143 réponses à ce sujet

[Itkovian]

The whole idea of Renegade is not to be "evil", but rather to adopt an "the ends justifies the means" type of outlook.

In the OP's case, it makes perfect sense that letting the hostages or refinery workers die in the hopes of neutralizing a greater evil is the renegade choice. You are willing to sacrifice them in order to increase your chances of defeating an enemy who could potentially kill more if he escaped.

The paragon option is to believe that the actuality of saving the lives that are currently in peril is more critical than the potentiality of more lives being in danger in the possibility that you are unable to eliminate that evil due to saving these lives.

In short, the Renegade option is more callous or ruthless in achieving his goals, even when the goals themselves are good.

I personally like these two situations, as it shows that sometimes doing things the Renegade way actually yield rewards (assuming you are willing to pay the price). I play Paragon most of the time, and I find that if the Paragon options always turned out perfect then it would diminish its value (as well as drama).

So in short, these two examples show that sometimes both choices are correct. Sometimes not everything is black and white, and being the Paragon and saving those lives means that sometimes there will be negative consequences.

But to be clear, just because you choose to save the hostages and consequently are unable to apprehend the terrorist does not mean you screwed up. You saved the hostages, that's a success. The fact that Balak escapes means that he can try again, but that does not mean that he will succeed, and there will be other chances to catch him. So saving lives now may still be the best choice. Or it may not. Both options have their pros and cons.

Indeed, fact is that both options have unknowns: You can save the hostages, and Balak may escape. You might even fail to save the hostages anyway, and still manage to catch Balak. Conversely, even the Renegade option is uncertain: Balak might still escape anyway, and the hostages will die for nothing (of course, we know since this is a game he will not escape... but in reality there is always the chance he might win the fight or somehow slip away)..

Point is, those two Paragon decisions make sense, so long as you remember that Renegade does not necessarily mean evil.

Thank you.

Itkovian

[sagefic]

Onyx Jaguar wrote...

Saving the hostages is always the right thing to do in Bring Down the Sky. Only from a metagaming perspective would you kill Balak. You do not know what would become of Balak after that so it would not be safe to assume anything.

Letting Vido get away? This one is better presented and it can be justifiable to go after him thinking that since one hostage got away the others could make it.

This.

ask yourself this: is bringing down the sky a hostage situation OR a terrorist negotiation? if the former, then you save the hostages. if the latter, then you don't.

however: 

1. you went there to investigate a distress call, not on a mission to bring back balak, no matter the cost - because you don't know it's balak yet.
2. you stopped the bad guy's plans
3. you got ID on a *potential* terrorist. this is his first attack, so we are led to believe
4. you have hostages that are going to die.
5. the terrorist did not let any of his demands met. getting away is not a demand, it's a consequence.

you know those people will die. you don't know what balak will do. 

No. Stop. really, you don't. you don't know what will happen next with him. you do know you have civilians trapped in bunkers with bombs.

the answer is not easy, but i think it's clear. the right thing to do is save them, as naiive as it sounds. to let them die to catch a newly-identified bad guy is renegade and calloused to human life. deontology, baby. kant was right on this one.

Modifié par sagequeen, 17 mai 2010 - 06:20 .

[Zulu_DFA]

JKoopman wrote...

Zulu_DFA wrote...

Seriously, of all the soap opera theories about everyone being everyone else's relative/buddy I support only one: Jack is was Rahna... Which means I've got no chance to find it out, because both Jack and Kaidan are dead in my book.

Wasn't Rahna described as being dark-skinned and Turkish? Jack just looks like an ordinary caucasian girl.

Plus her name is Jack. Everyone always called her Jack. Even the scientists at the Pragia facility... when they weren't calling her Subject Zero. Why wouldn't they call her Rahna if that's who she was?

Funny thing, Turkey and the Caucasus are... well, part of the Caucasus is part of Turkey.

Rahna wasn't described as dark skinned. Neither she was described as Turkish. She was described as "from Turkey". Then there is such thing as migration, and Rahna is born almost 150 years in the future.

Also, Jack seems to be an odd name for a girl. It might as well be a nickname as an abbreviation of a longer name... And where did you get that scientists at Teltin called her Jack? Even Aresh calls her Subject Zero!

[Pacifien]

Zulu_DFA wrote...
Also, Jack seems to be an odd name for a girl. It might as well be a nickname as an abbreviation of a longer name... And where did you get that scientists at Teltin called her Jack? Even Aresh calls her Subject Zero!

One of the videos refers to her as Jack, but I tend to think of that as an error.

[enormousmoonboots]

Itkovian wrote...

So in short, these two examples show that sometimes both choices are correct.

There are no wrong choices! Believe in the Shepard that believes in you, kick reason to the curb, and create the galaxy you wish to create!

Thing about the Jack/Rahna theory though is that Jack seems to have spent all her youth in the Teltin facility; I'm not sure exactly what age the BAaT kids were, but Kaidan implies something about horomones that seems to indicate at least the 12-14 age range. That seems like too much time to lose (Cerberus experimented on Gillian from a younger age). Doesn't Zaeed make a comment about picking up some 8-year-old who killed a bunch of people on some planet, and that's implied to be Jack? Doesn't fit.

[JKoopman]

Zulu_DFA wrote...

JKoopman wrote...

Zulu_DFA wrote...

Seriously, of all the soap opera theories about everyone being everyone else's relative/buddy I support only one: Jack is was Rahna... Which means I've got no chance to find it out, because both Jack and Kaidan are dead in my book.

Wasn't Rahna described as being dark-skinned and Turkish? Jack just looks like an ordinary caucasian girl.

Plus her name is Jack. Everyone always called her Jack. Even the scientists at the Pragia facility... when they weren't calling her Subject Zero. Why wouldn't they call her Rahna if that's who she was?

Funny thing, Turkey and the Caucasus are... well, part of the Caucasus is part of Turkey.

Rahna wasn't described as dark skinned. Neither she was described as Turkish. She was described as "from Turkey". Then there is such thing as migration, and Rahna is born almost 150 years in the future.

Also, Jack seems to be an odd name for a girl. It might as well be a nickname as an abbreviation of a longer name... And where did you get that scientists at Teltin called her Jack? Even Aresh calls her Subject Zero!

I'm sorry, but it's quite a reach. The only apparent correlation between Jack and Rahna is that they're both female and they're both biotics. That's an awfully big gap to be jumping.

[Zulu_DFA]

Pacifien wrote...

Zulu_DFA wrote...
Also, Jack seems to be an odd name for a girl. It might as well be a nickname as an abbreviation of a longer name... And where did you get that scientists at Teltin called her Jack? Even Aresh calls her Subject Zero!

One of the videos refers to her as Jack, but I tend to think of that as an error.

You mean a console at the Teltin base? Hmm. Didn't notice that.

Anyway "Jack" is more of the Riddick homage than anything else...

And there are errors in ME2 dialogue. My favorite is: when you access start hooking up into Heretics mainframe, Legion says that you need to protect the romm for some time and if you wish they can activate some auto-turrets dounstairs. In course of which Legion says "I". Then they repeat exactly the same phrase with "we". Like the deves noticed the error, and tried to correct it, unsuccessfully!

Modifié par Zulu_DFA, 17 mai 2010 - 06:57 .

[Pacifien]

enormousmoonboots wrote...
Thing about the Jack/Rahna theory though is that Jack seems to have spent all her youth in the Teltin facility; I'm not sure exactly what age the BAaT kids were, but Kaidan implies something about horomones that seems to indicate at least the 12-14 age range. That seems like too much time to lose (Cerberus experimented on Gillian from a younger age). Doesn't Zaeed make a comment about picking up some 8-year-old who killed a bunch of people on some planet, and that's implied to be Jack? Doesn't fit.

I've seen the theory that Jack is Rahna before, but I never thought the timeline or personality fit. You could argue that the harsh environment of the Teltin facility could turn anyone as gentle as Rahna into a cold-blooded killer. You could argue that Jack's age is purposely vague and that time in cryo makes identifying her exact age even harder. You could argue that Jack's memories of being Rahna were repressed, which is why her first memory is of waking up in her cell at Teltin. But that's a lot of wanking just to make the theory fit.

Plus, I've never been a big fan of tying every person, every conspiracy, every event together like that. Makes the universe seem small.

So better for me to consider Rahna and Jack separate people. The Teltin facility is likely a project done on a separate group of kids, likely younger than the ones that went through BAat. I'm basing this on the fact that the Teltin facility's failure coincided with the opening or planning of the Ascension Project, which was a good ten years after BAat, and Jack mentions being just a kid when she escaped. Assuming everyone at BAat was of contemporary age to Kaidan, the BAat trainees would have been into their twenties when the Ascension Project opened, well past kid age.

I'm not sure I want to connect Zaeed's story of picking up the little girl in the shuttle to Jack's story either. Certainly a better case for it, but for all of Zaeed's mercenariness, I think "using and selling" a little girl the way Jack says she was seems beyond the sort of dirty deeds Zaeed is willing to do. That's just because Zaeed doesn't much care for torture and was appalled at the conditions the kids at Teltin suffered, so I'm guessing he has some ounce of sympathy for kids.

[Zulu_DFA]

JKoopman wrote...

Zulu_DFA wrote...

JKoopman wrote...

Zulu_DFA wrote...

Seriously, of all the soap opera theories about everyone being everyone else's relative/buddy I support only one: Jack is was Rahna... Which means I've got no chance to find it out, because both Jack and Kaidan are dead in my book.

Wasn't Rahna described as being dark-skinned and Turkish? Jack just looks like an ordinary caucasian girl.

Plus her name is Jack. Everyone always called her Jack. Even the scientists at the Pragia facility... when they weren't calling her Subject Zero. Why wouldn't they call her Rahna if that's who she was?

Funny thing, Turkey and the Caucasus are... well, part of the Caucasus is part of Turkey.

Rahna wasn't described as dark skinned. Neither she was described as Turkish. She was described as "from Turkey". Then there is such thing as migration, and Rahna is born almost 150 years in the future.

Also, Jack seems to be an odd name for a girl. It might as well be a nickname as an abbreviation of a longer name... And where did you get that scientists at Teltin called her Jack? Even Aresh calls her Subject Zero!

I'm sorry, but it's quite a reach. The only apparent correlation between Jack and Rahna is that they're both female and they're both biotics. That's an awfully big gap to be jumping.

Yes, but all other "quite a reach" theories are in contradiction with some fact. No fact contradicts this theory though. Also consider: when starting the Teltin experiment for its primary subject Cerberus would want to have a proven highly gifted biotic, who's abilities needed to have been demonstrated before. BAaT was a place where the most gifted biotic kids of the first generation were gathered and received some basic training with records of their performance. It's natural to assume that Jack was there. Maybe even some BAaT personnel was contracted to continue their research at Teltin.
Having established that, the "gap" is not awfully big, but a mere theory of probability. Unfortunately, we don't know how many female trainees were there at BAaT, but Kaidan said it was a "small circle".

Personally, I put the estimate of Jack's chance of being Rahna as high as 10%.

Modifié par Zulu_DFA, 17 mai 2010 - 07:15 .

[Pacifien]

Zulu_DFA wrote...
You mean a console at the Teltin base? Hmm. Didn't notice that.

Anyway "Jack" is more of the Riddick homage than anything else...

I agree about the Riddick homage. It's not like Jack in ME2 is a direct match from Jack in Pitch Black, but there's definitely the similarities with the name, hair, and projected badass attitude.

Zulu_DFA also wrote...
And there are errors in ME2 dialogue. My favorite is: when you access start hooking up into Heretics mainframe, Legion says that you need to protect the romm for some time and if you wish they can activate some auto-turrets dounstairs. In course of which Legion says "I". Then they repeat exactly the same phrase with "we". Like the deves noticed the error, and tried to correct it, unsuccessfully!

Legion gets the biggest error in dialogue for me after he relates to Shepard all the wonderful things Sovereign told him when they spoke on Ilos. I suspect Legion's geography subroutine is damaged.

[Zulu_DFA]

Pacifien wrote...
Legion gets the biggest error in dialogue for me after he relates to Shepard all the wonderful things Sovereign told him when they spoke on Ilos. I suspect Legion's geography subroutine is damaged.

Here is the creepy part. There is something genuinely wrong with Ilos: Vigil tells you that the Reapers got access to all Prothean records when they surprize attacked the Citadel... then it tells you Ilos remained concealed, because the all records of it were destroyed during the initial attack. Then there are statues of huskified protheans all over the place. Then Anderson says Vigil (that somehow managed to remain there for 50000 years) couldn't last a couple of months longer, and shut itself down permanently after the Battle of the Citadel.

VIGIL WAS SOVEREIGN!!!

At least my Shepard has this highmare every night. It always ends in "What the F*CK did I upload to the Citadel Control?!" and then the Reaper invasion commences and my Shepard wakes up screaming.

But it's probably nothing, since he also has many cognition problems: he thinks that his mass accelerator weapons need something called thermal clips, and when he looks at some female team members he can't see powered armor on them, even in UV-irradiated vacuum, although he knows that it's impossible to survive such an exposure... Being back from the dead is not an easy thing.

No wonder Jack has some amnesia after a life so full of pshychological trauma as hers.

Modifié par Zulu_DFA, 17 mai 2010 - 07:39 .

[Pacifien]

I did scratch my head somewhat when Vigil claimed the Reapers were able to access everything about the Protheans after the initial attack on the Citadel except the location of Ilos, which Vigil implies was was still in the records on the Citadel. That would mean the very moment the Reapers attacked, some Prothean went "Oh ****!" and immediately destroyed records on Ilos before doing anything else. I don't buy it. Better to have just said there were no knowledge of the research base on Ilos aside from the Protheans who were already there.

Delusional Shepard makes me think of tale of the Sole Survivor. Or the story I read once about how bat**** crazy everyone else in the Rebellion thought Luke Skywalker was.

[Sildroni]

I've always let them go (Balak and Vido) - simply because my tricked out and stealthy warship is in orbit ready to scoop them up at a moments notice...

[DarthCaine]

AntiChri5 wrote...

Letting Vido get away is alot more acceptable than letting Balak get away.

This. I killed Balak, but let Vido get away

[Spartas Husky]

Pacifien wrote...

I did scratch my head somewhat when Vigil claimed the Reapers were able to access everything about the Protheans after the initial attack on the Citadel except the location of Ilos, which Vigil implies was was still in the records on the Citadel. That would mean the very moment the Reapers attacked, some Prothean went "Oh ****!" and immediately destroyed records on Ilos before doing anything else. I don't buy it. Better to have just said there were no knowledge of the research base on Ilos aside from the Protheans who were already there.
Delusional Shepard makes me think of tale of the Sole Survivor. Or the story I read once about how bat**** crazy everyone else in the Rebellion thought Luke Skywalker was.

Simple, Military protocol.


some things in the military are very redundant, but one thing that is redundant but still efficient, is Security Protocols.

Every military in the world, and across history always has plans to what if, .....god comes back. Even that.

Depending on the severity of the event, certain things happen.


For example.


9/11....a simple yet effective Airplane hijack, does not mean the airforce, marines navy and army, wont stop anything from getting to the joint chiefs of staff bunker in the mountains. Nevertheless, first thing that happen was to evacuate them to that site.


If the Protheans knew they didn't have enemies, then their "never will happen contingency plan" would be an attack on the citadel. ANd since Illos was the site researching and near unlocking the Relay tech. It isn't strange that its location and records to be deleted.

[Zulu_DFA]

Pacifien wrote...

I did scratch my head somewhat when Vigil claimed the Reapers were able to access everything about the Protheans after the initial attack on the Citadel except the location of Ilos, which Vigil implies was was still in the records on the Citadel. That would mean the very moment the Reapers attacked, some Prothean went "Oh ****!" and immediately destroyed records on Ilos before doing anything else. I don't buy it. Better to have just said there were no knowledge of the research base on Ilos aside from the Protheans who were already there.
Delusional Shepard makes me think of tale of the Sole Survivor. Or the story I read once about how bat**** crazy everyone else in the Rebellion thought Luke Skywalker was.

There is another discrepancy, concerning exactly the uploaded package. Vigil says: "take this disk, it contains information that will help you sway the contol of the Citadel form the Reaper." How is this possible if not as a result of studying the post-invasion Citadel? But Vigil says the scietists who teleported through the Conduit could not reach back. It doesn't know what happened to them. Their success in altering the Keepers' response to Reaper signal is presumed due to the fact that Sovereign is not accessing the Citadel directly and flies around building armies and stuff.

There is a hole somewhere here.

[Pacifien]

Zulu_DFA wrote...
There is another discrepancy, concerning exactly the uploaded package. Vigil says: "take this disk, it contains information that will help you sway the contol of the Citadel form the Reaper." How is this possible if not as a result of studying the post-invasion Citadel? But Vigil says the scietists who teleported through the Conduit could not reach back. It doesn't know what happened to them. Their success in altering the Keepers' response to Reaper signal is presumed due to the fact that Sovereign is not accessing the Citadel directly and flies around building armies and stuff.

There is a hole somewhere here.

You're right. I'm going to have to work this into my Citadel=Reaper Prime conspiracy theory.

[Blackbaron15]

I killed Vido in ME2 becuase in all honestly your either saving 3 miners or killing the leader of the Blue suns, a ruthless organization of thugs and mercs. At the end of the day killing the ruthless leader is a bit more "good" in the long term even if it means sacrificing a few lives.

The hostages are a different story though in ME1 I dont know why but I always felt that saving them is the better option even if it means letting him get away. Besides he gonna go into hiding immediatly for a few years but the next time I see that slimy four eyed freak he is gonna sufer!

[Andrew_Waltfeld]

Zulu_DFA wrote...
There is another discrepancy, concerning exactly the uploaded package. Vigil says: "take this disk, it contains information that will help you sway the contol of the Citadel form the Reaper." How is this possible if not as a result of studying the post-invasion Citadel? But Vigil says the scietists who teleported through the Conduit could not reach back. It doesn't know what happened to them. Their success in altering the Keepers' response to Reaper signal is presumed due to the fact that Sovereign is not accessing the Citadel directly and flies around building armies and stuff.

There is a hole somewhere here.

Could simply be an disk that uploads an encrypted file that says "Launch program X".

The Protheans named it this program. Boom, got your bootable disk, Protheans went to do their task.... and we managed to kill soverign because of it.

Programming an disk to do something just requires planning and making
sure all your variables match up. Obiviously the Protheans did lots of
planning before going on their one way trip. The disk could have been as simple like Soverign's signal to the keepers to let the reapers into darkspace. An single command and with that command, everything started moving forward.