363 réponses à ce sujet

[CaptainZaysh]

Zulu_DFA wrote...

They had to try the "Palpatine" before anything else. So that Saren would not lose his Spectre status over some ghostly artefact... And how did thay know about the Conduit in the first place?

1).  Sovereign tries to activate the Citadel.  It fails.

2).  Sovereign spends ages in reconnaissance, finally recruiting Saren to help it seize the Citadel from the inside.

3).  Saren builds an army of geth, krogan and rachni to carry out his daring strike at the most heavily defended part of Citadel space.

4).  Some human hicks dig up a functional Prothean beacon on Eden Prime.  Saren takes a risk and carries out a lightning raid to hack the beacon, then use nukes to remove all the evidence.

5).  His plan would have worked perfectly if Shepard had arrived at the spaceport five minutes later.  As it is, Shep defused the nukes, identified Saren, hacked the beacon, recovered Tali's incriminating data, and got him kicked out of the Spectres.

If I were Saren I would really, really hate Shep.

[didymos1120]

DOYOURLABS wrote...

3. Husks don't have giant tubes in there mouths.

Uh, yeah they do.  Pretty large ones anyway:



Besides, a prothean husk would look like a prothean.  The husks we've run into have been human.  Not that I think the prothean statues on Ilos are husks. They're clearly not.

I don't know what the hell's up with that Codex image, though, other than it causing no end of confusion and annoying me as a result.

Modifié par didymos1120, 12 septembre 2010 - 09:28 .

[Zulu_DFA]

CaptainZaysh wrote...

I'm currently replaying Mass 1, and I noticed Garrus make a comment about the relay statue. He said "The keepers never paid much attention to that statue. I always thought that was weird." Maybe the Prothean scientists tinkered with them to avoid or ignore it.

Thank you for bringing this up. I could not recall it accurately, but now it seems to confirm my doubts:

The "12 scientist" supposedly tinkered with the Keepers only after the Reapers did their deed, while the "statue" had been installed before that. So the Keepers had had to take notice of it and... I dunno... alert the Reapers... But if it's actually "busness as usual" there is no reason for the Keepers to pay any special attention to it, if only not to draw some others' unwanted attention...

But to be be fully honest, Garrus says a similar thing about the "Flux" club, but it's subverted by one of the Keepers being there.

[Zan51]

It's quite possible the Keepers weren't programmed to notice something like the conduit relay. I mean, basically they are janitors with an extra program routine, activated once every 50k years, to tell them to open the hidden door for the Reapers.

Since the Reapers are arrogant, or secure in their omnipotence, why would they even think that one day one race would build their own relay ON the Citadel, and pre-program the Keepers to watch out for it in case they did?

[Zulu_DFA]

Shandepared wrote...

Zulu_DFA wrote...

They had to try the "Palpatine" before anything else. So that Saren would not lose his Spectre status over some ghostly artefact... And how did thay know about the Conduit in the first place?

Saren was a step along the way to the "Palpatine". He was a Council Spectre, the best Council Spectre.

And he blew it up with the attack on Eden Prime.

Shandepared wrote...
As for how they knew about the Conduit, who knows? Does it matter?

I think it very much does matter, as Vigil said nobody was supposed to know about it. It's even unclear if the Beacon message had much information about the Conduit and it's purpose, but anyway Saren could not understand it without the Cypher, to which he gained access only after the Eden Prime affair.

Which brings up the question about why Saren needed the Cypher at all, and the two Beacons. And the answer is: it's a blind chance that a Rachni queen survived and was able to pass on the location of the Mu Relay, and the Beacons were the Reapers' contingency measure in case something happened to it. By the time Benezia succeeded, Sovereign might have intended to just fly at FTL to Ilos (from the nearest possible relay), but with the Queen's cooperation and Shepard tailing them, was both able and forced to use the recovered primary access to Ilos - the Mu Relay.

Shandepared wrote...
Sovereign probably suspected the Protheans might have done something so he went and found someone who could use a beacon, through the beacon (perhaps the one on Virmire) he realized what he needed to find.

But again, if there weren't anything special about Ilos aside from it being the "back door", Sovereign had to try the "Front door - Palpatine" approach first. And then, what was the whole point of the "dack door", if the ultimate plan of attack was mainly through the "front door" anyway? Sovereign would've even had better chances if the strike was delivered as a total surprize, and Saren's "ground team" could've been unloaded directly into the Council Chamber! Going to Ilos only unnecessarily complicated the plan of attack and tipped off the enemy!

Shandepared wrote...
In any case, I don't like the idea of some radical twist at this point. The game has been set up. Let's just kill the damned Reapers already. An further twists in the plot are just going to muddle it all up.

Well, I don't pretend that this here theory is definitely it, but brace for a tremendous plot twist in ME3, man! Because we still know very little about how we can kill the damned Reapers... And they must have access to the Milky Way galaxy to be killed, which as of now they don't seem to have!

CaptainZaysh wrote...

Zulu_DFA wrote...

They had to try the "Palpatine" before anything else. So that Saren would not lose his Spectre status over some ghostly artefact... And how did thay know about the Conduit in the first place?

1).  Sovereign tries to activate the Citadel.  It fails.

2).  Sovereign spends ages in reconnaissance, finally recruiting Saren to help it seize the Citadel from the inside.

Or awaiting a "chosen race" to emerge...

CaptainZaysh wrote...
3).  Saren builds an army of geth, krogan and rachni to carry out his daring strike at the most heavily defended part of Citadel space.

While he should have tried the "Palpatine" first.

CaptainZaysh wrote...
4).  Some human hicks dig up a functional Prothean beacon on Eden Prime.  Saren takes a risk and carries out a lightning raid to hack the beacon, then use nukes to remove all the evidence.

5).  His plan would have worked perfectly if Shepard had arrived at the spaceport five minutes later.  As it is, Shep defused the nukes, identified Saren, hacked the beacon, recovered Tali's incriminating data, and got him kicked out of the Spectres.

But his plan did not work. Because an attack on a major colony draws attention. Even if Shepard was killed in the nuke blast, the Alliance analysts would've correctly attributed the fact of the colony falling under attack to the fact that it was the colony where a functional Prothean beacon had been unearthed a couple of days before (As a matter of fact, Shepard was there because the Alliance had anticipated something like that)... And with no time estimate available at that point of reaching the Conduit, there was no guarantee the enemy couldn't figure out the truth in time. Hence, it was more prudent to let the Humans have the beacon, which they would probably just admire for a while, until using it to get a few incomprehensible visions, and finally locking it up in some museum.

Hence the whole Saren's plan was a total f***-up from the start. And most of all it was unnecessary in the first place, unless it was absolutely imperative to go to Ilos. And it wouldn't absolutely imperative, unless simply taking control of the Citadel wasn't enough to complete Sovereign's mission.

Shandepared wrote...
If I were Saren I would really, really hate Shep.

If you were Saren, and the Vigil's story were true, you'd have nobody to blame for your failure but yourself.

Modifié par Zulu_DFA, 12 septembre 2010 - 11:17 .

[CaptainZaysh]

Zulu_DFA wrote...

But his plan did not work. Because an attack on a major colony draws attention. Even if Shepard was killed in the nuke blast, the Alliance analysts would've correctly attributed the fact of the colony falling under attack to the fact that it was the colony where a functional Prothean beacon had been unearthed a couple of days before (As a matter of fact, Shepard was there because the Alliance had anticipated something like that)...

It's easy to point out the plan was a failure after it failed, but you're not appreciating that if the Normandy were "22 minutes out" rather than "17 minutes out" from Eden Prime, it would have worked flawlessly.  (Maybe if the drift weren't "just under 1500k" that would have been the case.  Interesting to think that Joker hitting a target the size of a pinhead might have saved all galactic civilisation.)

The undoing of Saren's plan was a prototype stealth ship carrying elite commandoes and a SPECTRE showing up at exactly the wrong moment and dropping a ground team that punched immediately through the geth lines and defused the ticking nukes - you can't judge him too harshly for not preparing for THAT contingency.

He would have no way of knowing in advance whether it would be more risky hacking the beacon or going ahead with his attack on the Citadel without knowing the contents.  He made a call that was in retrospect incorrect, but that is the nature of war.

Bear in mind also that your Shepard was only truly good enough to stop him if you NEVER saw a "Critical Mission Failure" screen in your first playthrough.  Saren's plan wasn't shambolic, he was just unlucky.

Modifié par CaptainZaysh, 12 septembre 2010 - 11:06 .

[Zulu_DFA]

CaptainZaysh wrote...

Zulu_DFA wrote...

But his plan did not work. Because an attack on a major colony draws attention. Even if Shepard was killed in the nuke blast, the Alliance analysts would've correctly attributed the fact of the colony falling under attack to the fact that it was the colony where a functional Prothean beacon had been unearthed a couple of days before (As a matter of fact, Shepard was there because the Alliance had anticipated something like that)...

It's easy to point out the plan was a failure after it failed, but you're not appreciating that if the Normandy were "22 minutes out" rather than "17 minutes out" from Eden Prime, it would have worked flawlessly.  (Maybe if the drift weren't "just under 1500k" that would have been the case.  Interesting to think that Joker hitting a target the size of a pinhead might have saved all galactic civilisation.)

The undoing of Saren's plan was a prototype stealth ship carrying elite commandoes and a SPECTRE showing up at exactly the wrong moment and dropping a ground team that punched immediately through the geth lines and defused the ticking nukes - you can't judge him too harshly for not preparing for THAT contingency.

He would have no way of knowing in advance whether it would be more risky hacking the beacon or going ahead with his attack on the Citadel without knowing the contents.  He made a call that was in retrospect incorrect, but that is the nature of war.

Bear in mind also that your Shepard was only truly good enough to stop him if you NEVER saw a "Critical Mission Failure" screen in your first playthrough.  Saren's plan wasn't shambolic, he was just unlucky.

Read again what I wrote. I say, the attack on Eden Prime, even if it were just a cover up plan, would still be a strategic mistake. Even if Shepard were killed. Because it drew attention to the whole Beacon issue.

You guys really need to be able to drop this Shepard-centric view of the ME universe once in a while.

[StarcloudSWG]

Keep in mind Sovereign/Nezara was very well aware of the Conduit. The whole beacon thing, and search for the location of the *other end* of the Conduit was key to its plan to take control of the Citadel from the inside.



There's quite a bit of evidence that the Reapers have multiple plans for achieving any objective.



The one surprise is that Sovereign didn't just sail up to the Citadel with Saren 'captaining' it while Saren was still a Spectre.

[Zulu_DFA]

StarcloudSWG wrote...

Keep in mind Sovereign/Nezara was very well aware of the Conduit. The whole beacon thing, and search for the location of the *other end* of the Conduit was key to its plan to take control of the Citadel from the inside.

There's quite a bit of evidence that the Reapers have multiple plans for achieving any objective.

The one surprise is that Sovereign didn't just sail up to the Citadel with Saren 'captaining' it while Saren was still a Spectre.

Yes, and why didn't it? The only answer is: Sovereign lacked something, that was to be acquired only on Ilos at the Conduit site.

[AresXX7]

Even though some have already made numerous answers before me, I'm bored & I'd like to give my take on it.
(tried to account for having any of the same answers to those who posted before me)

Zulu_DFA wrote...

One thing about Vigil is that its story makes no sense.

1. The "12 scientists" went through the Conduit and never returned to Ilos, so where does this anti-Reaper "datafile" you've uploaded to Citadel Control come from?

It was made prior to the 12 scientists entering the Conduit (already answered)

2. Why weren't the omnipotent Reapers able to find Ilos 50K years ago? Especially when a small replica mass relay appeared at the Citadel?

Records of Ilos were destroyed at the beginning of the Reaper invasion, base went silent to avoid any possible detection afterwards, as well. The Conduit operated on it's own signal - wasn't connected to the other relays, therefore it could have been diregarded/overlooked. It was assumed to be a piece of Prothean art.

3. Why do the Prothean statues on Ilos look like husks?

A possible mistake by the devs that was overlooked (?) (at least in regards to the picture you posted)

4. Why Vigil was able to maintain itself for 50K years, then could not maintain itself for a few weeks more?

Drained the stasis pods, entered hybernation mode. Used the last of it's energy to power itself up, relay the message/info stored in it, etc. May have had a shut-off protocal once it served it's purpose. (pretty much already answered) 

5. What was that Saren & Sovereign needed on Ilos? Yeah, I know, the Conduit for the backdoor diversion... But it makes sense only as a second option, only next to Plan A "Go Palpatine and indoctrinate the Council".

Using the logic of "Retribution" (partially)  I would say, unless the subjects are injected with Reaper tech, Sovereign would need to be within a certain distance to assert indoctrination. The process itself is subtle, any changes noticed could cause alarm.

6. Finally, Chorban finds that the Keepers are supposed to receive a certain signal every 50K years. Vigil "guessed" that the signal was supposed to come from Sovereign, and the "12 scientists" had altered the receiving apparatus on the Citadel, so Sovereign must have sent that signal already to no avail... But what if there is something more to it?

The alteration took place after the invasion, I believe Vigil said it. Because it was afterwards, Sovereign wasn't aware of the change until trying to use the signal recently. (why a new plan was formed using Saren)

You're right there could be something more, we haven't seen/heard. I've been curious about it since seeing the SB videos of Keeper 20, myself.

[StarcloudSWG]

All I can think of is that Nezara didn't trust the simple plan of Saren just presenting a "gift" of an "advanced Prothean ship" to the Council, and decided instead to go for the "overwhelming force" option.



Asari Councilor: "We're somewhat disturbed by the vessel you've brought us, Saren."

Saren: "I understand that, Councilor, but this ship, Sovereign, is remarkably powerful, and will bring us a great insight into the Protheans and how they went extinct. I present it to you as a gift."

Asari Councilor: "We trust your judgement, Saren. After all, you are our top agent. Where will it dock?"

Saren: "As a Prothean vessel, and the only one of its kind, it is designed to dock directly with the Citadel tower."



... Of course, that would make the entire game moot.

[CaptainZaysh]

Zulu_DFA wrote...

Read again what I wrote. I say, the attack on Eden Prime, even if it were just a cover up plan, would still be a strategic mistake. Even if Shepard were killed. Because it drew attention to the whole Beacon issue.

You guys really need to be able to drop this Shepard-centric view of the ME universe once in a while.

What you wrote makes no sense.  How would the Alliance analysts have deduced the existence of the Conduit from a smoking pile of radioactive ash that used to be a human colony reportedly containing a Prothean beacon?  They may very well be interested in the big glowing crater and wonder who did it and why, but curiosity alone couldn't lead them to Ilos.

[Zulu_DFA]

Shandepared wrote...

Zulu_DFA wrote...

Read again what I wrote. I say, the attack on Eden Prime, even if it were just a cover up plan, would still be a strategic mistake. Even if Shepard were killed. Because it drew attention to the whole Beacon issue.

What beacon issue? 

The issue that the colony with a Beacon gets nuked.
 
Beacon nuked => Beacons = important, find more Beacons.

Beacon safely recovered, gives some weird hallucinations => probably broken of old age = not important, business as usual.

But that's peripheral. As well as the whole prothean-husk-statue issue.

The core argument is: Sovereign could attack without sending Saren through the "back door", instead of just inserting him directly into the Council Chamber. With more chances of success.

Modifié par Zulu_DFA, 13 septembre 2010 - 02:46 .

[Zulu_DFA]

BTW, when Vigil invites you to chat, it says that you're clearly not indoctrinated, unlike Saren... and near the end of the conversation, if you ask about the Beacons and the message, Vigil says it knew not about the indoctrination and could not think that the message might be read for the Reapers by an indoctrianted organic slave...

Modifié par Zulu_DFA, 13 septembre 2010 - 03:05 .

[Hyper Cutter]

I doubt the Conduit was set up where it is now during the Protheans' time; it WAS a top-secret project, after all. If the Keepers always avoided the thing (as Garrus claims they do), it would simply lay there until someone rediscovered it.

[TimelessOne9009]

1.  It was an override to grant the user complete access to Citadel controls--and thus control the Mass Relay aboard.  It obviously was Reaper-proof if Sovereign's signal did not work, and he had to recruit Saren et al to activate the relay on the Citadel.  Don't you take a flash drive when you have to print a document out somewhere else?

2. The Protheans hid it from records.  The only people that knew about the base were the people who were there.  It was most likely the only settlement on the entire planet.

3. By chance.  Husks are humans.  Besides, our appearance and fashion sense has changed over the course of our existence, what's not to say the Protheans didn't?  If they were such an advanced species, maybe they implanted themselves with tech to make life easier.

4. It was in extreme sleep mode.  He was losing power all those years.  He probably kept only the most important programs running (sensors being important, because that is how most VIs operate anyways.  Without an input functioning, it would be useless.  Plus, that was how he would know if it was over:  Someone coming to Ilos).  Also, his power supply could have been damaged at some point in his hibernation, or, it could have just been the fact that it was old.  I doubt that regardless of how advanced the Protheans were, they wouldn't be able to make a battery that lasts well over 50,000 years, even if it was never used.

5. If Sovereign got close to the Citadel just to indoctrinate the Council, it may have well been an attack, like the Battle itself, there's no way he would have gotten close.  Sovereign needed someone like Saren to be his pawn--to get inside the workings of galactic civilization and intelligence, and who better than a Spectre?  After Sovereign's signal didn't work on the Keepers, he had to find another way in.

6. There is nothing more to it.  While the signal worked against the Protheans, the 12 scientists altered the keepers.  It is not the station itself that receives the signal, it is the keepers.


The Reapers did not notice the Mass Relay in the Presidium because they don't go into the Presidium.  Besides, it was a one-way relay, one could not travel from it.  It was also significantly smaller than the rest of the relays (even the one on Ilos was, as well).  The keepers noticed it, sure, but the Reapers only use for them is maintenance and the signal.  Everyone thought it was a tribute to the relays themselves (or the Protheans tributing themselves--since everyone thought the Protheans built the relays and Citadel), and since that was the only thing on record for it, the Reapers assumed that to be true, since they attack the Citadel first to gain access to the entire galactic community's information.

Modifié par TimelessOne9009, 13 septembre 2010 - 06:25 .

[Prince of Kemet]

With regards to Saren, does anyone recall the turian council member mentioning something about him still have "contacts" on the Citadel? This happened well after his SpecTre status had been revoked. Could the council still have been feeding him intel?

[CaptainZaysh]

Zulu_DFA wrote...

The core argument is: Sovereign could attack without sending Saren through the "back door", instead of just inserting him directly into the Council Chamber. With more chances of success.

Maybe not, though.  Maybe Sovereign risked being blasted to bits while it worked without a fleet to back it up.  Maybe C-Sec could have retaken the Council Chamber without an army of geth to defend Saren.  I think you're taking a lot of things for granted.

[GnusmasTHX]

You say it like the Reapers invaded every single Prothean planet (the race that had a galaxy spanning empire) at the same time. Vigil already told you that the Prothean extinction took a long time. Enough to learn about indoctrination. Also the message in the beacon wasn't meant for us, it was meant for Prothean survivors. It just happens to have survived long enough to reach us.

1. They made it on Ilos beforehand, or they emailed it.
2. The Protheans hid the planet and remained underground. Why would the Reapers go to an inactive planet? They're not omniscient, and obviously overlook things. The Conduit is also only one way, so tracing back to Ilos from the Conduit makes no sense.
3. They don't. There's another image in the Codex of a husked-Prothean.
4. Because it probably took a lot of power to... I don't know, open a miniature Mass Relay. Vigil was obviously strapped for power seeing as how he already explains why he shut off the stasis pods.
5. Because he needed the Conduit. The plan wasn't to indoctrinate the Council, it was for Sovereign to open the Citadel-Relay, which he couldn't because the Protheans tampered with the Keepers.
6. What more? Sovereign sends signal, kills Protheans. Protheans 'block' signal. 50K years later, Sovereign sends signal, can't kill humans, turians, asari etc. Goes to search for alternatives.

Not only that your theories fall apart quite quickly. Vigil would have no reason to lie about the Protheans making the Conduit... Unless he was programmed by Reapers. If he was, Saren wouldn't need to search for Ilos.

Oh yeah, and as for how they knew about the Conduit, probably the same way Liara did. Sovereign probably connected the dots between "Wtf my signal ain't working" and "Super Secret Prothean Conduit, eh?"

You make it sounds like Sovereign or Saren can indoctrinate people just like that. Yet he didn't on the numerous occasions that Shepard and his team were within proximity to both of them, not to mention what we learn of indoctrination in ME2.

Modifié par GnusmasTHX, 13 septembre 2010 - 09:23 .

[Zulu_DFA]

CaptainZaysh wrote...

Zulu_DFA wrote...

The core argument is: Sovereign could attack without sending Saren through the "back door", instead of just inserting him directly into the Council Chamber. With more chances of success.

Maybe not, though.  Maybe Sovereign risked being blasted to bits while it worked without a fleet to back it up.  Maybe C-Sec could have retaken the Council Chamber without an army of geth to defend Saren.  I think you're taking a lot of things for granted.

What tactical advantage did Saren's emergence on the Presidium and battling C-Sec on his way up gave to Sovereign? As opposed to possible direct insertion to the Council Chamber when Sovereign docked, and then holding it? If the only purpose of Saren was to push "confirm connection" button?

Sovereign had to fight through the Citadel fleet on its own (while Saren was exchanging small arms fire with the C-Sec and riding the elevators), and that fleet was bigger because of the Council's precautions taken due to Saren's Activities in the Traverse. The Citadel Arms were closed by the C-Sec per standard defense procedures. Even as the battle raged on, the Geth used their dropships to bring in reinforcements

When your objective is at the top of the building, you arrange a helicopter insertion, and don't go through the sewers.

Saren's going through Conduit had no point whatsoever. Unless there's something Shepard missed.

GnusmasTHX wrote...
Vigil would have no reason to lie about the Protheans making the Conduit... Unless he was programmed by Reapers.

That's exactly what I'm getting at.

GnusmasTHX wrote...
If he was, Saren wouldn't need to search for Ilos.

Yes, he would. Because the Mu Relay was missing. Sovereign had no access to Ilos. And the Mu Relay was missing because the star it had been orbiting went supernova. Unexpectedly. The first surprise for the Reapers in eons and the only reason their perfect plan was breached this time.

Modifié par Zulu_DFA, 13 septembre 2010 - 12:22 .

[Zulu_DFA]

Gibb_Shepard wrote...

what-is-your-point?

My point is:

ME1: Protheans were destroyed by the Reapers.

ME2: Protheans were turned into Collectors and most probably into a few Prothean-Reapers also - "salvation through destruction".

ME3: [speculation] Protheans... gave their consent to the "salvation through destruction". The Reapers don't simply come, reap and return to base. They cultivate the "crops" of organic civilizations, preparing every next cycle through "uplilfting" several non-sapient species, to insure that in 50K years they will be "ripe" - willing to accept the Reaper induced "destiny". (Expect such things as "technology exeeding culture" - Mordin's talk bout the Prothean-Collector trasforamation- to be "explored" deeper in ME3. Also, Humanity as a "chosen race" - chosen by "the devil").

Normally, the organics have no option to decline the Reapers' "offer", but this time, thanks to an extremely rare (or "new") natural phenomenon - stars going super nova all of a sudden - there is a small [but it being just a game, "small" = 99%] chance to put an end to the Reapers' rule.

[CaptainZaysh]

Zulu_DFA wrote...

What tactical advantage did Saren's emergence on the Presidium and battling C-Sec on his way up gave to Sovereign? As opposed to possible direct insertion to the Council Chamber when Sovereign docked, and then holding it? If the only purpose of Saren was to push "confirm connection" button?

Sovereign had to fight through the Citadel fleet on its own (while Saren was exchanging small arms fire with the C-Sec and riding the elevators), and that fleet was bigger because of the Council's precautions taken due to Saren's Activities in the Traverse. The Citadel Arms were closed by the C-Sec per standard defense procedures. Even as the battle raged on, the Geth used their dropships to bring in reinforcements

Actually, I think the Citadel arms were held open by Saren (remember the commander of the Destiny trying to close them?) for long enough for Sovereign to approach, then closed at exactly the right moment in order to protect Sov from the combined fire of the fleet.  Your plan risks the arms being shut before Sovereign can reach the tower to dock, and Sovereign being exposed to mass accelerator fire all the time until Saren seizes control of the console.

It's very easy to pour scorn on a failed plan and suggest an alternative that you think would have worked better.  But you don't know that your way would have worked better for sure.  Saren's plan only failed because it couldn't contain Shepard.