15168 réponses à ce sujet

[Ieldra]

Sir Ulrich Von Lichenstien wrote...
The thing is, I love her reaction on the ship, you can see the anguish in her eyes and I think it further proves that the reaction on the base isn't OOC. She has gone from being totally 100% belief in what Cerberus is doing is right, to really knocking the stuffing out of her a bit and beginning to wonder if it really is true that Cerberus is doing the right thing for Humanity.

That she has serious doubts about Cerberus is pretty clear, and I don't have an issue with it. In fact, I like it. I really like that you can make her resign. But that the base goes to TIM shouldn't matter for the decision about keeping or destroying it, the important thing is that it could be an important resource for understanding the Reapers. The OOC part is that a character like Miranda would be very likely to see the admittedly extremely unpleasant necessity of keeping it intact for that purpose. I don't dispute that she would like, prefer to destroy the base on an emotional level. I dispute that she would let her emotions override her reason in a decision that may be decisive for the survival of intelligent life in the galaxy.

Modifié par Ieldra2, 05 octobre 2010 - 10:45 .

[Caihn]

fongiel24 wrote...

Yannkee wrote...

First Miranda is against gratuitous violence (bring miri with you to purgatory she will explicitly say it). Then, even if she doesn't want to admit that it was Cerberus, she doesn't approve the experimentations on Jack. And it's obvious that one of the reason why she approves the destruction of the collector base is that she knows Cerberus would probably perform experimentations on humans.

Miranda working for Cerberus doesn't mean she used the same controversal methods used by some people who work in other cells of the organisation. And if she was in charge of project overlord, she wouldn't let this torture on a human happen.

Miranda's comment on Purgatory is almost impossible to get - on all of my playthroughs the other squadmate always comments. Even if you do get it, all she states is "Interrogation is sometimes necessary, but this is just pointless cruelty". Torture for the purpose of extracting information isn't pointless - the point is to get intelligence you otherwise might not have. It's not always the most reliable means of attaining intelligence, but it remains a viable tool nonetheless. Miranda doesn't even explicitly address torture here. Even if she did, note that she says sometimes necessary, not something to the effect of never justifiable. She objects to the guards beating the prisoner because this is the kind of brute force torture that's rarely effective and in this case is completely unnecessary and possibly counterproductive because the guards aren't working under time constraints. Whatever the guards want to get from the prisoner can probably be attained without the beating.

In all my playthroughs (7) it was always her who commented the scene.

To agree with the necessity of interrogation doesn't mean to agree with the necessity of torture.

Miranda's revulsion at what went on at the Teltin facility can't be used to conclude that Miranda is always opposed to torture. Teltin was a particularly horrific example - the torture of helpless, kidnapped children for no purpose other than to poke their buttons until the researchers got the result they wanted. This isn't comparable to something like torturing an enemy agent for mission critical intelligence. It's not even really comparable to Overlord.

Horrific as Overlord, it was yielding results in an area that could have provided useful technology to combat the geth in the future. Jonathan Archer also wasn't callously torturing children to death and discarding them. What he did to David was unjustifiable, but he did it only as a last resort and under extreme duress due to TIM's deadlines. I agree that if Miranda were in charge, she probably wouldn't resort to Jonathan's methods, but she would continue with less extreme experimentation if she felt the project was viable. 

Overlord is not the only project which could provide important advancements for Cerberus. If the Teltin Cerberus cell didn't go rogue, the project could provide powerful Biotics to Cerberus.
Both projects are comparable, and it's totally absurd to think one person could be against what happened to Teltin children and not to David.

But I don't expect someone who think her reaction about the collector base is ooc, to understand this part of her character.

No, I don't understand your interpretation of her character. Just because you choose to interpret Miranda as someone who refuses to ever cross the line into morally grey areas doesn't make it true.

Because your interpretation is true ?
Now you know how I feel every time I see conversations about this in the thread.
The difference between your interpretation and mine is that I don't have OOC issues.

Think about it. Miranda isn't an idiot. She knows that Cerberus does some horrific things in the name of protecting humanity. She knows that TIM probably knows about it and at least tacitly endorses it. Yet she still thinks "humanity couldn't have a better advocate" than TIM. What are the chances a Miranda who's absolutely opposed to the use of torture would speak so glowingly of someone who is willing to go to any lengths to achieve his aims? What are the chances that your conception of Miranda would willingly work for an organization that so readily crosses ethical and moral lines?

Yes, I consider her reaction to the Collector Base to be OOC, but then Miranda is a morally nuanced character. She may be reacting emotionally to the extreme horror of what the Collectors were doing with their human victims. Just because she objects to keeping such an abomination doesn't automatically mean she objects to everything else Cerberus does.

TIM is a manipulator, he manipulates Miranda like he manipulates Shepard. He tells people what they want to know.
Look at Miranda comments when she try to defend Cerberus actions : it's a typical Cerberus propaganda. Miranda is only aware of what other cells did because of TIM's informations.
I don't have problem to consider Miranda being part of Cerberus with my interpretation of the character.
And there is absolutely nothing in the game that prove Miranda involvement in any kind of controversial Cerberus actions.

Of course Miranda is not an idiot, but there is a difference between knowing partial informations about something and facing the truth like she did during Overlord, Jack's loyalty mission, or the suicide mission.


But as long as you consider Miranda as a full renegade and pragmatic person, we'll never agree on this subject.

Modifié par Yannkee, 05 octobre 2010 - 11:27 .

[Jebel Krong]

she's not a full renegade but her main asset is her intelligence, and whilst TIM is a master manipulator, it's silly to think he'd recruit her and then she wouldn't find out about some of the more... debatable actions Cerberus perpetrates, after all that very thing is what makes her so desirable to the organisation.

[Aedan1992]

Yannkee@ Which squadmate did you also bring beside miranda? Because i always bring her and garrus, but it is always garrus who comment on it. You know what i find really cruel and funny. After you squad has said that he/she hate the torture Shepard can against the guard "Whatever he did he probably deserves worse"

[Sir Ulrich Von Lichenstien]

Ieldra2 wrote...

Sir Ulrich Von Lichenstien wrote...
The thing is, I love her reaction on the ship, you can see the anguish in her eyes and I think it further proves that the reaction on the base isn't OOC. She has gone from being totally 100% belief in what Cerberus is doing is right, to really knocking the stuffing out of her a bit and beginning to wonder if it really is true that Cerberus is doing the right thing for Humanity.

That she has serious doubts about Cerberus is pretty clear, and I don't have an issue with it. In fact, I like it. I really like that you can make her resign. But that the base goes to TIM shouldn't matter for the decision about keeping or destroying it, the important thing is that it could be an important resource for understanding the Reapers. The OOC part is that a character like Miranda would be very likely to see the admittedly extremely unpleasant necessity of keeping it intact for that purpose. I don't dispute that she would like, prefer to destroy the base on an emotional level. I dispute that she would let her emotions override her reason in a decision that may be decisive for the survival of intelligent life in the galaxy.

If you've still got everyone in your squad alive up till that point, I agree a little that it does seem OOC for her to let her emotions override the decision. But if you haven't, then to me it makes sense, particularly due to how she reacts in the cut-scene pre-final stage because if you've lost people (in particular the escort) you can tell she is getting emotional, you can hear it in her voice. Remember, up until TIM appears the main objective was to destroy the base, now all a sudden TIM is telling them to keep it? Don't forget, she already knows what happened the last time Cerberus tried to 'study' Reaper Tech. So I still think it isn't that OOC for her to let her emotions override the decision if you've already lost lives in getting to the point of doing what you set out to do. If TIM had said from the start "Let's try to keep it if we can, but destroy it if need be." then yeah it would definitly be OOC for her to let her emotions go, but he didn't. Once again he pulled the wool over our eyes and suddenly pops up to change the plan just as we are about to complete the goal. You could look at it as him not believing that the team would have got that far.

[fongiel24]

Well TIM didn't know exactly what was on the other side of the Omega 4 relay either. He only suggested using the pulse after getting a chance to check out the Collector Base's schematics and determining that his alternative option was viable.

[jtav]

Just this once, I'm going to have to agree with Yankee. I think her empathy would override her pragmatism just this once. It really depends on which Miranda we're dealing with: the one who was disgusted by Teltin and could only deal with it by saying they'd gone rogue or the one who was willing to let the team die. She isn't always written consistently. David's situation hits close to home, so I'm clinging to the interpretation that wouldn't cause me to edit my savegames to kill her, which is what I would do if she had suggested leaving David with Archer. It's the one decision I could never forgive. Perhaps I should be grateful she has no lines.

[Aedan1992]

I think TIM never have wanted to destroy they base. He just say it from the beginning because he knew only could reach it with his skill. I bet don't even cared if the hole team had died including shepard and miranda after the radation bomb was set. He only wanted the base.

[Caihn]

Aedan1992 wrote...

Yannkee@ Which squadmate did you also bring beside miranda? Because i always bring her and garrus, but it is always garrus who comment on it. You know what i find really cruel and funny. After you squad has said that he/she hate the torture Shepard can against the guard "Whatever he did he probably deserves worse"

I think i tried every squadmate possible except grunt. But it must depends of the position of the squadmate, like every random dialogues.

[Aedan1992]

Yannkee wrote...

Aedan1992 wrote...

Yannkee@ Which squadmate did you also bring beside miranda? Because i always bring her and garrus, but it is always garrus who comment on it. You know what i find really cruel and funny. After you squad has said that he/she hate the torture Shepard can against the guard "Whatever he did he probably deserves worse"

I think i tried every squadmate possible except grunt. But it must depends of the position of the squadmate, like every random dialogues.

Oke thanks i will try it next time when i'm there.

[Ieldra]

Sir Ulrich Von Lichenstien wrote...

Ieldra2 wrote...

Sir Ulrich Von Lichenstien wrote...
The thing is, I love her reaction on the ship, you can see the anguish in her eyes and I think it further proves that the reaction on the base isn't OOC. She has gone from being totally 100% belief in what Cerberus is doing is right, to really knocking the stuffing out of her a bit and beginning to wonder if it really is true that Cerberus is doing the right thing for Humanity.

That she has serious doubts about Cerberus is pretty clear, and I don't have an issue with it. In fact, I like it. I really like that you can make her resign. But that the base goes to TIM shouldn't matter for the decision about keeping or destroying it, the important thing is that it could be an important resource for understanding the Reapers. The OOC part is that a character like Miranda would be very likely to see the admittedly extremely unpleasant necessity of keeping it intact for that purpose. I don't dispute that she would like, prefer to destroy the base on an emotional level. I dispute that she would let her emotions override her reason in a decision that may be decisive for the survival of intelligent life in the galaxy.

If you've still got everyone in your squad alive up till that point, I agree a little that it does seem OOC for her to let her emotions override the decision. But if you haven't, then to me it makes sense, particularly due to how she reacts in the cut-scene pre-final stage because if you've lost people (in particular the escort) you can tell she is getting emotional, you can hear it in her voice. Remember, up until TIM appears the main objective was to destroy the base, now all a sudden TIM is telling them to keep it?

Actually, no, it's not at all clear that the objective is to destroy the base. The objective is to prevent the Collectors from abducting more humans. You can expect that to mean killing all the Collectors, but not more. In fact, I was very surprised when Shepard started to prepare the destruction mechanism. I expected to be able to keep the base for further study as soon as I noticed that the "Collector homeworld" was nothing but a giant space station. That I was restricted to giving it to TIM came as a nasty surprise.

Don't forget, she already knows what happened the last time Cerberus tried to 'study' Reaper Tech. So I still think it isn't that OOC for her to let her emotions override the decision if you've already lost lives in getting to the point of doing what you set out to do. If TIM had said from the start "Let's try to keep it if we can, but destroy it if need be." then yeah it would definitly be OOC for her to let her emotions go, but he didn't. Once again he pulled the wool over our eyes and suddenly pops up to change the plan just as we are about to complete the goal. You could look at it as him not believing that the team would have got that far.

That's not correct. Nowhere does TIM say that destroying the Collector base was the objective. That's just something you assume, and Miranda shouldn't be surprised by TIM's recommendation. In fact, I was very, very surprised when Miranda didn't recommend keeping the base herself. When Miranda actually recommended to destroy it, there was this moment of "What? In which universe have I landed now? It can't be the same one I've been in for the last 40 game hours." The next thing I thought was: it's unbelievable, but is she working for the Reapers?

Modifié par Ieldra2, 05 octobre 2010 - 12:07 .

[Ieldra]

jtav wrote...
Just this once, I'm going to have to agree with Yankee. I think her empathy would override her pragmatism just this once. It really depends on which Miranda we're dealing with: the one who was disgusted by Teltin and could only deal with it by saying they'd gone rogue or the one who was willing to let the team die. She isn't always written consistently. David's situation hits close to home, so I'm clinging to the interpretation that wouldn't cause me to edit my savegames to kill her, which is what I would do if she had suggested leaving David with Archer. It's the one decision I could never forgive. Perhaps I should be grateful she has no lines.

I think it's a possible interpretation that she would let her empathy make the decision to take David away in Overlord, especially if you have done Legion's loyalty mission, but not to destroy the Collector base. The stakes are too high there. She would start to think through the possible consequences, and once she started that, her pragmatism would win.

[jtav]

Oh, I have no problem with keeping the base. My only objection is meta-reasoning. ME is the type of story where this never turns out well and my only way of cutting ties with Cerberus. If they wanted to make it as morally repulsive as they seem to think it is, they shouldn't have had the exact same scenario with the genophage cure. Overlord, and only Overlord, is too much for me.

[Aedan1992]

I always destroy the base because it gives a nice in boom in the end with the normandy almost caught into. And because i don't sacrifice the soul of our species.

[Ieldra]

jtav wrote...
Oh, I have no problem with keeping the base. My only objection is meta-reasoning. ME is the type of story where this never turns out well and my only way of cutting ties with Cerberus.

Yes, I can understand that. I wish there had been one more option about who to give the base. The salarian STG would have been a good alternative since it isn't exactly squeaky clean itself, but at least it doesn't do the kind of brute-force research we have come to expect from Cerberus, and we could expect it to be more careful with its research. Then the alternatives would have been "give it to a human like TIM, at least it's your own species" and "give it to the STG, they make better use of it, even though they're aliens". And I would've been able to cut ties with Cerberus and make Miranda resign without making my Shepard appear stupid.  

If they wanted to make it as morally repulsive as they seem to think it is, they shouldn't have had the exact same scenario with the genophage cure.

That's an interesting decision. I wonder how it will turn out. Perhaps we will see a Renegade decision pay off for once. That all Paragon decisions have good consequences and all Renegade decisions result in more problems than they solve is rather silly and makes the whole world less believable.

[Ieldra]

Aedan1992 wrote...
I always destroy the base because it gives a nice in boom in the end with the normandy almost caught into.

LOL. That's a funny way to put it, but I can't discount it.

And because i don't sacrifice the soul of our species.

That, however, is much less convincing - even should you be able to define what "the soul of our species" is. It's based on the misperception that by keeping the base, you implicitly endorse what's happened there, implicitly endorse Cerberus policy, or want to make a Reaper yourself. In fact, you do nothing of the sort unless you want to interpret it that way. 

[Ieldra]

Too much text on this page....





I didn't quite get the wink...

[Caihn]

Jebel Krong wrote...

she's not a full renegade but her main asset is her intelligence, and whilst TIM is a master manipulator, it's silly to think he'd recruit her and then she wouldn't find out about some of the more... debatable actions Cerberus perpetrates, after all that very thing is what makes her so desirable to the organisation.

I'm not saying she never discovered something herself.
But look at shepard/tim conversation after the collector ship mission, it's the perfect example of his manipulator talents.
TIM knows exactly what to say to Miranda if she has trust issues or if she discovered something she shouldn't. But I'm sure Miranda is one of the most difficult cerberus agent TIM had to manipulate, because of her intelligence.

[Aedan1992]

Ieldra2 wrote...

And because i don't sacrifice the soul of our species.

That, however, is much less convincing - even should you be able to define what "the soul of our species" is. It's based on the misperception that by keeping the base, you implicitly endorse what's happened there, implicitly endorse Cerberus policy, or want to make a Reaper yourself. In fact, you do nothing of the sort unless you want to interpret it that way. 

I did not really meant anything by it but i just love that line when shepard says it. 

[Aedan1992]

Ieldra2 wrote...

Too much text on this page....


I didn't quite get the wink...

I always melt at that smile:wub: Do you think she meant it when she gave that smile or was it just another way to get shepard in the engine room as quikely as possible?

Modifié par Aedan1992, 05 octobre 2010 - 01:33 .

[Ieldra]

Here's another piece of Miranda fan art. Yannkee posted it on the French forums some time ago, but I don't recall it appearing here.





Artist page: http://connormaxon.deviantart.com/

[jtav]

Very nice.



I've been browsing Fanfiction.net, and I'm starting to wonder if I'm the only person who likes Tali and Miranda. I've read more than one Shepard/Tali story where Miranda is a cartoon villain, and I've read Shepard/Miranda stories where Tali was stupidly and pointlessly killed off because the author hated her, and both characters come in for considerable abuse on the other's thread.

[Ieldra]

jtav wrote...
I've been browsing Fanfiction.net, and I'm starting to wonder if I'm the only person who likes Tali and Miranda. I've read more than one Shepard/Tali story where Miranda is a cartoon villain, and I've read Shepard/Miranda stories where Tali was stupidly and pointlessly killed off because the author hated her, and both characters come in for considerable abuse on the other's thread.

Within their respective romances, Miranda and Tali are polar opposites so I'm not surprised that there is only a small intersection between their fans. Personally, I've always found her intriguing and wanted a closer relationship (not a romance) since I first met her in ME1. I like her sense of loyalty and community, and since ME2 also her determination. She's really grown as a character. Only in her romance all that flies out of the window in a teenager's crush. I like her as a character, but I dislike her romance and have found a significant part of her fanbase immature twits. Too bad you can't really discount in-romance behaviour for your impression of a character's personality, but I still appreciate her. Miranda is worlds away though, Tali could never be competition for her.

Modifié par Ieldra2, 05 octobre 2010 - 02:05 .

[Brijenieve]

 Goood morning, all.... just a little shameless advertising. There's an update at the Writer's Block, and a new Joker-related poll. Also, my site is seriously lacking Miranda fics - so if any of you have something that you'd like me to host (basically restriction free), PM me. Otherwise, enjoy the fics that are there, and vote on the poll!

[Elyvern]

Ieldra2 wrote...

Not really his intentions, if you ask me, but how he treated her. If you want to build some kind of genetic aristocracy, sure you need to control where your offspring will mate, but I'd say otherwise nothing prevents you from being a loving parent. Real world examples also show it's possible to love your children *and* to encourage them to push themselves to their limits. I think the deciding factor was her father's overly controlling and paranoid ways. He was the first to treat her as nothing more than a tool, and she's not gotten away from that emotionally yet. The problem here is that being treated as a tool compounds any problems she might have had with her origins as an engineered human in particular, so they've merged into one in her mind, and it's become impossible to resolve the latter without resolving the former. 

The more we talk about this, the more I have this nagging suspicion that a genetic dynasty solely in the form of extremely intelligent, physically superior and longer-lived descendents doesn't seem to justify Miranda's father's efforts, time and money or the lengths he goes to safeguard his "assets".  Especially when we have established that so far as we can see, the modifications to his daughter's genetic templates are well within legal limits and that there are likely more examples of people similarly genetically modified in human populations. To put it in another way, it wouldn't be unique or specific enough to be termed a dynasty or valued as one.

It makes me wonder if there is a timeline-contingent "bomb" in Miranda's genetic code, so to speak, some unknown biological capability that he'd expect her or (more likely) her offspring to manifest which will justify the efforts he put into her and her sisters. While we cannot discount that her father may have sociopathic tendencies that makes him so emotionally distant from his children, but if he isn't a simple mental deviant, then it would support the idea that there is more to his daughters than what meets the eye, and may explain his cold behaviour because he views them as experiments and assets with immense potential that will manifest in time. Who can say that he kept strictly within the legal alliance limits either? A man of his wealth and influence could very well hide certain aspects of his genetic tampering from public eye as long as his daughters don't exhibit overtly abnormal abilities, or the true nature of his meddling only becomes apparent in later generations.

Which then makes me wonder if Miranda herself ever suspected something like that, and how detailed is her knowledge about her genetic components. Has she ever attempt to sequence her own genes? I'd think that the inconclusive data regarding her infertility seems to suggest she didn't, and/or the scientific advances in the ME universe is still insufficiently advanced to read genetic codes to such a detail (although I think this is such bull****).

My pet theory still remains that he's trying to create genetic biotics, even though Ieldra has kindly disproved that with too much rationalisation and we don't have proof that Oriana is a biotic. (Damn it, Ieldra!  BTW, I still want to say I think my theory holds water in that ME science has again and again prove that it's not as failproof as many of our imagined rationalisations)

What do the rest of you think? 

Modifié par Elyvern, 05 octobre 2010 - 04:16 .