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[FROST4584]

I always saved the city.

[Falcon509]

JaegerBane wrote...

Falcon, let me be clear here - I'm not saying that the points you've put forward are wrong.

I'm pointing out that you don't seem to comprehend the cost of what you're saying. I'm sure that there are plenty of ways ensuring the future of the colony could contribute to humanity's survival. The problem is, they are all indirect, and every reason there is has to be worth the lives of thousands.

Thus, there is significant pressure on the decision to let the missiles fall on the city. It isn't good enough to speculate in vacuum about what uses the colony will have, conveniently avoiding the issue of the deaths of thousands. Whatever you do with the colony *has* to have a very specific benefit for the decision to be a repectable one. Setting up the vague banner of 'it all comes down to strategy' is essentially gambling the lives of city on an off-chance - which, in the real world, is a symptom of ineptitude when the benefit requires a paragraph of speculation just to explain.

First, let me point out that strategy is a plan for action used to work towards a specific goal and is often elaborate in nature. The idea is to plan ahead to prepare for an enemy's actions; to roughly predict what they will try to do and counter or exploit it. With that in mind, I will continue.

You are right that deciding to let people die is a steep cost and it isn't one that I would take lightly as I believe that every life is valuable. Granted, that may be confusing given my choice to allow innocents to die. However, doing so is a sound military decision. I have the distinct feeling that Bioware wouldn't have even presented a choice if it was one between being a knight in shining armor or being a ****** and offing 1,000 people.

In modern warfare, airbases and seaports have incredible strategic value and it would seem that spaceports would hold similar relative value both economically and militarily. A port of any kind provides a means to expedite shipping and receiving goods and travelers. Not to mention that while it may simply say "spaceport" it definitely describes "infrastructure" which often means power and water utilities, transportation networks, and manufacturing sites as well. There is a significant investment involved in establishing colonies (which is explained through multiple codex entries). Perhaps I will go into that further if you wish.

Please take time to understand that I am not claiming that saving the city is the wrong choice. It just isn't the choice I'd make in that situation. It makes little sense in the grand scheme of things to save 1,000 people and their belongings compared to the immense cost of a spaceport, infrastructure, vehicles, and supplies. Consider the investment in the colony... If it dies, that's it. No sane investor would throw more money at a development effort after such a loss just so a handful of people could live in a town on a distant world. If the colony as a whole fails, it was all for naught. All that capital is gone, wasted... Any bases in the area would lose their value overnight. The world would be ripe for the picking by any squatters that chose to take over. Any comms networks (which are extremely expensive in the ME universe) would then be useless.

Again as well, it isn't just the Reapers that are enemies of the Alliance. Other races could take advantage of the significant loss. This is all speculation anyway.
 

Falcon, I don't think you're actually comprehending what the Reaper War will actually be like if fought conventionally. If it helps, just look at the cutscenes in ME1. This is not going to be a Napoleonic battle of attrition where two sides jockey for position with supply lines and logistics winning the day.

Fighting using queensbury rules against the Reapers will result in a brutal, one-sided massacre on the side of the galactic races. Food and supplies only actually matter when your forces can actually fight on the level of the enemy. If the war against the Reapers is to be won, it's not going to be determined by who has the most guns and bullets - and hence, talking about supply lines and toilet rolls just illustrates how little you understand what this enemy actually represents.

And by extension, shows that you aren't truly understanding the sacrifice you're calling for on Franklin.

You are right that a war with a hyper-advanced machine race would not play out like a battle with Napolean in the 18th and 19th centuries. Reapers would not suffer the with the same problems that we do. They don't eat, sleep, get tired, etc... We do. However, just because they don't have the same logistical problems that organics do, it doesn't mean that we are granted immunity from it. In a war with Reapers, humans would still need to eat and sleep and defecate. My point remains valid. In the event however that you find yourself in a battle against some AI, feel free to try to win without the basic needs of sustenance and hygeine to prove me wrong.



I appreciate you trying to provide a different point of view. Take into consideration that I'm not trying to create a right and wrong way of looking at it. Certainly there is reasoning behind saving those lives but it isn't a sound military decision to do so. Does that make saving the colonists wrong? No. Does it make saving the spaceport wrong? No. Neither choice is "right" as no matter what is done, someone is getting royally screwed in the end. I won't be so naive as to assume that I can sway you to thinking that it might be smart to preserve the colony for the future as you seem quite hellbent on saying that there is in fact a right decision. I won't try to convince you that I'm not a mentally handicapped human being with an inability to understand what I'm talking about. At best I'm just hoping that you will at least take what I say into consideration.

[Kronner]

Another thing to consider:
You do not negotiate with terrorists (batarians), if they see you backed down, they will do sh+t like that again, you can bet. My Shep is Paragon, but I never give terrorists what they want (BDtS in ME is another example - I kill all the fookers, despite the fact that all hostages die)

Modifié par Kronner, 06 août 2010 - 07:22 .