29107 réponses à ce sujet

[Sialater]

Collider wrote...

The way the Council in ME1 talks about the Reapers being real but in ME2 they deny it leads me to suspect that they didn't have ME2 really planned out around that time.

Or they've decided Galactic Panic is not the best tactic and started denying Shepard's claims the moment they could.

[goofygoff]

Ragabul the Ontarah wrote...

 Why does everybody assume it is Thane's saliva that Mordin is talking about?

As soon as he said 'oral', my mind went...there. 

But I also think it's his skin, in general, that he's referring to.

Ragabul the Ontarah wrote...

UnDutchable wrote...
I love to hate Councilor Velarn and I hope he comes back for ME3.

Rarely does a character become so hated that he passes hate by and comes back to love again.  Even Jacob hasn't quite managed it.

I think I'm starting to feel that way about Udina.

And, yes, it's an outrage!

Sialater wrote...

Collider wrote...

The way the Council in ME1 talks about the Reapers being real but in ME2 they deny it leads me to suspect that they didn't have ME2 really planned out around that time.

Or they've decided Galactic Panic is not the best tactic and started denying Shepard's claims the moment they could.

I've heard the indoctrination theory and am on the fence about it.

On one hand, it's a little too convenient and predictable.  But on the other, at least it would explain the 180. 

[ciaweth]

I fully expect the Council in ME3 to go, "SURPRISE! We've been preparing for the Reapers all along, but we couldn't tell you because you were working with Cerberus and we didn't want you to somehow divulge it to the Collectors. We're still ingrates, but we've got our duckies in a row, okay?"

[Sialater]

ciaweth wrote...

I fully expect the Council in ME3 to go, "SURPRISE! We've been preparing for the Reapers all along, but we couldn't tell you because you were working with Cerberus and we didn't want you to somehow divulge it to the Collectors. We're still ingrates, but we've got our duckies in a row, okay?"

i will throw my controller at the TV if that's the case.

[ciaweth]

I could be appeased if the turian Councilor uses more air quotes.

[Sialater]

I could be bought with more Garrus dialogue.

[ciaweth]

Sialater wrote...

I could be bought with more Garrus dialogue.

YES.  Okay, this. 

[Sialater]

ciaweth wrote...

Sialater wrote...

I could be bought with more Garrus dialogue.

YES.  Okay, this. 

See?  Can't be too cheap on the standards here.  :innocent:

[BirdieShepard]

Sialater wrote...

I could be bought with more Garrus dialogue.

This ^^

It always seemed like Garrus has WAY to little dialogue since the first thing I'd do between mission is scoot over to the main battery to see if he was finished with those damn callibrations yet. I need MOAR .

[Hazzel42]

So to go back the the allergy thing, wouldn't it make sense that allergy tests would be done for Turians who wanted to join CSec? Or would they be outfitted with their equivalent of an epipen for emergencies?

[ciaweth]

Hazzel42 wrote...

So to go back the the allergy thing, wouldn't it make sense that allergy tests would be done for Turians who wanted to join CSec? Or would they be outfitted with their equivalent of an epipen for emergencies?

Well, let's face it.  By the time Mass Effect takes place, the levo/dextro allergy situation shouldn't be a surprise to anyone of any species, especially not folks who have been to the Citadel or worked with other species before.  If allergy were a problem, then everyone would be tested.

Even in our own time, U.S. military doesn't allow folks with, for example, serious peanut allergies to enlist--I looked it up when I was dumbfounded about Mordin warning Shepard about possible anaphylactic shock.  What would someone who could die from a single turian bite be doing in N7 to begin with?  Alternatively, if they did allow people with serious allergies into elite military teams, wouldn't they have addressed the issue with medical procedures more advanced than a "don't ingest" warning? 

It's not even just a human issue; the asari and salarians, after coming into contact with the turians, would have had to address the same problem in order to live around turians.  Given the close quarters we see dextro and levo types share on the Citadel, on Omega, on Illium, on Noveria...I just don't buy that spacefaring people don't get tested for allergy level as a matter of course, and have simple preventative measures easily available at all times if they're going to mingle.  BioWare had to throw it in as a surprise to Shepard because it was new to us, the players, I guess.

[UnDutchable]

Interspecies (sexual) relations seem to be pretty common, especially with the asari bumping uglies with anything that breathes, so I'm sure there are plenty of levo-dextro allergy meds to go around. And thanks to Mordin we know that there are education pamphlets and videos available.



But on the other hand, at least four turians in ME2 talk about how they're in danger of anaphylactic shock from eating non-levo food. You'd think that by now someone would have invented food that could be eaten by any species. :S

[Pacifien]

Regarding allergies and levo/dextro amino acids, I wrote the following specifically in reference to quarians (hence the references to antibiotics), but it works for Turians as well, I suppose. I wrote about how levo/dextro-oriented proteins would work once as well (that sugar thing is off base), but that's lost to the Garrus threads of old.

-----

I get pretty critical of the quarians when it comes to the issue of antibiotics. "Swimming in antibiotics" is absolutely the wrong way to go unless we're talking life and death situations here.

Antibiotics aren't painkillers. They fight the bacteria infecting the body. They're even the wrong way to go if your real worry is allergic reaction - then you want an antihistimine or steroid, not an antibiotic. What happens if you are constantly fighting the same bacteria over and over again with the same series of drugs? The bacteria become more resistent, the antibiotics become pointless. You'd have to spend a considerable amount of research constantly finding new methods to attack a bacterial infection.

Antibiotics also do crap for viral infections as well. Viruses are not bacteria, though Tali never seems to mention the threat of viruses to the quarian community.

Now allergic reactions are basically an immune system being overly sensitive to outside stimuli. An increase in the white blood cells attacking the foreign body, an inflammation of, well, everything. Antihistimines block the receptors that instigate the allergic reaction. Steroids reduce inflammation. One method of combating allergic reactions is actually immuno-supressants to reduce the body's sensitivity to to outside stimuli.

Some allergic reactions are so severe, the process to reduce the reaction is long, tedious, and fraught with danger. This can be done, but we're talking half a lifetime or longer. One individual basically made himself a walking antivenom farm after spending years slowly upping injections of a potent snake's venom into his bloodstream. We're talking starting out with a solution at 1:1,000,000 and increasing the ratio over a course of years.

For milder allergic reactions, simple daily exposure is enough to reduce the response. A person who is allergic to a cat might find in a month's time that the cat doesn't seem to affect them anymore. I've known a person who had such a response to a cat that his eyes shut and he was near asthmatic. Threw him out of it for near a week, but he's never had such a bad response to that cat since. Some people go the herbal route, using honey from local bee populations because the pollen remnants in the honey are from the local flora that causes the allergies.

Really, the developers simply have the science wrong. They have the science wrong on dextro/levo reactions as well. Close at times, but not close enough.

[Sialater]

Don't get me started on anaphalaxis.

[Hazzel42]

Ragabul the Ontarah wrote...

ciaweth wrote...

And because how else would Mordin remind us not to ingest?

I have to admit I coffee snorted over that comment   Still I thought it was pretty odd that the issue of allergies hadn't been addressed as a matter of course.  The likely hood of coming into contact with any matter from so many races is pretty high, so any individual with allergies, at least serious ones, would be a bad candidate for even living on the Citadel (or other interspecies location).  Otherwise I'd envision everyone running around in suits like the Quarians in common areas and living in isolated tightly controlled single species quarters.

I could see a daily preventative medication or even a serious of shots like vaccinations to acclimatize to the potential allergens.  Or would there have been enough mixing through all the space travel etc that this would be unnecessary.

Obviously I spent too much timing wondering about poor Garrus being allergic to Shepard and vice versa 

[ciaweth]

The quarian immune system nonsense Pacifien described does bug me, but BioWare can wave their magic wands and say "Well, what you're saying about how immune systems and antibiotics work is correct for humans, but quarians are different and so our pseudoscience works for them."  Which is fair enough.

But we know how allergies work for humans.

Ragabul the Ontarah wrote...
Also, can't you also become more allergic to something via longterm exposure to it?  Seems I've heard that somewhere. 

You can suddenly become allergic at any time, pretty much.  It doesn't even take prolonged exposure.  I knew someone who became allergic to bee stings in her 30s, and only found out by having the misfortune of getting stung.  She'd been stung before and had a normal reaction.  This time, not so much.  (She's fine, but had to go to the hospital.)

[Sialater]

Ragabul the Ontarah wrote...

ciaweth wrote...

And because how else would Mordin remind us not to ingest?


@Pacifen

I am totally just parroting what my sister said here as I have absolutely NO knowledge on this subject whatsoever and she's the immunologist/virologist.  But she told me that she thought it would actually be possible for something to have an allergic reaction to a pathogen that wasn't specifically a pathogen that usually made their species sick.  And I also figured on the quarians that they are prone to both infections and allergic reactions.  I think the in-game explanation is weird but the only thing that needed explaining is why non-quarian pathogens would make quarians sick.  I think it was always just understood that with weakened immune systems (or wacked out immune systems or whatever the case is) that they would be less capable of fighting off bacterial infections from wounds and the like.

Also, can't you also become more allergic to something via longterm exposure to it?  Seems I've heard that somewhere. 

And I'm probably setting myself up for a beating on this one because microbiology is one field I know pretty much squat about.

No.  Your body will eventually recognize the protein as a non-threat and stop sounding the alarm. 

However... if you think of allergies as a bucket, look at it this way.  The normal person's bucket is say... a gallon big.  Someone with allergies has a quart-sized bucket.  We'll all react the same way once the allergen has hit the top and overflowed, but the person with the quart sized bucket will be able to have much less of the irritant before reacting.

Continued exposure to the allergen can make your bucket expand.

What you're actually talking about is a sudden physiological change that brings on the allergy, ie, my sulfur allergy.  I don't think I was born with it, because I THINK I've had those antibiotics when I was a kid. But suddenly, in college, I get anaphalaxis from a damned antibiotic.  My younger sister found out at about the same age that she couldn't eat anything with iodine in it (anything from fish to tequila), despite having had shrimp as a child.

Shepard is more than likely immune to turian proteins since I doubt you're going to let anyone in your special forces that can be killed by your enemies' blood.  And Garrus is likely immune, either through genetics or gene therapy, since that would be highly restrictive of C-Sec (a mostly turian force in ME1), to keep them away from the krogan, salarians and asari (and eventually humans) they had to police.

[Hazzel42]

Oh and yes you can develop allergies to things over time. Something about your system becoming increasingly sensitive to the substance.



Anything can trigger an immune response which would explain how foreign pathogens or substances would potentially give you an allergic reaction. Basically your body sees the foreign (or sometimes its own) matter as a threat and sends in the troops (so to speak) to fight the invader. Que histamines and inflammation etc.

[Sialater]

Ragabul the Ontarah wrote...

Sorry, this response is going to be rather vague as it is me regurgitating a lot of really thick, sciencey lingo that my poor sister specifically tried to dumb down for me just now. If it makes no sense I apologize. I asked her to email me an explanation; she offered to lend me a textbook, and I promptly said "nevermind. I don't want to know THAT bad."

I see you guys ninjaed me on the allergy buildup thing. That building immunity to something requires starting with tiny doses of the thing and gradually building it up until your body develops accordingly like snake venom guy. But sudden large repeat exposures to something can exacerbate allergies (aspirin in my sister's case.)

I guess I am benefiting from being a layman here because everything I have specifically investigated or asked my sis about in relation to ME always ended up having enough grains of truth in it to be plausible to me. With quarians, she explained a lot of crap involving different types of antibodies with numerical names that frankly made my brain flatline. I asked for a paraphrase and she basically said that it was possible for something that exhibits extreme allergic reactions like quarians that their overall immune response is basically imbalanced which means that in some cases they can also become more prone to infections and also more prone to having allergic reactions to pathogens. Once the symptoms of those various things were combined, it might become almost impossible to tell if a particular runny nose was from a sinus infection or an allergic reaction. So Tali's explanation of allergic reactions causing all those symptoms directly is wacky, but that since their immune system is messed up it could make them more prone to getting sick and then having an allergic reaction on top of being sick. Or something like that.

And as for turians/humans/whatever with extreme dextro or levo allergies. I imagine those allergies would be based on consumption. My sister says that peanut and bee allergies are not typical allergic responses, that they are unusually severe for some reason. I don't think you would get sick just by standing next to a turian or inhaling around them (as you can with peanuts.) You'd have to specifically ingest their tissue, and how likely is that to happen short of some weird accident? Given the long process needed to build up immunity to such an allergy and rare chance of accidentally consuming turian tissue, I don't think it would be weird for people with such allergies to go untreated. They might just carry an epi pen with them or something.

That's a better explanation:  That's how allergy shots work.

And as far as contact allergies are concerned, someone brought up cat bites.    I'd take it a step further and say that if the allergy is severe enough, getting turian blood/saliva in a cut on your hand would be enough to start the allergic reaction.

[ciaweth]

Sialater wrote...I'd take it a step further and say that if the allergy is severe enough, getting turian blood/saliva in a cut on your hand would be enough to start the allergic reaction.

Yep.  Which is why I expect C-Sec officers are very familiar with the necessary precautions/treatments here.  We've all seen Cops--sometimes perps bite arresting officers.

ETA:  Aw crap, I just admitted to having seen one or more episodes of Cops, didn't I.  In front of everybody, too.  Dammit.

Modifié par ciaweth, 13 août 2010 - 07:48 .

[Hazzel42]

ciaweth wrote...

Sialater wrote...I'd take it a step further and say that if the allergy is severe enough, getting turian blood/saliva in a cut on your hand would be enough to start the allergic reaction.

Yep.  Which is why I expect C-Sec officers are very familiar with the necessary precautions/treatments here.  We've all seen Cops--sometimes perps bite arresting officers.

ETA:  Aw crap, I just admitted to having seen one or more episodes of Cops, didn't I.  In front of everybody, too.  Dammit.

Could be worse - you could be confessing to be an undying Twilight fan 

I'd also expect if the C-Sec officers were breaking up bar fights or even assisting with first aid they'd be exposed to things like blood and other bodily fluids.  Being a cop is a messy business.