerful and more reliable, but do not significantly alter the society using the upgraded weapons.  On the other hand, giving a society that has access to only matchlock firearms access to nuclear weapons is such a huge leap forward that such a "primitive" society isn't socially equipped to handle the technology.  This is the difference between the tech upgrades that we find throughout the game and the Collector base.  We have no frame of reference to the technology required to build a Reaper.  It's beyond our societal experience, and so it could easily be the equivalent to uplifting the Krogan.  Obviously, it could very well not cause that extreme of an outcome, but it could. 

I think I wrote that so that I at least can understand it.  Hopefully it isn't so convoluted that my point doesn't get across.

You make a good point, and I mostly agree.

The problem is, this principle can only be put into action if you're the one with the higher technology, for only then you have the capability and the knowledge to simulate the effects your technology will have on a less developed society.

You cannot even attempt to understand how Reaper technology will influence your own society, because to make any predictions you'd have to know exactly what that technology is capable of, for good and bad. And if you had that, it would be too late. This is why, in any remotely realistic SF scenario involving a technological civilization, people will, faced with something new, try to understand it. I can't imagine any such scenario where people would not send a science team to decipher the technology. Maybe they would throw this particular machine away because it had been tainted by what it was used for, maybe they'd never build another one, but any decisions would surely be postponed until a thorough understanding of what they're dealing with had been obtained.

 

I also mostly agree with you.  My disagreement stems from the fact that my post above wasn't an arguement for or against destroying the Collector base.  I was trying to politely disagree with the OP, in saying that the tech advances we can pick up throughout the game aren't equivalent to the Collector base decision.  It's a matter of degree, which is why I gave the matchlock to wheellock/flintlock analogy versus the matchlock to nuclear weapon analogy, and also why I said at the end of my post that saving the Collector base might not be the equivalent to uplifting the Krogan, just that it might.  Because without more info, we can't know one way or the other.

Whether or not the Collector base is worth saving or not is beyond the purview of my earlier argument.  If, for the sake of argument, we use my opinion as to what the "moral" of ME2 is technology-wise, there's no inconsistancy between the Collector base and the tech upgrades we pick up during the game.  The OP was trying to equate the two, leading to the obvious inconsistancy.  My idea is simpler.  (/good natured argument) 

[Dean_the_Young]

Degree doesn't change a violation of principle, and incrementalism is not a defense: violating a rule or principle twenty times is no more righteous than breaking it once in a much larger form. Killing twenty over a period of weeks is no more noble than killing twenty at once.



Nowhere in the game was the theme of self-development given an exception: creating one outside of it doesn't seem like very much a fan invention.





The question of how valid the fear is also has to be brought up, because humans already received a 200 year tech jump that no one pre-approved them for. Oooga600 wrote

Taking the reaper tech isn't like humans developing upon another human's work, it's like if someone found a new element on Mars and used it to create super nukes. All we get is a more destructive way to achieve our goals.

Which is exactly what happened in game: Humans found the Prothean data cache, discovered element zero, and in a matter of years went from a species barely able to get off the ground to one which went toe to toe with the Turians. The Alliance ran it's Black Ops Cerberus then, did it's e-zero accidents, but overall no one can accuse Humanity of acting like the Krogan, though no one gave Humanity the green light as being advanced enough.



Judging someone as worthy for tech assumes that there is someone qualified to judge. Who would that be? The Council uplifted the Krogan. Humanity uplifted itself. Which of the two has more grounds to judge being ready for more technology?

[Wildecker]

Shandepared wrote...

Wildecker wrote...

There always are several approaches to a technological problem.

No, there are not always different solutions to technological problems. Sometimees even when there are those solutions are inferior. Not all solutions are equal. If you use element-zero for anything you'll be following along the path of the Reapers. There simply aren't efficient alternatives.

That is a ridiculous statement. I am following no path at all by exploring physical effects. I start following a trodden path if I accept discovered technology using that effect will be the most efficient way to use it, simply because someone else used it that way centuries or millennia ago.
I read that gunpowder was discovered in China long before it was used in Europe, but the Chinese apparently used it for fireworks instead of guns and rifles. I am not fluent in metallurgy, but I can imagine the European experience in casting metal in the shape of bells might have made the difference.
Has anybody ever dismantled a mass relay to figure out what happens inside? I don't think so. The ME galaxy is a "user culture"; the races have no real idea how the relays work, they just know how to operate them - in "default user" mode, as the IFF demonstrates. If a relay ever breaks down nobody knows how to fix it, right? But they're so damn convenient. Easy to use, nearly impossible to understand. And even if you manage to crack one open, odds are you will not be able to restore its operational status.

Modifié par Wildecker, 02 mai 2010 - 05:31 .

[Andrew_Waltfeld]

Wildecker wrote...

Shandepared wrote...

Wildecker wrote...

There always are several approaches to a technological problem.

No, there are not always different solutions to technological problems. Sometimees even when there are those solutions are inferior. Not all solutions are equal. If you use element-zero for anything you'll be following along the path of the Reapers. There simply aren't efficient alternatives.

That is a ridiculous statement. I am following no path at all by exploring physical effects. I start following a trodden path if I accept discovered technology using that effect will be the most efficient way to use it, simply because someone else used it that way centuries or millennia ago.
I read that gunpowder was discovered in China long before it was used in Europe, but the Chinese apparently used it for fireworks instead of guns and rifles. I am not fluent in metallurgy, but I can imagine the European experience in casting metal in the shape of bells might have made the difference.
Has anybody ever dismantled a mass relay to figure out what happens inside? I don't think so. The ME galaxy is a "user culture"; the races have no real idea how the relays work, they just know how to operate them - in "default user" mode, as the IFF demonstrates. If a relay ever breaks down nobody knows how to fix it, right? But they're so damn convenient. Easy to use, nearly impossible to understand. And even if you manage to crack one open, odds are you will not be able to restore its operational status.

it's like windows XP in koisk mode.

Also explains why most of the Citadel is still relatively unknown, the keepers can not be touched etc etc. The council is afraid of breaking something horrible and being unable to fix it, and rather just use it.

Stupid. Idiotic.

Wildecker... you just said what I've been trying to argue (and failed to do) the entire time in one beatifully written post. To assume that just becuase this race decided to use element zero and mass relays does not mean that other routes of technological advancement is failures or Inferior. Far from it. I am sure if we had kept on the stream engine we would have some pretty wild advance contraption for stream engines nowadays that works just as good.

It's an dumb-*** assumption that just because the reapers did it this way, there is no alternate routes around that are just as good. Assuming that all our inferior is just as dumb as saying this is the only way.

So dean, I'm guessing your agreeing with me on the impossible is usually possible, just that no one bothered to until now.

An violation of Princples sometimes must be taken in order to achieve your goals. I probably would have refused Cerbersus straight from the start if I had an option. I was not given any. Working with Cerbersus was an violation of my princples. I was unable to do anything else becuase the game did not let me. Assumption that anyone is completely rightous to their beliefs/princples is completely absurd. I will be forced to do many things I do not like or maybe extreme violation of my princples, but I will not have any choice in the matter. Becuase If i did, I would choose not to.

Also the theme is binary in that sense. It says do you want to take that leap of faith. It is not an all or nothing deal. Hardly. And No, using reaper tech to go off in your direction is not Necessary reaper path. It's called making your own branch.For all intents and purposes, i could re-purpose reaper technology to help rather than harm if I  Wanted to. Those 20 people could have been mass murders who killed dozens of people. Am I now in violation of princples in the long run by killing them (Violating an princple not to kill another human), but I still saved future victims from dying thus secured another princple (Saving human lives where possible).

Dean, you also assume that the appoach to defeating the reapers is an direct one. I highly doubt it will be an direct fight. For example only and it's lame, an virus is an indirect appoach to defeating the reapers. 37 million years of fighting stuff and they have gotten sloppy in their anti-virus software. Suddenly it doesnt' matter if dreadnoughts fire gets eaten for breakfest because I still defeat the reapers anyway. It doesn't matter if they are technologically superior, becuase I found an ****** their armor.

If I take the reaper tech, and I'm like "why did they do it this way?" "Why not this way." One can then proceed to branch off from reaper tech and leave it behind, using the reaper tech as an jumping board.That is it. I  used them to get myself started and left them behind. My oldest technology is based upon reaper tech, but any advancement is of my own accord and becuase of that, of my own design. Eventually when you make an machine, and you keep tacking and changing things, it will become ineditabily, completely different from the orginal device.

Otherwise, we would still have computers that take 50ft cubic space.

On the topic of who is to judge -

One must earn such achievements. Despite the fact that the inventors of the atom bomb wanted to dis-invent the atom bomb, we were techonlogically ready for the bomb. We didn't go and nuke all our enemies into submission. We only used them twice on an enemy. We used them to hold enemies back from invading and keep an uneasy truce. But we did not succumb like the krogan to use them easily on each other.

we decided to do the push and we surivived and lived on. That is our judgement of if we are worthy. We surivived by not bringing disaster upon ourselves. That is how you judge. It can be done by another speices, or it could be done by simply doing it and seeing what happens.

Yes you can judge how an technology will improve or wreak your society. It is easy enough. Imangine if we suddenly got the ability to build gianatic spaceships that can go to other planets. You can easily gauge how people would react, who would be afraid of it, who would use it for their purposes, who would do what. Sure it may not be 100% correct, but rarely is any judgement of this kind 100%.

[InHarmsWay]

Andrew_Waltfeld wrote...

Dean_the_Young wrote...
The Reaper Plan of advancement stops at the Citadel and the Keepers. Their plan has always been for no one else to go any further, on account of being wiped out. Taking the Reaper technology from the Collector Base isn't following the Plan, it's running over the plan, folding it into a paper football, and running a hundred more yards for good measure.

There's no assuming the base is full of tech: the game tells you that as the foundation for your decision. It can be taken to the bank.

Yes and I assuming of course the reapers don't have backup plans. Which i highly bet they do. You don't go 37 million years of reaping and then have one **** up or one time where the plan didn't work. I highly doubt we are the first to cause this type of mayhem.

Presenting both sides of an argument is countering your own position: the point of bringing the other side is to refute it, not acknowled it.

Coming back from the dead has no bearing on whether the Thannix is
Reaper-derived. Either you accept it, at which point you've rejected the
theme, or you don't, at which you accept it.

Actually no. You are not accepting my opinon/position which is an composition of both yes/no to the theme. You never have, you never seemed to grasp it despite me giving plenty of analogies for it.

Sometimes in order to get off the path, you must follow the path for an ways before being able to go off onto the beaten path. That is what I think.

Think about what I just said in context of technology advancement.

The importance isn't who's technology: the importance is equivalent technology (which, as has already been mentioned, is not an infinite field of options). You need equivalent technology, as best as you can, to oppose the Reapers. It's the only way to overcome technological superiority.

Actually no, sometimes the non-technological route is more superior then the equivlant technologoical route. It's been shown before as how they can occur. Sometimes progress is no progress at all.

The thing is, there are three routes: a direct route through the Collector Base, deemed Reaper-technology, advancing the current Galactic Standard, which is based on the Reaper plan and would develop the same way but nowhere near as surely, or go back 200 odd years of human development and try hitting something from there. But 200 years of development is still 200 years, and without a shortcut that's how long it will take just to catch up with the galactic equivalent.

/sigh. You honestly think I am saying you should go 200 years in the past and ignore all advancements? I am not. I am stating that you can use reaper technology to a point to help you get off the beaten path and progress on your own technological advancements. I don't even get why your saying I'm going backwards or how it would not be with Galactic Standards. Everything is meant for progress. Freedom from Mass relays is progress regardless - it means you don't need to stop by an mass relay in order to jump. Or the reapers don't flip the switch and you get stuck.

It also means that using the galatic standard to develop your own unique technology is progress. To assume that just because your going off the beaten path means the reapers technology is superior is stupid. You don't know that, it could easily lead to that bomb I said could happen. Suddenly, ditching the base is infinitely more valuable then keeping it if it meant between reaper tech and the bomb. We do not know what will happen because of this decision.

All scientists won't be working on the Collector Base: Cerberus scientists will. The rest of the scientists may not be as effective as if Cerberus were joined with them, but there's no reason they can't work.

The assumption that there is a non-Mass Effect FTL is something we have no basis for in Mass Effect, since Mass Effect fields are the one way around e=mc^2. Saying 'eventually someone would have struck gold' presupposes that an alternative FTL method does exist... and when there is nothing suggesting that it does, or is anywhere near effective.

Yes well some people think quatam physics dont exist either. I say the impossible is possible. It just depends upon giving enough time/passion and an little luck.

The assumption that it wouldn't be as effective comes from that the Reapers set their system: they'd have little to no reason to support an inferior technological path. The Reaper strategy focuses first and foremost on travel control, and methods better than their own would risk invalidating the trap. Since the point of the Reaper tech path is to lead to the Citadel, offering the goodies of the most effective path would be the best bait.

True, my point being tech development opposing using mass relays means greater help in disrupting said trap and the soon to be invasion. The whole point of Mass relays in the first place was to have them go along tech routes the reapers wanted them to. If someone goes off the unbeaten path and creates an energy source capable of powering an large mass accelerator cannon to shoot down an reaper... then the reapers aren't expecting that. My whole point, they throw it in your face that you should create technology that the reapers aren't expecting to encounter. Geth are making technology in hopes to have their race as an whole surivive.

Moreover, Mass Effect FTL drives aren't turned off when the Reapers come. The Mass Relays are, but they're not even a drive, something else entirely (their scope and scale being galactic, not merely FTL). Actual FTL drives, like when you fly around the various clusters, are independent of the Reaper's influence.
There wasn't much left to say, or disagree on, so perhaps you left a bit too soon? 

Never said I left. Just said the debate so far I have enjoyed.

ok Touche on the Mass Effect FTL drives, forgot about that.

So something like, say cars today. Internal combustion cars are hurting the environment. By some of the logic here (for those who support keeping the Collector Base who argue against those who destroyed it), cars should all be destroyed and transportation tech should be reset. Whereas you're saying we brach off the path we are given. So instead of continuing making gasoline cars, we branch off that tech towards say, Hydrogen Fuel cell cars or Electric cars. Not continuing on the path, but not completely demolishing it either. Right?

[Dean_the_Young]

[quote]Andrew_Waltfeld wrote...

it's like windows XP in koisk mode.

Also explains why most of the Citadel is still relatively unknown, the keepers can not be touched etc etc. The council is afraid of breaking something horrible and being unable to fix it, and rather just use it.

Stupid. Idiotic.
[/quote]
And how many things do you use a day that you don't understand? Do you have a detailed understanding of your car? Your computer? All the intricities that go into growing your food and making your clothes and getting them to you?

People are users in general.

[quote]
Wildecker... you just said what I've been trying to argue (and failed to do) the entire time in one beatifully written post. To assume that just becuase this race decided to use element zero and mass relays does not mean that other routes of technological advancement is failures or Inferior. Far from it. I am sure if we had kept on the stream engine we would have some pretty wild advance contraption for stream engines nowadays that works just as good.[/quote]On what basis do you assume that? Why, when the steam engine could not compete in the first place with the efficiency and economy of the internal combustion engine, would you ever assume that it could develop just as far and well? 

[quote]
It's an dumb-*** assumption that just because the reapers did it this way, there is no alternate routes around that are just as good. Assuming that all our inferior is just as dumb as saying this is the only way.[/quote]Considering that you have been saying that alternative tech development would be just as good, did you just call yourself a dumb-ass?
[quote]
So dean, I'm guessing your agreeing with me on the impossible is usually possible, just that no one bothered to until now.[/quote]Did you completely miss the point where I called that a fallacy? Most things are impossible. Infact, compared to the things that are impossible few things are possible.


[quote]An violation of Princples sometimes must be taken in order to achieve your goals. I probably would have refused Cerbersus straight from the start if I had an option. I was not given any. Working with Cerbersus was an violation of my princples. I was unable to do anything else becuase the game did not let me. Assumption that anyone is completely rightous to their beliefs/princples is completely absurd. I will be forced to do many things I do not like or maybe extreme violation of my princples, but I will not have any choice in the matter. Becuase If i did, I would choose not to.[/quote]A violation of principle is a violation of principle: afterwords, you can't claim to have adhered to it. Yes, you did have choices: you could have not gone with Miranda and Jacob and stayed put on that space station. Simply because the game offers a linear path does not mean you have to advance down it. That, to, is a choice.

On the matter of stealing other people's tech rather than developing your own, you do have the choice. Every time you're given the option to take someone else's development, don't. It's that simple. Don't take it, don't develop it if you accidentally do. You have to go to deliberate effort to be able to afford those upgrades in the first place.

Few people can claim to purity of their principles. Some choose their principles to who they are. Others work to affirm themselves to the principles they claimed. Both are reasonable enough. People who claim to adhere to a principle and routinely violate it, however, are the definition hypocrites.

[quote]
Also the theme is binary in that sense. It says do you want to take that leap of faith. It is not an all or nothing deal. Hardly. And No, using reaper tech to go off in your direction is not Necessary reaper path. It's called making your own branch.For all intents and purposes, i could re-purpose reaper technology to help rather than harm if I  Wanted to. [/quote]If you use Reaper tech to help rather than harm, it remains
Reaper tech. Technology is neutral. No amount of moralizing would change the fact you were using Reaper technology, the same as no amount of justification would change that developing Reaper-intended technologies is developing along paths set out by the Reapers. You may deem it better to do so: I certainly would. But it does not change the answer.

[quote]
Those 20 people could have been mass murders who killed dozens of people. Am I now in violation of princples in the long run by killing them (Violating an princple not to kill another human), but I still saved future victims from dying thus secured another princple (Saving human lives where possible).[/quote]If your principle is that you will not kill people, then killing 20 people, even if they are mass murderers, is breaking that principle no matter how many people you save. If you believe doing so anyway is for the best, you are clinging to the wrong set of principles: rather than 'thou shall not kill', you should choose a principle of 'thous shalt only kill to save more lives.' That would be a principle you would not be breaking.

[quote]Dean, you also assume that the appoach to defeating the reapers is an direct one. I highly doubt it will be an direct fight. For example only and it's lame, an virus is an indirect appoach to defeating the reapers. 37 million years of fighting stuff and they have gotten sloppy in their anti-virus software. Suddenly it doesnt' matter if dreadnoughts fire gets eaten for breakfest because I still defeat the reapers anyway. It doesn't matter if they are technologically superior, becuase I found an ****** their armor.[/quote]Independence Day, in which inferior and foreign OS could put a virus in more advanced and isolated computer, was pure fantasy. In order to develop that virus, you would have to study the Reapers. To study the Reapers, you would have to study Reaper tech and build your understanding down those lines of development. Studying fields unique and unrelated to Reaper tech would not hand you a Reaper-tech virus.



[quote]
If I take the reaper tech, and I'm like "why did they do it this way?" "Why not this way." One can then proceed to branch off from reaper tech and leave it behind, using the reaper tech as an jumping board.That is it. I  used them to get myself started and left them behind. My oldest technology is based upon reaper tech, but any advancement is of my own accord and becuase of that, of my own design. Eventually when you make an machine, and you keep tacking and changing things, it will become ineditabily, completely different from the orginal device.[/quote]You're still developing along lines the Reapers set up, and you're still continuing lines of thought they intended. Reinvent the wheel all you want, it doesn't make it something else.

Reaper development lines were never a check list of 'they will build this, this, and this, and god forbid if they step out of it'. All the civilizations reinvented mass effect technology from scraps of the civilizations before: part of the Reaper mode of operation was to strip technology from their conquests. Every civilization advanced on its own accord, they weren't simply handed the plans for the next generation device. Someone developed the Leviathan of Dis: the Protheans developed the Beacons: Humans developed the Normandy Stealth Drive. Yet Sovereign identified all of them as having developed along the Reaper paths.

Either the Reaper paths do not include variations from local adaptation and development, in which case Sovereign was lying and the only civilization to have developed along the Reaper path is the one that invented it, the Reapers, or the Reaper paths do include variations made within the broad scope of their technological legacy, in which case developing them more remains on that path.

The Reaper path is not a narrow trail. It's an ocean between mountainous cliffs, and mass effect technology is the boat made available to everyone to upgrade. Whatever you do with that boat, however you improve and customize it, it's still a boat they gave to you.


[quote]Otherwise, we would still have computers that take 50ft cubic space.[/quote]There have only been two arguable major transitions within the development of computers: from analogue gears to vacuume tubes/switches, and from those to transisters, and even the third derived nearly all its logic from the first, and just changed the method. Everything else has been continuation of a single line of technology.

[quote]
On the topic of who is to judge -

One must earn such achievements. Despite the fact that the inventors of the atom bomb wanted to dis-invent the atom bomb, we were techonlogically ready for the bomb. We didn't go and nuke all our enemies into submission. We only used them twice on an enemy. We used them to hold enemies back from invading and keep an uneasy truce. But we did not succumb like the krogan to use them easily on each other.[/quote]We only used them twice on an enemy because twice was all it took to nuke them into submission: we did use them to nuke our enemy into submission. We didn't use them again for fear that they would be used against us, and even then we had a number of cases. Had history gone a bit differently, we would have used them again in Korea, and only separate political concerns held that back.

[quote]we decided to do the push and we surivived and lived on. That is our judgement of if we are worthy. We surivived by not bringing disaster upon ourselves. That is how you judge. It can be done by another speices, or it could be done by simply doing it and seeing what happens.[/quote]If the judgement is only given after success or failure is evident, then you have no grounds to stop anyone from attempting it if they so choose: after all, the judgement will be whether they survive or not. Retroactive approval is never a grounds for a system of development.

So stand aside, if you think yourself unworthy. I don't. I'll take it, and I won't kill myself with it. Now, if I then turn around to use it on you because you oppose me... well, clearly you weren't worthy then, if you can't survive. And if you weren't worthy enough to survive, you certainly have no basis to let your judgements impede mine, so your objections were wrong.

Ah, social Darwinism. Has it really been so long?
[quote]Yes you can judge how an technology will improve or wreak your society. It is easy enough. Imangine if we suddenly got the ability to build gianatic spaceships that can go to other planets. You can easily gauge how people would react, who would be afraid of it, who would use it for their purposes, who would do what. Sure it may not be 100% correct, but rarely is any judgement of this kind 100%.[/quote]Plenty of judgements are 100% confident  that they are the best choice to make. In fact, most are. A choice with a known cost does not mean it is not the best one to make, and behavioral theory repeatedly shows people will make the choice they believe is the best.

[Dean_the_Young]

InHarmsWay wrote...

Andrew_Waltfeld wrote...

Dean_the_Young wrote...
The Reaper Plan of advancement stops at the Citadel and the Keepers. Their plan has always been for no one else to go any further, on account of being wiped out. Taking the Reaper technology from the Collector Base isn't following the Plan, it's running over the plan, folding it into a paper football, and running a hundred more yards for good measure.

There's no assuming the base is full of tech: the game tells you that as the foundation for your decision. It can be taken to the bank.

Yes and I assuming of course the reapers don't have backup plans. Which i highly bet they do. You don't go 37 million years of reaping and then have one **** up or one time where the plan didn't work. I highly doubt we are the first to cause this type of mayhem.

Presenting both sides of an argument is countering your own position: the point of bringing the other side is to refute it, not acknowled it.

Coming back from the dead has no bearing on whether the Thannix is
Reaper-derived. Either you accept it, at which point you've rejected the
theme, or you don't, at which you accept it.

Actually no. You are not accepting my opinon/position which is an composition of both yes/no to the theme. You never have, you never seemed to grasp it despite me giving plenty of analogies for it.

Sometimes in order to get off the path, you must follow the path for an ways before being able to go off onto the beaten path. That is what I think.

Think about what I just said in context of technology advancement.

The importance isn't who's technology: the importance is equivalent technology (which, as has already been mentioned, is not an infinite field of options). You need equivalent technology, as best as you can, to oppose the Reapers. It's the only way to overcome technological superiority.

Actually no, sometimes the non-technological route is more superior then the equivlant technologoical route. It's been shown before as how they can occur. Sometimes progress is no progress at all.

The thing is, there are three routes: a direct route through the Collector Base, deemed Reaper-technology, advancing the current Galactic Standard, which is based on the Reaper plan and would develop the same way but nowhere near as surely, or go back 200 odd years of human development and try hitting something from there. But 200 years of development is still 200 years, and without a shortcut that's how long it will take just to catch up with the galactic equivalent.

/sigh. You honestly think I am saying you should go 200 years in the past and ignore all advancements? I am not. I am stating that you can use reaper technology to a point to help you get off the beaten path and progress on your own technological advancements. I don't even get why your saying I'm going backwards or how it would not be with Galactic Standards. Everything is meant for progress. Freedom from Mass relays is progress regardless - it means you don't need to stop by an mass relay in order to jump. Or the reapers don't flip the switch and you get stuck.

It also means that using the galatic standard to develop your own unique technology is progress. To assume that just because your going off the beaten path means the reapers technology is superior is stupid. You don't know that, it could easily lead to that bomb I said could happen. Suddenly, ditching the base is infinitely more valuable then keeping it if it meant between reaper tech and the bomb. We do not know what will happen because of this decision.

All scientists won't be working on the Collector Base: Cerberus scientists will. The rest of the scientists may not be as effective as if Cerberus were joined with them, but there's no reason they can't work.

The assumption that there is a non-Mass Effect FTL is something we have no basis for in Mass Effect, since Mass Effect fields are the one way around e=mc^2. Saying 'eventually someone would have struck gold' presupposes that an alternative FTL method does exist... and when there is nothing suggesting that it does, or is anywhere near effective.

Yes well some people think quatam physics dont exist either. I say the impossible is possible. It just depends upon giving enough time/passion and an little luck.

The assumption that it wouldn't be as effective comes from that the Reapers set their system: they'd have little to no reason to support an inferior technological path. The Reaper strategy focuses first and foremost on travel control, and methods better than their own would risk invalidating the trap. Since the point of the Reaper tech path is to lead to the Citadel, offering the goodies of the most effective path would be the best bait.

True, my point being tech development opposing using mass relays means greater help in disrupting said trap and the soon to be invasion. The whole point of Mass relays in the first place was to have them go along tech routes the reapers wanted them to. If someone goes off the unbeaten path and creates an energy source capable of powering an large mass accelerator cannon to shoot down an reaper... then the reapers aren't expecting that. My whole point, they throw it in your face that you should create technology that the reapers aren't expecting to encounter. Geth are making technology in hopes to have their race as an whole surivive.

Moreover, Mass Effect FTL drives aren't turned off when the Reapers come. The Mass Relays are, but they're not even a drive, something else entirely (their scope and scale being galactic, not merely FTL). Actual FTL drives, like when you fly around the various clusters, are independent of the Reaper's influence.
There wasn't much left to say, or disagree on, so perhaps you left a bit too soon? 

Never said I left. Just said the debate so far I have enjoyed.

ok Touche on the Mass Effect FTL drives, forgot about that.

So something like, say cars today. Internal combustion cars are hurting the environment. By some of the logic here (for those who support keeping the Collector Base who argue against those who destroyed it), cars should all be destroyed and transportation tech should be reset. Whereas you're saying we brach off the path we are given. So instead of continuing making gasoline cars, we branch off that tech towards say, Hydrogen Fuel cell cars or Electric cars. Not continuing on the path, but not completely demolishing it either. Right?

You have your sides mixed up.

The people who are saying cars should be destroyed would be those who have a rejection of car technology and believe that advancing car technology is immoral and that other modes of transportation be found. Hydrogen fuel cell cars and electric cars are still cars (in fact, the very future car technology we could seize), however, and whether we take the future cars now or develop them ourselves that would be developing along car development lines, set out by the Henry Ford and the Evil Automobile Companies, who also were instrumental in the various derivations of cars, like airplanes (from car engines) and tanks (cars with tracks instead of wheels).

Instead, alternative technologies must be found, and they can't be gotten from the easy beaten path (the internal combustion engine and cars). However, these people are confident that the impossible is quite often possible (in the same way that a one in a million chance always succedes), and surely there are other alternatives to the cars that could be just as good or better, and will give a much better edge.

Oh, and there's a time limit. Got between two and ten years to match that hybrid car you turned down. Good luck!

 

[Andrew_Waltfeld]

InHarmsWay wrote...


So something like, say cars today. Internal combustion cars are hurting the environment. By some of the logic here (for those who support keeping the Collector Base who argue against those who destroyed it), cars should all be destroyed and transportation tech should be reset. Whereas you're saying we brach off the path we are given. So instead of continuing making gasoline cars, we branch off that tech towards say, Hydrogen Fuel cell cars or Electric cars. Not continuing on the path, but not completely demolishing it either. Right?

Percisely. yup. Why Re-invent the wheel. There is no two polar oppsites you HAVE to choose. You can easily use reaper tech as the foundation and just go off on your own from there.

It's like giving someone 3 grand to start an business. The money was invested in the business, techinally it was founded upon your money, but eventually the business may shift from making airplane parts to boat parts. In the end, the founding money that started the business was that 3k. What the business ended up doing was shifting from airplane parts to boat parts eventually, becoming something inherently different from the orginal business.

Modifié par Andrew_Waltfeld, 02 mai 2010 - 09:11 .

[Dean_the_Young]

Andrew_Waltfeld wrote...

InHarmsWay wrote...


So something like, say cars today. Internal combustion cars are hurting the environment. By some of the logic here (for those who support keeping the Collector Base who argue against those who destroyed it), cars should all be destroyed and transportation tech should be reset. Whereas you're saying we brach off the path we are given. So instead of continuing making gasoline cars, we branch off that tech towards say, Hydrogen Fuel cell cars or Electric cars. Not continuing on the path, but not completely demolishing it either. Right?

Percisely. yup. Why Re-invent the wheel. There is no two polar oppsites you HAVE to choose. You can easily use reaper tech as the foundation and just go off on your own from there.

It's like giving someone 3 grand to start an business. The money was invested in the business, techinally it was founded upon your money, but eventually the business may shift from making airplane parts to boat parts. In the end, the founding money that started the business was that 3k. What the business ended up doing was shifting from airplane parts to boat parts eventually, becoming something inherently different from the orginal business.

If you use reaper tech, there's two problems: if you design a boat from airplane technology it's still derived from airplane technology, and it's still violating the principle ofnot using airplane technology at all. Of course you don't believe in that principle in the first place, so it doesn't matter much.

Modifié par Dean_the_Young, 02 mai 2010 - 09:25 .

[Il Divo]

Dean_the_Young wrote...

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.

The problem with this logic is that it overlooks one critical difference between attempting to copy Reaper technology versus copying the technology of any other species. You here make the point that people/civilizations which don't adapt typically fall to technologically superior rivals. Normally you would be right. But the very reason why every previous civilization has fallen is because they have chosen to copy Reaper technology. Every single one. These numerous examples counter every point you make regarding why it is better to follow their technological advancement. We have up until this point and it's cost us everything.

Typically when one civilization copies the technology of another, they don't expect that technology to turn on them, which was the case with the Reaper invasion. Now you might argue that by this logic this means we must scrap  the mass relays, Citadel, etc. Unfortunately there is a certain cost vs. benefit analysis to consider here. We have been reliant on this technology for quite some time, hence it would be far more difficult to break free of its hold. This does not mean we have to follow the same pattern however by embracing the Reaper Citadel. As much as we might think our scientists could devise something new, it's more likely they will spend most of their energies to duplicate rather than take it in some new direction.
 

Modifié par Il Divo, 02 mai 2010 - 10:00 .

[Solomen]

Just want to clarify...

Paragon = Superman

Renegade = Batman



Renegade Shep isn't evil, just very harsh and jaded.



As to the OP it is asinine to disregard any advantage against the reapers. It will take everyone working together just to survive and for a clear victory you need to know how the reapers function. You can then use novel research to turn reaper tech into something the reapers aren't expecting. Like using asari genetic engineering and quarian AI tech to turn reaper building nanites into vicious reaper slaying weapons. Everyone working together may even be able to free the reapers from themselves.

[Andrew_Waltfeld]

[quote]Dean_the_Young wrote...

[quote]Andrew_Waltfeld wrote...

it's like windows XP in koisk mode.

Also explains why most of the Citadel is still relatively unknown, the keepers can not be touched etc etc. The council is afraid of breaking something horrible and being unable to fix it, and rather just use it.

Stupid. Idiotic.
[/quote]
And how many things do you use a day that you don't understand? Do you have a detailed understanding of your car? Your computer? All the intricities that go into growing your food and making your clothes and getting them to you?

People are users in general.

[/quote]

Yes actually. I have an basic understanding of how an car works, I know percisely how an computer works more so then an car. But I get the general concepts and major parts required in order for an car to operate. I know how the internet works, and how we can get the internet worldwide. I understand basic economy situations. I understand how an cell phone works. I understand how the speakers and subwoofers attached to my computer works, and the basic princples about them. I understand how the card reader on my door works so that when I insert my dorm room key, it opens. I may not understand the intricrate circuit boards and how to make one, but I understand in general how it works and how to possibly fix it unless it's an error that is beyond my knowledge. I admit my knowledge is limited and I'm not some seeing god but my curiousity is enough that I understand how things operate and work because of my personality quirks and traits.

Clothes I will admit, I only have an limited understanding, food yes I do. One of my best friends is an farmer. I also understand how the economy and an business works though my knowledge of these areas are currently limited, within the next year I will have taken economy, and business courses to expand my knowledge. I know how an gun works, how an radio operates etc etc. If you haven't guessed it already, I was the kid who asked only two words - "Why? and How?"

[quote][quote]
Wildecker... you just said what I've been trying to argue (and failed to do) the entire time in one beatifully written post. To assume that just becuase this race decided to use element zero and mass relays does not mean that other routes of technological advancement is failures or Inferior. Far from it. I am sure if we had kept on the stream engine we would have some pretty wild advance contraption for stream engines nowadays that works just as good.[/quote]

On what basis do you assume that? Why, when the steam engine could not compete in the first place with the efficiency and economy of the internal combustion engine, would you ever assume that it could develop just as far and well? 

[/quote]
Just becuase something doesn't pay off in the begining does not mean it can not pay off in the long run with research. If more Geo-thermal vents existed for us to take advantage of it, I am sure our technology would have taken advantage of it as much as possible, and somebody would have invented an more efficent way to house that energy.

[quote][quote]
It's an dumb-*** assumption that just because the reapers did it this way, there is no alternate routes around that are just as good. Assuming that all our inferior is just as dumb as saying this is the only way.[/quote]

Considering that you have been saying that alternative tech development would be just as good, did you just call yourself a dumb-ass?
[/quote]
I am simply saying assuming that any alt. Tech is of course inferior to reaper technology is an bad asumption to make simply becuase you decide to put reaper tech on an higher pedesital by your opinon alone.


[quote][quote]
So dean, I'm guessing your agreeing with me on the impossible is usually possible, just that no one bothered to until now.[/quote]Did you completely miss the point where I called that a fallacy? Most things are impossible. Infact, compared to the things that are impossible few things are possible.
[/quote]
I must have then. Because It is often in the science field that "impossible" is solved isn't it? To assume that most things are impossible because you do not think they are fesible does not mean by default they are infesible. Otherwise We wouldn't have the internet and computers the size of books. Those were deemed impossible that global communications on this scale would be possible, or that computers could be shrunken down to this small of an size by other people. There is still plenty of other things that people have deemed impossible, and they were solved. I don't like jumping to conclusions and wait to see the results before making any decisions. I will offer an educated guess but never anything concrete of a word as impossible.

[quote]
A violation of principle is a violation of principle: afterwords, you can't claim to have adhered to it.

Andrew Waltfeld edit - moved this up with this statement to keep them together -

Few people can claim to purity of their principles. Some choose their
principles to who they are. Others work to affirm themselves to the
principles they claimed. Both are reasonable enough. People who claim to
adhere to a principle and routinely violate it, however, are the
definition hypocrites.
[/quote]
Yes, and I am sure you have adhered to your princples every single time without any comprises in your life?

Not everyone is an justicar, and I am not claiming to be an saint. I am not abouste to my princples. I know that I can't possibly hope to achieve it because I know there will be times where I may have to comprise in order to get the end result required. There is some basic ones I have always followed regardless of the consequences, I have suffered thru them without regret. However I have only an few left that I fortunately have not been forced to compmise. I don't see it as an violation of princples to use other people's technology. I just aim to avoid using reaper technology whenever possible. Sometimes it not, (Reaper IFF is perfect example).

[quote]
Yes, you did have choices: you could have not gone with Miranda and Jacob and stayed put on that space station. Simply because the game offers a linear path does not mean you have to advance down it. That, to, is a choice.
[/quote]
It didn't offer, it crammed it down my throat.

[quote]
On the matter of stealing other people's tech rather than developing your own, you do have the choice. Every time you're given the option to take someone else's development, don't. It's that simple. Don't take it, don't develop it if you accidentally do. You have to go to deliberate effort to be able to afford those upgrades in the first place.
[/quote]
I have no problems using other people's technology If I am aiming to do something and there is no other altneratives. The problem is I think reaper technology does not allow alternate technology to flurish.

[quote]
If you use Reaper tech to help rather than harm, it remains
Reaper tech. Technology is neutral. No amount of moralizing would change the fact you were using Reaper technology, the same as no amount of justification would change that developing Reaper-intended technologies is developing along paths set out by the Reapers. You may deem it better to do so: I certainly would. But it does not change the answer.
[/quote]
True enough.

[quote]
Those 20 people could have been mass murders who killed dozens of people. Am I now in violation of princples in the long run by killing them (Violating an princple not to kill another human), but I still saved future victims from dying thus secured another princple (Saving human lives where possible).[/quote]
[quote]

If your principle is that you will not kill people, then killing 20 people, even if they are mass murderers, is breaking that principle no matter how many people you save. If you believe doing so anyway is for the best, you are clinging to the wrong set of principles: rather than 'thou shall not kill', you should choose a principle of 'thous shalt only kill to save more lives.' That would be a principle you would not be breaking.
[/quote]
Touche.

[quote]
[quote]Dean, you also assume that the appoach to defeating the reapers is an direct one. I highly doubt it will be an direct fight. For example only and it's lame, an virus is an indirect appoach to defeating the reapers. 37 million years of fighting stuff and they have gotten sloppy in their anti-virus software. Suddenly it doesnt' matter if dreadnoughts fire gets eaten for breakfest because I still defeat the reapers anyway. It doesn't matter if they are technologically superior, becuase I found an ****** their armor.[/quote]Independence Day, in which inferior and foreign OS could put a virus in more advanced and isolated computer, was pure fantasy. In order to develop that virus, you would have to study the Reapers. To study the Reapers, you would have to study Reaper tech and build your understanding down those lines of development. Studying fields unique and unrelated to Reaper tech would not hand you a Reaper-tech virus.
[/quote]

I am already pretty sure that EDI is already made with reaper tech and has more than once grappled with reaper software. There is plenty of times where she does this, I would guess being able to infect the collectors would be the same as the infecting the reapers since they have the same technology.

Well to be honest, we do not know if there computer was more advanced, and secondly we do not know if it was isolated, which it wasn't. Most of our computers nowadays communicate via wireless routers and satillites (IE, various forms of waves) and hertz in order to communicate with each other. Theortically if only one computer on that entire ship was transmitting something (which they would have to in order to shut down global communications), there is more than likely an reciever would which leads to a computer that they can infect. Given the alien races hive mind, I can easily see why they didn't have anti-virus software.

[quote][quote]
If I take the reaper tech, and I'm like "why did they do it this way?" "Why not this way." One can then proceed to branch off from reaper tech and leave it behind, using the reaper tech as an jumping board.That is it. I  used them to get myself started and left them behind. My oldest technology is based upon reaper tech, but any advancement is of my own accord and becuase of that, of my own design. Eventually when you make an machine, and you keep tacking and changing things, it will become ineditabily, completely different from the orginal device.[/quote]You're still developing along lines the Reapers set up, and you're still continuing lines of thought they intended. Reinvent the wheel all you want, it doesn't make it something else.
[/quote]
No It doesn't actually.

Equate reaper tech to Windows and eventually progression is windows 7.

Alternate path is Linux, Completely foreign to some people. Using the same princples but completely different in method of use, creating etc.

[quote]
Reaper development lines were never a check list of 'they will build this, this, and this, and god forbid if they step out of it'. All the civilizations reinvented mass effect technology from scraps of the civilizations before: part of the Reaper mode of operation was to strip technology from their conquests. Every civilization advanced on its own accord, they weren't simply handed the plans for the next generation device. Someone developed the Leviathan of Dis: the Protheans developed the Beacons: Humans developed the Normandy Stealth Drive. Yet Sovereign identified all of them as having developed along the Reaper paths.
[/quote]

While this is true, that is becuase at their core, most used element zero, they had reapers technology in them. On an side-note actually, I don't recall Soverign calling the levithan of Dis an reaper path.

[quote]
Either the Reaper paths do not include variations from local adaptation and development, in which case Sovereign was lying and the only civilization to have developed along the Reaper path is the one that invented it, the Reapers, or the Reaper paths do include variations made within the broad scope of their technological legacy, in which case developing them more remains on that path.

The Reaper path is not a narrow trail. It's an ocean between mountainous
cliffs, and mass effect technology is the boat made available to
everyone to upgrade. Whatever you do with that boat, however you improve
and customize it, it's still a boat they gave to you.
[/quote]

I highly doubt that the reapers cullings were all this easy, they could easily have encountered these technologies and went "Well.... we seen this race do that, do this and of course, I forgot about that" and simply added them to their list of things they have encountered. Not nessary an lie, and not nessary saying everything in the boat was orginally theres.


[quote]
[quote]Otherwise, we would still have computers that take 50ft cubic space.[/quote]There have only been two arguable major transitions within the development of computers: from analogue gears to vacuume tubes/switches, and from those to transisters, and even the third derived nearly all its logic from the first, and just changed the method. Everything else has been continuation of a single line of technology.
[/quote]
See linux/Windows 7 Reference.



[quote][quote]
On the topic of who is to judge -

One must earn such achievements. Despite the fact that the inventors of the atom bomb wanted to dis-invent the atom bomb, we were techonlogically ready for the bomb. We didn't go and nuke all our enemies into submission. We only used them twice on an enemy. We used them to hold enemies back from invading and keep an uneasy truce. But we did not succumb like the krogan to use them easily on each other.[/quote]

We only used them twice on an enemy because twice was all it took to nuke them into submission: we did use them to nuke our enemy into submission. We didn't use them again for fear that they would be used against us, and even then we had a number of cases. Had history gone a bit differently, we would have used them again in Korea, and only separate political concerns held that back.
[/quote]
Quite true. But we didn't use them again which is the point.

[quote]
[quote]we decided to do the push and we surivived and lived on. That is our judgement of if we are worthy. We surivived by not bringing disaster upon ourselves. That is how you judge. It can be done by another speices, or it could be done by simply doing it and seeing what happens.[/quote]If the judgement is only given after success or failure is evident, then you have no grounds to stop anyone from attempting it if they so choose: after all, the judgement will be whether they survive or not. Retroactive approval is never a grounds for a system of development.
[/quote]

[quote]
So stand aside, if you think yourself unworthy. I don't. I'll take it, and I won't kill myself with it.
[/quote]
Well, I wasn't quite worried about you or myself. I was more worried about all the other idiots in the universe who would have access to this tech.

[quote]
Now, if I then turn around to use it on you because you oppose me... well, clearly you weren't worthy then, if you can't survive. And if you weren't worthy enough to survive, you certainly have no basis to let your judgements impede mine, so your objections were wrong.

Ah, social Darwinism. Has it really been so long?
[/quote]
I never said I could not surivive it. I said others could not. Perhaps worthyness is the wrong word, Smart enough.

The Collector base is not just your benefit. It's humanlity benefit.
Most of whom aren't the sharpest tools or the brightest bulbs in the
drawer.

You have an stack of 12 weapons which are cains. You have yourself and 11 others, 6 of whom aren't the brightest bulbs and who could poteinally use it wrongly for their own selfish purposes. Do you honest to god want to give them cains?


[quote]
[quote]Yes you can judge how an technology will improve or wreak your society. It is easy enough. Imangine if we suddenly got the ability to build gianatic spaceships that can go to other planets. You can easily gauge how people would react, who would be afraid of it, who would use it for their purposes, who would do what. Sure it may not be 100% correct, but rarely is any judgement of this kind 100%.[/quote]Plenty of judgements are 100% confident  that they are the best choice to make. In fact, most are. A choice with a known cost does not mean it is not the best one to make, and behavioral theory repeatedly shows people will make the choice they believe is the best.
[/quote]

True enough, but if you have the krogan and nuclear weapons, Obiviously with their agressive tendences they might use them against each other. As Mordin put it "Think of giving cavemen nuclear weapons." They could very well destroy themselves (which they did), they could very well not.

Modifié par Andrew_Waltfeld, 02 mai 2010 - 11:20 .

[Andrew_Waltfeld]

Dean_the_Young wrote...

Andrew_Waltfeld wrote...

InHarmsWay wrote...


So something like, say cars today. Internal combustion cars are hurting the environment. By some of the logic here (for those who support keeping the Collector Base who argue against those who destroyed it), cars should all be destroyed and transportation tech should be reset. Whereas you're saying we brach off the path we are given. So instead of continuing making gasoline cars, we branch off that tech towards say, Hydrogen Fuel cell cars or Electric cars. Not continuing on the path, but not completely demolishing it either. Right?

Percisely. yup. Why Re-invent the wheel. There is no two polar oppsites you HAVE to choose. You can easily use reaper tech as the foundation and just go off on your own from there.

It's like giving someone 3 grand to start an business. The money was invested in the business, techinally it was founded upon your money, but eventually the business may shift from making airplane parts to boat parts. In the end, the founding money that started the business was that 3k. What the business ended up doing was shifting from airplane parts to boat parts eventually, becoming something inherently different from the orginal business.

If you use reaper tech, there's two problems: if you design a boat from airplane technology it's still derived from airplane technology, and it's still violating the principle ofnot using airplane technology at all. Of course you don't believe in that principle in the first place, so it doesn't matter much.

Yes, and If I recall, you did say it was stupid not to use such advacements, I never said I had the qualms with using it unless I needed to. Eventually your now boat business would eventually split from reaper airplane technology by matter of progress.

Another Analogy

If you turn an animal that was an duck, so that now it jumped 15ft, but it is still aquatic flying animal and it now croacks. It is still reaper technology. I now transform said duck so that it can jump, (losing the ability to fly), and now it can dive under the water and catch insects with it's tongue. Also it no longers has any feathers but repltilan skin. This is the end product after an line of 7 different models of this animal.


What orginally was an duck, is now called an frog. Is there now any qualities that distinctly say it's an duck now?

Modifié par Andrew_Waltfeld, 02 mai 2010 - 10:59 .

[Vegielamb]

fongiel24 wrote...

First of all, I'd like to say I completely agree with the OP. There is an inherent contradiction in the methods Shepherd uses to gather resources and weapons to fight the Reapers and his refusal to consider even studying Reaper tech.

Now that you mention that, I suspect Bioware's way of addressing this was that most of our tech was researched rather than purchased. That's a pretty weak way to present the idea, because if party members can come up with ideas that fast, some of them have to have been thought up elsewhere.

Anyway, one could argue that Shepard is a grunt, so we aren't seeing the really cool original tech in this game due to his/her job description. There was a lot of alien tech mentioned throughout the game in news reports, and these were being designed by individual races.