14023 réponses à ce sujet

[VutaatVerd]

Rdubs wrote...

Interesting read, but missing something glaring. Too bad he decided to romance Liara instead of Ash.

http://www.pcgamer.c...-mass-effect-3/

#12 was nice. I mean Look who they paired Ashley with, epic...well that was anyone in ME1, just epic.

[Flamewielder]

Lizardviking wrote...
I'm not just talking about his desire to fight on at Shanxi (that's understandable) but the whole "We should continue the war" as in let's escalating it to all-out war, putting Earth and Mankind at risk. That's suicidal.

Keep in mind he likely didn't have the full picture. The Alliance fleet had just kicked the Turians off Shanxi, and I'd expect that kind of hawkish talk after a victory. After all, the Alliance had no way of knowing how big the Turian Hierarchy forces actually were (being the military muscle of Council Space).

To illustrate: Gen. George S. Patton was chomping at the bit to hit the Soviets after the German surrendered, something the western democracies were obviously too tired for, even though they fully expected the USSR to become the next potential opponent on the world stage. Stalin had already demonstrated a ruthlessness rivaling the just defeated ****s... and there was already a strong anti-communist sentiment among the western allies. But the realists won, eastern europe was handed over to the soviets, becoming the Warsaw Pact, and Patton was named governor of occupied west Germany to discourage Stalin from feeling too greedy.

General Williams' hawkish stance may well have antagonized powerful Alliance politicians, who may then have resorted to painting him out as "the coward who surrendered Shanxi", and mothball him behind a desk (or a cryo tube with a notice saying "Break glass in case of war"...).

[trobbins777]

Lizardviking wrote...

Flamewielder wrote...

.

I'm not just talking about his desire to fight on at Shanxi (that's understandable) but the whole "We should continue the war" as in let's escalating it to all-out war, putting Earth and Mankind at risk. That's suicidal.

Not really, looking back(figuratively speaking) humanity probably could have taken out the turians. Now if we're talking about the entire council yeah we'd be screwed

[LessThanKate]

VutaatVerd wrote...

Rdubs wrote...

Interesting read, but missing something glaring. Too bad he decided to romance Liara instead of Ash.

http://www.pcgamer.c...-mass-effect-3/

#12 was nice. I mean Look who they paired Ashley with, epic...well that was anyone in ME1, just epic.

Huh, I have to give this guy credit. Might be one of the most unbiased articles about Mass Effect I've ever read. I can't say I agree with every point (I have to give the ME2 romances more credit than a reference to Austin Powers...some of them, anyway...And Grunt's not angsty! He just...needed focus for his rage XD), butI liked the candor of the whole piece.

One interesting point was the number of teammates. People tend to think more is better, but there's an upside to a smaller cast. I suppose it's a lot easier to develop relationships with a few people than with a whole bunch. I would sooner take a small amount of characters that have their own motivations and ones I could really invest in emotionally than a larger group of ones that are cool on the surface, but are mostly just along for the ride. Awkward, though...since I've generally come to like all of the ones in ME2--enough to make sure they always live, anyway--and I want Ashley (and Wrex!) to come back, so then it'd get crowded. That's assuming, of course, that Bioware doesn't have other plans for them.

So...I want to believe Bioware knows that they're doing, maybe Ash will have a bigger role but won't come back to the squad. I could accept that, even though I'd rather that not happen. As the article said, some of them felt like employees. Asley felt like a friend, and I miss that.

[StaffSgt. Dignam]

Regarding Ash's role in ME3, I would like her to be in plenty of action scenes, but to also have a strong emotional moment in one of the post-mission conversations. I'm talking like Mickey Rourke's monologue in the Expendables: Something totaly unexpected that was so well done it almost brings you to tears and gives plenty of raw human emotion that personifies the whole story. That's what Ash did in ME1. All of the other characters had been around long enough to make lives for themselves, but Ash voiced a lot of real human emotion and concern that made it easy to relate to making decisions in a strange new universe.

[Mr_Commander_Shepard]

http://social.biowar...16/polls/15433/ we need some votes ashley fans

[Lord Zeuss]

As incredibly disappointed and frustrated I am that Mac Walters has hacked and slashed away at even more of the Mass Effect lore with this latest retcon travesty, Ashley is not her grandfather. This does not affect my feelings about her or her character. No, not in the slightest.

Modifié par Lord Zeuss, 20 février 2011 - 02:36 .

[V-rex]

Mr_Commander_Shepard wrote...

http://social.biowar...16/polls/15433/ we need some votes ashley fans

I voted:



The beauty of that face is pretty hard to deny:wub::wub:

EDIT: Also seriously? A retcon that makes it so that General Williams wanted to continue the war? Come on, like this makes defending Ashley any easier.
Sometimes I wish Bioware would just stop giving the malformed troll beasts of the web more reasons to supposedly justify calling Ashley 'racist'. But still, Ashley is NOT her grandfather and shouldn't be held accountable.

Still history and canonical dialogue in the first game had already established the history of the First Contact War and General Williams, that he finally surrendered Shanxi to the Turians after having a long and desperate struggle, and went down in history as the only human ever to surrender to an alien race and was subsequently blacklisted for it. That he was never given a trial and that the Williams name was in the dirt and it had haunted the Williams family name ever since.

That to me gave Ashley an understandable and sympathetic basis for her trust issues regarding aliens, the idea that they would now reimagine General Williams as the kind of war mongerer who would want to continue conflict out of personal resentment and resigned seemly because he didn't want to be involved with aliens, only serves to put a blight on the character established in Ashley's conversations and worse still, has unpleasant implications for what direction Ashley might be taken in the third game.

If they actually DO make Ashley into a stereotypical xenophobe, then I will have lost massive degrees of respect for Bioware.

Modifié par V-rex, 20 février 2011 - 02:54 .

[Flamewielder]

Lord Zeuss wrote...
As incredibly disappointed and frustrated I am that Mac Walters has hacked and slashed away at even more of the Mass Effect lore with this latest retcon travesty, Ashley is not her grandfather. This does not affect my feelings about her or her character. No, not in the slightest.

No, she isn't. And if she somehow learned of any involvement of her grandfather in the 2 years between ME1 and ME2 while working for Anderson, I do not believe it would have made Cerberus any more sympathetic in her eyes. I rather think it would have made Cerberus even more abhorrent than it already is in her eyes (as if Cerberus' actions in ME1 weren't enough already).

In any case, if making Darth Vader Luke's father one of the high water marks of that Star Wars thingie, why not make General Williams a Cerberus founding father? Great drama possibilities on both Renegade and Paragon sides... anyway, with 2 more comics to go, I'm curious to see where Mac wants to take things.

[Flamewielder]

V-rex wrote...
EDIT: Also seriously? A retcon that makes it so that General Williams wanted to continue the war? Come on, like this makes defending Ashley any easier.
Sometimes I wish Bioware would just stop giving the malformed troll beasts of the web more reasons to supposedly justify calling Ashley 'racist'. But still, Ashley is NOT her grandfather and shouldn't be held accountable.

Still history and canonical dialogue in the first game had already established the history of the First Contact War and General Williams, that he finally surrendered Shanxi to the Turians and went down in history as the only human ever to surrender to an alien race and was subsequently blacklisted for it.

That to me gave Ashley an understandable and sympathetic basis for her trust issues regarding aliens, the idea that they would now reimagine General Williams as the kind of war mongerer who would want to continue conflict out of personal resentment only serves to put a blight on the character established in Ashley's conversations and worse still, has unpleasant implications for what direction Ashley might be taken in the third game.

If they actually DO make Ashley into a stereotypical xenophobe, then I will have lost massive degrees of respect for Bioware.

I can see plenty of reasons why Gen. Williams would have felt like pressing the Alliance's perceived advantage at the time: the Alliance Fleet had just kicked the Turians off Shanxi and sent them packing. It probably looked like a good time to press one side's advantage. Keep in mind Humanity knew nothing of Council Space or the exact size of the Turian Hierarchy's military. Military officers are told to press their advantage whenever they can, as initiative, once lost, may be impossible to regain. Finally, there's a reason wars are prosecuted by more than one general: you need to hear discordant voices to point out flaws in your proposed plans, unanimous agreement is a dangerous sign. All Allied generals agreed it was impossible for mechanized infantry and tanks to advance through the dense Ardennes forest. German generals proved them wrong.

To paraphrase Patton: "No soldier ever won a war by dying for his country. He wins wars by making the OPPONENT die for his country." We shouldn't confuse a "hawkish" military stance with xenophobia. Gen. Williams sounds to me like a good military officer that share's her daughter's distrust of politicians and their motivations.

As for Ashley's story of her grandfather, it's probably still the widely held belief out in the public realm. Backroom politics rarely make it out into the public. Few people know that Gen MacArthur advocated the use of atomic weapons along North Korea's border with China, in order to stop the influx of chinese reinforcements and make victory possible for South Korean and its UN allies. The option was looked at and (wisely, from an environmental standpoint) discarded, MacArthur was replaced as Supreme Commander in South Korea. Does this make Gen. MacArthur less of an outstanding general? No. It was his job, he did it to the best of his ability, provided his frank opinion... that's what good generals are for.

So I'm both curious and confident about Evolution. It paints TIM as an ambiguous character. There's no denying his ruthlessness and renegade moral bent, but is not just a stock villain or a buffoon like Dr Evil. I prefer my villains to be well grounded in reality, not random psychotics. So far, I think it portrays Gen Wiliams as a fine officer, realistic on terms of emotions and reactions. We'll see where the remaining 2 comics take him.

 

[Xilizhra]

That to me gave Ashley an understandable and sympathetic basis for her trust issues regarding aliens, the idea that they would now reimagine General Williams as the kind of war mongerer who would want to continue conflict out of personal resentment and resigned seemly because he didn't want to be involved with aliens, only serves to put a blight on the character established in Ashley's conversations and worse still, has unpleasant implications for what direction Ashley might be taken in the third game.

It depends on whether she knew it. Even if she did, she still might blame the aliens less out of genuine xenophobia (which, let's face it, she has; it's just not enough to make her totally unsympathetic) and more about trying to deny her grandfather's nastiness to herself.

[Lord Zeuss]

@Flamewielder/V-rex: This is why comic books are a bad medium for these sorts of reveals. It would be like if Tolkien wrote The Lord of the Rings on Twitter--you can't communicate subtlety effectively in a comic book. A comic book has to conform to *comic book* standards, which makes them unsuitable for the kind of serious storytelling that Mass Effect was supposed to have been all about.



I've gone on record stating this before, but if a *novel* had been written about the First Contact War and General Williams involvement I would have wholeheartedly supported the idea and might even have read it. Because a novel can, through this brilliant storytelling trick called "narrative" (you may have heard of it, Mac), convey motivation, emotion, and subtlety much, much, MUCH more readily than a comic book can. This continued reliance on comic books to fill in important gaps in the story has cheapened the Mass Effect lore considerably.

[jeweledleah]

/sneaks in

/posts fan art

/sneaks back into lurkmode

[pprrff]

I was just thinking, in a lot of fiction medium and real life, people who grow up in certain environments will always be carrying prejudice of some sort. Ashley grew up under the shadow of the her family's history, and then get stuck garrisoning mostly human planets with no contacts with aliens. That's the backdrop for her character, that's where she is starting from. And I think through character development she moves away from that simple attitude and gained a more nuanced view regarding aliens.



Some of the people who insist on labeling her racist is willfully ignoring most of story where she actually grows out her starting characterization.



So to sum up my rambeling: Ashley starts out as a bit anti-alien, but through working with Shepard and others, sheds her old prejudice. If people would watch the cut scenes instead of skipping them, they will see that her character undergoes major shifts.

[Xilizhra]

"I'm no fan of aliens."

[Lord Zeuss]

pprrff wrote...

*snip*
So to sum up my rambeling: Ashley starts out as a bit anti-alien, but through working with Shepard and others, sheds her old prejudice. If people would watch the cut scenes instead of skipping them, they will see that her character undergoes major shifts.

I agree. There is a coherent arc to her character in ME1, the ultra-paragon version of which culminates in her adopting a more open-door policy on Citadel relations. Nor should be discounted her line on Virmire, "I've gotten used to working with you, *all of you*," a very positive indication that regardless of her views on cooperation with the Citadel governments, she's warmed up to alien *people*.

Much like the Garrus fans do, I feel like ME2 unnecessarily hit the "reset" button on all that character development. It's a shame.

[Batlass8]

Xilizhra wrote...

"I'm no fan of aliens."

I think everyone who posts on this support thread agrees that this particular line of dialogue from Horizon was a step backwards from the character we all came to know in the original Mass Effect game.  Although the sentiment may not be out of character, Ashley goes out of her way to explain that her problem with aliens is directly related to the political and military interaction between different species and the conflict of interests that inevitibly arises.  I'm not going to rehash the Cold War anaolgy again, but I think that's the best way to describe Ash's feelings.

[jeweledleah]

I'm no fan of aliens =/= I hate all aliens and will treat them as inferior beings/will shoot them on sight.

[Xilizhra]

I think everyone who posts on this support thread agrees that this particular line of dialogue from Horizon was a step backwards from the character we all came to know in the original Mass Effect game.

If this is the case, then it's entirely possible that she regressed some in the two years since Shepard's death. Garrus had a similar problem.

I'm no fan of aliens =/= I hate all aliens and will treat them as inferior beings/will shoot them on sight.

Nor did I make any such claims about Ashley.

[jeweledleah]

its a statement, not an accusation.

[StaffSgt. Dignam]

I'm working on a nAsh fanfic now. it's about Shepard being kidnapped by Cerberus and Ashley having to team up with the Elysium police to rescue him. Anderson, Udina, and the Kai Leng character from Retribution all have small parts. I'll post a link when it's finished.

[Rdubs]

I wouldn't spend too much time on anything based on Ash's lines in ME2. Pretty much everything she said was designed as an excuse for her to not join the mission. Having her say "I won't join with Cerberus" doesn't provide as dramatic a contrast as if it were proceeded by "I'm no fan of aliens, but...". It's plausible she regressed but I'm saving my judgment on anything "Ash ME2" related until we see what happens in ME3. Much how ME2 basically hit reset on all progress Ash-related from ME, I bet ME3 will only pay minor acknowledgement of anything that happened in ME2.



Bioware would be foolish to screw over those who remained loyal to Ash of some good Ash/Shep romance. If they did that I imagine the hardcore Shepley fans (like me) would sell back / trade in their ME3 game, which would create a large supply of used games which would cannibalize new game sales. For ME3 to be a success they need to give some nice closure and progress to people who love their ME love interest. If they try to save a few buck of voice actor or development cost, it would be completely "penny wise, dollar foolish."

[Xilizhra]

Actually, hardcore romance fans aren't that common, and hardcore Ashley romance fans even less so; those with a casual attitude towards the story are likely to have flitted onward to a new LI (Miranda being the most popular). The financial hit would be minor, to say the least.

[Lord Zeuss]

LiamN7 wrote...

xxSgt_Reed_24xx wrote...

LOL, I've experienced the "Ashsomeness" first hand... multiple times. XD

so, your fic made me wanna do it again, but... all those side quests... and the bad combat mechanics... ahhh!!!!

Just do it Reed.  ME1 has Ash therefore it is better. Do it. Do it for Ash.  Ash is worth it.   : )

This reminds me I need to finish my ME1 Soldier Ally playthrough. I bring Ash and Kaidan everywhere.

[Xilizhra]

Who comes with you after Virmire?