3478 réponses à ce sujet

[Mr. Gogeta34]

The "soul of humanity" arguement is a moot point. You can say that to the Illusive Man even if you keep the base. And you also warn him that if he does ANYTHING other than use that tech against the Reapers then he's out.

Modifié par Mr. Gogeta34, 14 septembre 2010 - 02:03 .

[lovgreno]

AriesXX7 wrote...
The Reapers were able to control Grayson from dark space because he was injected with Reaper tech.
I would surmise the same could be said of the Collector General, or any Collector for that matter.

You know, that base was also full of active reaper tech. That makes it essentialy a part of the reapers themselves. After seeing what a dead reaper did to the Cerberus redshirts via the inactive derelict reaper I would hate to see what living reapers could do to them via the base. It would be a shame if the base started building a new reaper as the mission in ME2 was to destroy it so it would no longer threaten anyone.
But if you trust TIMmy to manage to controll things for a change it may be worth keeping the base for the Deus Ex Machina to beat the reapers that may or may not be there. But we do know how it usualy ends with reaper tech and Cerberus projects.

[Dean_the_Young]

If the base worked without workers, it wouldn't have needed Collectors to work it. Or the Collector General to push buttons on a console. Or computer consols at all, since they would just be able to link in and need no interface between Reaper and drone.



The base needs no deus ex instant win to be valid because what it already is known to have is capable of tilting the odds in our favor: just the Collector technology alone can strengthene fleets and soldiers several years ahead of our current tech.



A deus ex, by it's definition, is something that comes out of nowhere with no foreshadowing or hitned reason. The base is a strongly present reason. A non-Base means to beat the Reapers (other than pure attritional warfare, which the base's advantage is undeniable) would be a deus ex at this point.

[Casuist]

If the base worked without workers, it wouldn't have needed Collectors to work it. Or the Collector General to push buttons on a console. Or computer consols at all, since they would just be able to link in and need no interface between Reaper and drone.

...which doesn't preclude the base playing some role in assembling new workers. The collector base clearly predates the protheans, and having equipment present to wholly adapt a species for reaper servitude as was done to the protheans seems a likely feature. Equipment facilitating indoctrination/enslavement of organic species is obviously present, and obviously carries a risk.

The base needs no deus ex instant win to be valid because what it already is known to have is capable of tilting the odds in our favor: just the Collector technology alone can strengthene fleets and soldiers several years ahead of our current tech.



A deus ex, by it's definition, is something that comes out of nowhere with no foreshadowing or hitned reason. The base is a strongly present reason. A non-Base means to beat the Reapers (other than pure attritional warfare, which the base's advantage is undeniable) would be a deus ex at this point.

Not particularly... while the Reapers use the mass relays and the citadel to guide technological development, that's only a partial impediment to innovation. They have been attempting to initiate this particular cycle of extinction now for, arguably, over 2000 years (if one believes the Rachni wars were Reaper-instigated), and organic civilization continues to develop well after Sovereign considered it overripe. There is no law that says Reapers are only vulnerable to Reaper tech.



Could investigating the base lead to useful scientific advancement? Yes, but so could (and, evidently, did) examining the remnants.



Coming up with a solution that is wholly dependent on giving the base over to TIM would be "deus ex machina" - in that there is no reason or evidence to believe the base offered that sort of gain. It is/was always going to be a part, at best, of the resolution of the series, and a part that could be considered risky.

[Nightwriter]

didymos1120 wrote...

Why?  Why should they have a huge string of successes? 

They don't need a huge string of successes. They just need not to have a huge string of failures.

[Dean_the_Young]

Casuist wrote...

If the base worked without workers, it wouldn't have needed Collectors to work it. Or the Collector General to push buttons on a console. Or computer consols at all, since they would just be able to link in and need no interface between Reaper and drone.

...which doesn't preclude the base playing some role in assembling new workers. The collector base clearly predates the protheans, and having equipment present to wholly adapt a species for reaper servitude as was done to the protheans seems a likely feature. Equipment facilitating indoctrination/enslavement of organic species is obviously present, and obviously carries a risk.

...how does this relate with what I was saying?

If the base has automated functions, that's one thing, but a remote-control base entirely is different. Even the drones were controlled by proxy server of the CG.

Not particularly... while the Reapers use the mass relays and the citadel to guide technological development, that's only a partial impediment to innovation. They have been attempting to initiate this particular cycle of extinction now for, arguably, over 2000 years (if one believes the Rachni wars were Reaper-instigated), and organic civilization continues to develop well after Sovereign considered it overripe. There is no law that says Reapers are only vulnerable to Reaper tech.

Who's ever claimed that?

Usually it's the other way around, that Reapers are somehow immune to technology they understand.

Could investigating the base lead to useful scientific advancement? Yes, but so could (and, evidently, did) examining the remnants.

Can't recal ever disputing it. The fact that even remnants can provide advancements just proves that the base itself held scientific advances.

Coming up with a solution that is wholly dependent on giving the base over to TIM would be "deus ex machina" - in that there is no reason or evidence to believe the base offered that sort of gain. It is/was always going to be a part, at best, of the resolution of the series, and a part that could be considered risky.

Who has claimed that in the first place? Even TIM acknowledges the base will help win the war, but it won't do it on its own. But it's value is considerable none the less.

[Casuist]

...how does this relate with what I was saying?



If the base has automated functions, that's one thing, but a remote-control base entirely is different. Even the drones were controlled by proxy server of the CG.

If the base can be used to indoctrinate/enslave personnel, then lovgreno's point above which you disputed holds true- there's a risk of reaper influence over anyone inhabiting it and it being put back to its old purpose.

Who's ever claimed that?



Usually it's the other way around, that Reapers are somehow immune to technology they understand.

This comment was meant to address your "A non-Base means to beat the Reapers would be a deus ex at this point." claim. Non-base technological innovation could be but would not necessarily have to be deus ex.

[Killjoy Cutter]

Shandepared wrote...

Casuist wrote...

If the base can be used to indoctrinate/enslave personnel, then lovgreno's point above which you disputed holds true- there's a risk of reaper influence over anyone inhabiting it and it being put back to its old purpose.

There is absolutely no reason to believe there is any threat of indoctrination.

Even if there were, this is something that must be faced up to sooner or later. Eventually we need to confront indoctrination and find a way to counter it or block it. This is our best opportunity so far.

Unless Bioware is going to go full-out psionic powers crap, the readings taken by the team on the derelict Reaper, the Ccollector base, in the abandoned mine, and in other locations should be enough to figure out the mechanism of indoctrination.

[Casuist]

Shandepared wrote...

Casuist wrote...

If the base can be used to indoctrinate/enslave personnel, then lovgreno's point above which you disputed holds true- there's a risk of reaper influence over anyone inhabiting it and it being put back to its old purpose.

There is absolutely no reason to believe there is any threat of indoctrination. 

Even if there were, this is something that must be faced up to sooner or later. Eventually we need to confront indoctrination and find a way to counter it or block it. This is our best opportunity so far.

No reason, except that the collector base is designed to be remote-operated by an enslaved organic race. No reason at all...

There are ample samples for study without the base and even a considerable amount of work that has already been done. Perhaps we'll see Rana make another cameo... even if I wanted to kill her this time around.

[EmperorSahlertz]

nelly21 wrote...

EmperorSahlertz wrote...

The problem with following Reaper tech is that it is exactly what the reapers want us to do. Granted they might not have expected us to reach certain points within this branch of tech, but tehy have already mastered it and surely have a counter for everything we might come up with. It is after all a technology they've had millions of years to master.
Following the Reaper tech is not neccesarily wise. For all we know the Reapers planned on the base eventually being found (why else would they ever bother with defenses?), and we might be walking right into a trap. Finding our own path is better than following a path the reapers will be able to predict with pinpoint accuracy.

The defenses were minor. That is why a team of 13 people were able to kill the Collectors and get to the base in the first place. They never expected anyone to get past the debris field with the Oculus drones, let alone take out the flagship. If the Reapers wanted us to have the base, why wouldn't they just give to us?

Not trying to say they want us to have it. Just saying they've probably already considered the possibility that we might get it, and taken neccesary precautions. They've had hundreds of thousands of years to plan this, and I really doubt they've spent all that time on plan A (Sovereign) and B (Collectors).

[didymos1120]

Nightwriter wrote...

didymos1120 wrote...

Why?  Why should they have a huge string of successes? 

They don't need a huge string of successes. They just need not to have a huge string of failures.

No they don't.  It's unrealistic to not expect that most of their highly-experimental, completely untried research projects won't work.  That aspect of Cerberus is not a problem. It's actually part of why they exist: they can try things that aren't feasible for pretty much every private and public sector research effort.

As I said before, they're knowingly playing a "lottery", and if you know anything about lotteries, you know you almost certainly won't hit the jackpot.  But you might, and the prize here is a scientific or technological breakthrough and those are priceless (and please don't bring up the body count thing: I know.  I'm not excusing that or trying to justify it.  Their methodologies are absolutely brutal and cruel, but that's a separate issue from the simple fact of any given project failing to reach the desired goal).

Besides which: if they fail to fail, how is that not success?  Stuff either works, or it doesn't.  Even if Cerberus followed every ethical guideline for scientific and medical research there is, they'd still fail most of the time because there are far, far more ways for things to go wrong than there are for them to go right even when they don't turn out to just plain be impossible.

Modifié par didymos1120, 14 septembre 2010 - 09:05 .

[Iakus]

didymos1120 wrote...
  Even if Cerberus followed every ethical guideline for scientific and medical research there is, they'd still fail most of the time because there are far, far more ways for things to go wrong than there are for them to go right even when they don't turn out to just plain be impossible.

This is true.  As the Mythbusters say "Failure is always an option"


Only problem is, Cerberus has a tendency to find the most spectacularly destructive, maximum bodycount way to fail.  Then surpass it.

That is the major sticking point to letting Cerberus have the base (one of them, anyway) look a the destruction Cerberus has done with a few rachni or husks.  Now imagine the damage they can do with an entire Reaper Base.

"Well, that didn't work.  Guess we'll have to try something else"=Failure

"Run for your lives!  Save us, Commander Shepard!"=Cerberus Failure

[Nightwriter]

didymos1120 wrote...

Nightwriter wrote...

didymos1120 wrote...

Why?  Why should they have a huge string of successes? 

They don't need a huge string of successes. They just need not to have a huge string of failures.

No they don't.  It's unrealistic to not expect that most of their highly-experimental, completely untried research projects won't work.  That aspect of Cerberus is not a problem. It's actually part of why they exist: they can try things that aren't feasible for pretty much every private and public sector research effort.

As I said before, they're knowingly playing a "lottery", and if you know anything about lotteries, you know you almost certainly won't hit the jackpot.  But you might, and the prize here is a scientific or technological breakthrough and those are priceless (and please don't bring up the body count thing: I know.  I'm not excusing that or trying to justify it.  Their methodologies are absolutely brutal and cruel, but that's a separate issue from the simple fact of any given project failing to reach the desired goal).

Besides which: if they fail to fail, how is that not success?  Stuff either works, or it doesn't.  Even if Cerberus followed every ethical guideline for scientific and medical research there is, they'd still fail most of the time because there are far, far more ways for things to go wrong than there are for them to go right even when they don't turn out to just plain be impossible.

Cerberus is at fault because it is willing to do too many abominable things for too questionable a motive at too small a percentage of success.

[didymos1120]

iakus wrote...
Only problem is, Cerberus has a tendency to find the most spectacularly destructive, maximum bodycount way to fail.  Then surpass it.

Yeah.  That is the problem, which is basically what I've been trying to say.  The people who have this notion that they fail "too much" have unrealistic expectations.  The issue is the way Cerberus does research, not the results of the research.

[didymos1120]

Nightwriter wrote...


Cerberus is at fault because it is willing to do too many abominable things for too questionable a motive at too small a percentage of success.

Which is NOT what I'm addressing at all.  I'm talking about something very specific: the rate of success. That's it.  People think it should be better.  No: it shouldn't.  It really should suck.

[Nightwriter]

I think people say it should be better, but what they really mean is Cerberus should know better than to do some of the unethical things they do, and if they had just refrained from doing so many ridiculously cruel and crazy things, it would not blow up in their faces so often.

[General User]

Shandepared wrote...

Plan A was Sovereign sending a signal to activate the Citadel relay.

Plan B was Sovereign attempting to attack the Citadel and manually activate it.

Plan C was the Collectors building a human Reaper and doing... something.

The Reapers are now on plan D. Personally I think it is unlikely they have the resources in dark space to make any elaborate plans or alterations to themselves. Without completely rebuilding themselves I don't think there is much they can do to counter our capture of the Collector base. The base will give us knowledge of how Reapers are built, how they work, and how their weapons and defensive systems work. This will give us the direction we need to circumvent these technologies.

What can the Reapers do about it? As I said they'd need to completely redesign themselves.

You make a good point. 
 
Mobilizing the entire Reaper "fleet" the way they seem to be doing almost smacks of desperation, a suitably dramatic, all or nothing, roll of the dice. Though I personally doubt they would be that stupid.
 
 Despite living in this "cycle" for millions of years, the Reapers aren’t exactly coming up golden this time around (mainly due to one particularly vexing human). 
 
I am firmly of the opinion that but the Council races (including the Alliance) already have the technology to take on the Reapers in direct combat, 5th Fleet proved that much at the Battle of the Citadel. It is true that the Alliance and the rest of the Council Fleet took heavy casualties; but Sovereign had a geth fleet with him. Massively powerful dreadnaughts are all well and good and certainly have their place, but without a proper screening element (the geth) Reapers become easy prey for smaller craft of missiles, both of which humans are known to favor. Basically it is tactics and strategy that we need to beat the Reapers, not technology, imo.
 
It is for these reasons that I did destroy the base. We don’t need their technology and the propaganda value of having an elite multi-species commando unit take out what is most likely the Reapers most secure facility in the Milky Way, rather than hand it over to Cerberus, will be immeasurable when the time comes to unite the galaxy against the Reapers.

[Midnight_Thirty]

Cra5y Pineapple wrote...

I fail to see the point in doing it. Preserving the base seemed convientient and perhaps increased the chances of getting collector weapons and tech in ME3. I don't get why the majority of the community destroy it. The last person I asked just said it was "to get a more satifying explosion" but it seems like more than that.

Go to youtube, watch the video of Sovereign's Virmire speech, listen to what he says about Reaper technology......that will give you reason enough, or at least reasoning to the decision.

[Nightwriter]

Shandepared wrote...

The ethics don't matter in a fight for survival like this. I'd rather give the base to an unethical Cerberus than have blow up the base, meaning nobody gains anything. We can cry about the ethics later.

Ethics matters only in that Cerberus's questionable motivations and practices means they may do things with the base that pose more danger to the fight against the Reapers than not.

[General User]

Shandepared wrote...

General User wrote...

I am firmly of the opinion that but the Council races (including the Alliance) already have the technology to take on the Reapers in direct combat, 5th Fleet proved that much at the Battle of the Citadel.

I'm gonna have to disagree with you here. If the 5th fleet's battle against the rest of the Reapers goes as well as their fight against Sovereign we are going to wind up running out of fleets far faster than we will Reapers. The thanix might go a ways on its own to even the odds, but that isn't certain. The Collector tech will help, but it alone might not do the job either. I think our greatest advantage isn't tech, it's the fact that the Reapers can't shut down the Relay network this time. In the past they were able to separate all of the colonized clusters and then target them individually. This time they'll have to fight the entire galaxy at once.

Exactly! Any particular tech, or even a combination thereof, won’t win this war, but a united galaxy (made possible by Shepard) with a cohesive strategy (made possible, as you wrote, due to the relay network being intact), and innovative tactics just might.  No one get me wrong, tech will be very important, the thanix especially (which was reverse enginered form a blown-up Reaper, I'm just sayin'), but an innovative mindset and willingness to cooperate with diverse races will be the deciding factor.
 
But go a little easy on ol’ 5th Fleet and what they did at the Battle of the Citadel. The station keeping fleet had been blindsided by a massively powerful and fanatically dedicated enemy of completely unknown capabilities. 5th Fleet did an exceptional job under the circumstances, especially considering that it was a "peacetime" formation. The last major conflict the Alliance fought had been over for 7 years. More to the point, once the Alliance and the other Council races move to a war economy losses can be made up. It will be incumbent on the admirals leading the fleets to adopt strategy and tactics that make this possible.
 
I can’t help but believe that active combat (like the battles against the geth while Shepard was napping) will increase the 5th’s combat effectiveness. Along that same line, the Reapers (who are nothing if not egotistical) are bound to become increasingly desperate and blunt as they move from failure to failure, while even minor successes will make them overconfident.