2146 réponses à ce sujet

[Dean_the_Young]

Topic is title. And so that the thread stays 'on topic,' let's expand that to be broad enough to allow room for discussion without being deemed off topic. This argument and its derivatives pop up constantly, and will until after ME3, so we can avoid a lot of forum clutter if we just allow it to happen in a single area.

Legalized crime, in the Ankh Morpork sense of the word.



So, consider:

Did you keep the Collector Base?

If yes, why? What did you think you would gain? What reservations did you have about doing so, if any? What do you feel about the universal companion unease about the decision, even those who supported keeping it? How did Cerberus's past factor into your decision?

If not, why? If it's about TIM in particular, what's your basis? Because of Cerberus? How did Cerberus's past factor into your decision? Would you have given it to someone else? Do you really think the base is dangerous, and on what grounds?


You know, the usual stuff.


Edit: Oh year. No baseless personal attacks are to be thrown around.

Edit 2: The Great Original Topic, which has all the arguments ever made.

Modifié par Dean_the_Young, 26 septembre 2010 - 07:01 .

[smudboy]

(puts on horns)

I dislike TIM. TIM lied to me. This is why I destroyed the base. Also, I wanted the opportunity to stick it to the man, and I took the Lost Operative mission opportunity to upload the data to the Alliance, because I dislike TIM.



If TIM gives me a weapon to fight the Reapers in ME3, I will eat it because I do not like TIM! Anything about TIM and the Reapers is bad, so I will attack them as best I could! I made sure Miranda and Jacob got killed in the Suicide Mission. After EDI transfers her program to her non-Cerberus made robot body, I can't wait to hit the self-destruct button in ME3 on the SR3, because Cerberus is bad!

(takes off horns)

[Dionkey]

The reason I did it because TIM would pull some council BS how they locked down your Normandy in ME1 if you try to intervene. Its obvious he would build reapers with a "hybrid" mixture of most likely cloned DNA and synthetic which would never match the reapers full strength and if you didn't agree, there goes your rights.

[chris025657]

You might also want to add a note about avoiding personal attacks. That probably contributed to the closing of the previous thread.

I prefer to keep the base for two reasons; first a significant technological imbalance, and second an asymmetry of risk.

Wars between two societies with a significant technological imbalance don't go well for the side with inferior technology. Anything that lowers that imbalance through studying the base could save lives

Secondly, I see an asymmetry of risk when it comes to keeping the Collector base. The risks of potential failure from keeping the base doesn't come close to known risk of total genocide at the hands of the Reapers.

It's also a bit annoying how half the squad advocates keeping the base during the mission but later all change their positions. I guess it's too much to ask the writers for character consistency within the span of five minutes.

Modifié par chris025657, 26 septembre 2010 - 06:06 .

[NocturnalStillness]

I blew up the base for the following reason;



It's Reaper technology on a large scale you just have to look at the damage a 'dead' reaper can do let alone a completely functional base. I didn't think it would be worth it.



The risk of some sort of indoctrination is too great to warrant keeping the base. All it would take is one person to fall under and everything is undone.



But on the other hand I have also kept the base as a Renegade Shepard as she just cares about getting the job done and using the base to create some sort of anti-reaper weaponn would be the shortest route to the goal of stopping the reapers.

[Dean_the_Young]

chris025657 wrote...

You might also want to add a note about avoiding personal attacks. That probably contributed to the closing of the previous thread.

Good point, just did that.

[Fiery Phoenix]

smudboy wrote...

(puts on horns)
I dislike TIM. TIM lied to me. This is why I destroyed the base. Also, I wanted the opportunity to stick it to the man, and I took the Lost Operative mission opportunity to upload the data to the Alliance, because I dislike TIM.

If TIM gives me a weapon to fight the Reapers in ME3, I will eat it because I do not like TIM! Anything about TIM and the Reapers is bad, so I will attack them as best I could! I made sure Miranda and Jacob got killed in the Suicide Mission. After EDI transfers her program to her non-Cerberus made robot body, I can't wait to hit the self-destruct button in ME3 on the SR3, because Cerberus is bad!
(takes off horns)

:lol:

[Vamp-Willow]

NocturnalStillness wrote...

I blew up the base for the following reason;

It's Reaper technology on a large scale you just have to look at the damage a 'dead' reaper can do let alone a completely functional base. I didn't think it would be worth it.

The risk of some sort of indoctrination is too great to warrant keeping the base. All it would take is one person to fall under and everything is undone.

But on the other hand I have also kept the base as a Renegade Shepard as she just cares about getting the job done and using the base to create some sort of anti-reaper weaponn would be the shortest route to the goal of stopping the reapers.

I did the same thing on both accounts, keeping and/or destroying, for pretty much the same reasons.

[chris025657]

NocturnalStillness wrote...

I blew up the base for the following reason;

It's Reaper technology on a large scale you just have to look at the damage a 'dead' reaper can do let alone a completely functional base. I didn't think it would be worth it.

The risk of some sort of indoctrination is too great to warrant keeping the base. All it would take is one person to fall under and everything is undone.

Cerberus was apparently aware of the indoctrination threat before studying the derelict Reaper. I don't think it was unreasonable to believe that a Reaper killed millions of years ago wouldn't be capable of indoctrination. The remains of Sovereign didn't appear to indoctrinate anyone. However, through that experience Cerberus is now much more aware of the indoctrination threat and I don't imagine it would be difficult to take steps to avoid it.

Modifié par chris025657, 26 septembre 2010 - 06:31 .

[Ieldra]

I keep the base, because...

(1) If you capture a facility of a technologically superior enemy, it might give you insight into that enemy's technology and thinking that may be important to win the war. To destroy it is a strategic mistake of the first order, unless there is immediate danger of that enemy capturing it back.

(2) In the face of the threat of galaxy-wide extinction, the strategic benefits from keeping the base, even if they're not assured, outweigh any moral considerations regarding TIM's use of the base.

(3) To destroy the base because of what happened there is irrational. The decision about what to do with the base should be based on arguments, it is too important to base on emotions or beliefs. Including the one below.

There is also a matter of belief: I mention that here to explain why I am passionate about keeping the base. Were there compelling arguments for destroying it, I would do it, but I would still feel very bad about it because...

I believe understanding is the key to the future. Unless there is a compelling reason to do so, you do not destroy knowledge. Were the Reaper threat not present, denying the base to to TIM might, or might not, be compelling enough to justify destroying it, but with the Reaper threat present, it's definitely not.
As a result of this belief, I am an avowed enemy of the notion that there are "things man was not meant to know". I do not subscribe to the notion that that knowledge can be evil.

Modifié par Ieldra2, 26 septembre 2010 - 06:35 .

[Purge the heathens]

I blew it up because... it's the paragon thing to do! Simple as that. [smilie]../../../images/forum/emoticons/tongue.png[/smilie]

Besides, what NocturnaIStillnes wrote: indoctrination dangers. And Cerberus would probably use the station to create weird monsters or something like that because the Collectors seemed to be pretty heavy on genetic engineering. At least that's the impression I got from them.

Modifié par Purge the heathens, 26 septembre 2010 - 06:39 .

[LorDC]

I'll repeat my last post from previous thread. For 140 pages people who destroyed base basically said the same things:
-1) OOC reasons. "I prefer blue explosions." I dare to say that such things are not what thread was created for.
0) Meta-gaming reasons. "Paragons will be able to defeat Reapers too". Same thing as previous.
1) I hate TIM/Cerberus.(What your personal feeling have to do with decision that potentially decides fate of the galaxy?)
2) TIM/Cerberus is bad.(Worse than Reapers?)
3) TIM/Cerberus will start conquering the galaxy.(With 150 operatives? Not to mention that TIM obviously prefer subtle methods.)
4) TIM/Cerberus will build human Reaper.(For what purpose? and how is he going to abduct those millions of humans?)
5) TIM/Cerberus always fails with its projects.(Shepard himself is living proof that Cerberus is good enough.)
6) Reapers could reclaim CB.(You can always blow it up later if you sww any sign of trouble.)
7) CB is trap!(So what? Fighting Reapers is not a cakewalk).
8) It will indoctrinate us!(It's not like destroying base can solve indoctrination problem as whole.)
9) We will not gain any knowledge from researching base.(Thannix canon proves opposite.)
10) Studying Reaper tech will not give us benefit against them.(Thannix proves opposite again.)
11) Using Reaper tech we follow the path's they desire.(OK. Destroy all ships and weapons in galaxy and go prepare Reaper-meeting party.)

Side note: Dean, perhaps we could expand this list and give a few counter-arguments to each so that people start off with putting some thoughts into their messages and not repeating same things all over again.

Modifié par LorDC, 26 septembre 2010 - 07:12 .

[Pacifien]

Dean_the_Young wrote...
Edit: Oh year. No baseless personal attacks are to be thrown around.

I want to make it clear that the reason the last thread was locked was due to personal attacks. You are to argue the points, not arguing about the person making those points. And I'd avoid drawing conclusions about someone's real life viewpoints based on the arguments they're making about a game as well.

Just so we're clear.

[Dionkey]

Pacifien wrote...

Dean_the_Young wrote...
Edit: Oh year. No baseless personal attacks are to be thrown around.

I want to make it clear that the reason the last thread was locked was due to personal attacks. You are to argue the points, not arguing about the person making those points. And I'd avoid drawing conclusions about someone's real life viewpoints based on the arguments they're making about a game as well.

Just so we're clear.

Pacifen has spoken, start scribing it in stone slaves.

[Cwbushido]

I agree with Ieldra2. I too saved the base and gave it to TIM so the knowledge can be used. At least with TIM, you know it will be used to fight the reapers. Any info on a unknown enemy is useful. The intel in the base could save the lives of millions. I would rather not find out the hard way and watch a planet die because I didn't know they had that kind of power.

Modifié par Cwbushido, 26 septembre 2010 - 07:03 .

[Talogrungi]

I always nuke the base. Cerberus is a complete shambles; tons of its operations seem to go rogue and/or go utterly wrong and I don't want advanced, probably lethal, technology to be left in the hands of complete whackjobs.

They'll probably blow up the galaxy before the Reapers get anywhere close.

Modifié par Talogrungi, 26 septembre 2010 - 07:04 .

[Dionkey]

Cwbushido wrote...

I agree with Ieldra2. I too saved the base and gave it to TIM so the knowledge can be used. At least with TIM, you know it will be used to fight the reapers. Any info on a unknown enemy is useful. The intel in the base could save the lives of millions. I would rather not find out the hard way and watch a planet die because I didn't know they had that kind of power.

But you have to understand, even with Shepard, TIM never comes clean. Even if we stop the reapers he will take the tech from them and absolutely enslave every alien race, or at least put them under dictatorship. He will throw out the alliance  and kick everyone out of the council (If they aren't already human). This will cause alien races to revolt and wars will erupt. Not the best idea.

[AdamNW]

I destroyed the base because there is no controlling Cerberus after the reaper threat.



It's like using the Krogan in the Rachni wars. History bound to repeat itself etc.

[Dean_the_Young]

Dionkey wrote...

Cwbushido wrote...

I agree with Ieldra2. I too saved the base and gave it to TIM so the knowledge can be used. At least with TIM, you know it will be used to fight the reapers. Any info on a unknown enemy is useful. The intel in the base could save the lives of millions. I would rather not find out the hard way and watch a planet die because I didn't know they had that kind of power.

But you have to understand, even with Shepard, TIM never comes clean. Even if we stop the reapers he will take the tech from them and absolutely enslave every alien race, or at least put them under dictatorship. He will throw out the alliance  and kick everyone out of the council (If they aren't already human). This will cause alien races to revolt and wars will erupt. Not the best idea.

Wait, so now TIM's godly competent and limitless? 150 (thousand?) reapers won't be able to take over and kill the galaxy, and yet Cerberus will conquer and occupy it?

'Dominant' does not entail dictatorship, slavery, or genocide. They are not mutually inclusive.

TIM can try whatever he wants... but he's still going to have Cerberus (150+ operatives) to do it with. It really cuts down on his abilities, especially considering how post-Reapers everyone else is going to have their hands on Reaper debris to reverse engineer and study.

Modifié par Dean_the_Young, 26 septembre 2010 - 07:14 .

[LorDC]

Error.

Modifié par LorDC, 26 septembre 2010 - 07:12 .

[wizardryforever]

Ieldra2 wrote...

I believe understanding is the key to the future. Unless there is a compelling reason to do so, you do not destroy knowledge. Were the Reaper threat not present, denying the base to to TIM might, or might not, be compelling enough to justify destroying it, but with the Reaper threat present, it's definitely not.
As a result of this belief, I am an avowed enemy of the notion that there are "things man was not meant to know". I do not subscribe to the notion that that knowledge can be evil.

That's the thing though, all the knowledge of the Collectors has already been extracted by EDI, when she mined their computers.  That's where the info on the datapad at the end of the game comes from.  So keeping technology for knowledge that you already have is rather pointless.  Of course, there's no guarantee that EDI got everything she could from the base, so you could justify it by saying that there could be more there.  EDI is pretty thorough though, so I don't think so.  Really, you're risking a lot by keeping decidedly dangerous technology on the off chance there might be something useful to be learned that you don't already know.  You're right that knowledge itself is not evil, but how that knowledge is obtained or used can be.

This is a rather masterful decision on Bioware's part, because there are just as many pros as there are cons for each side.  I for one chose to destroy the base, mostly because I saw nothing there that could be of use against the Reapers.  Definitely nothing that EDI wouldn't have already extracted, and nothing worth the dangers of keeping the base, much less under Cerberus control.

[AdamNW]

LotSB spoilers







Also, considering the Shadow Broker said he was going to go pick up the base after we blew it up, how do we know Liara wouldn't be willing to do the same for us?

[LorDC]

wizardryforever wrote...
That's the thing though, all the knowledge of the Collectors has already been extracted by EDI, when she mined their computers.  That's where the info on the datapad at the end of the game comes from.  So keeping technology for knowledge that you already have is rather pointless.  Of course, there's no guarantee that EDI got everything she could from the base, so you could justify it by saying that there could be more there.  EDI is pretty thorough though, so I don't think so.  Really, you're risking a lot by keeping decidedly dangerous technology on the off chance there might be something useful to be learned that you don't already know.  You're right that knowledge itself is not evil, but how that knowledge is obtained or used can be.

This is a rather masterful decision on Bioware's part, because there are just as many pros as there are cons for each side.  I for one chose to destroy the base, mostly because I saw nothing there that could be of use against the Reapers.  Definitely nothing that EDI wouldn't have already extracted, and nothing worth the dangers of keeping the base, much less under Cerberus control.

Datapad just shows frontal projection of the Reaper. It's pretty far-fetched to assume that EDI mined all data from CB based only on that. Not to mention that it goes completely against game narrative and makes the whole argument pointless.

[Dionkey]

Dean_the_Young wrote...

Dionkey wrote...

Cwbushido wrote...

I agree with Ieldra2. I too saved the base and gave it to TIM so the knowledge can be used. At least with TIM, you know it will be used to fight the reapers. Any info on a unknown enemy is useful. The intel in the base could save the lives of millions. I would rather not find out the hard way and watch a planet die because I didn't know they had that kind of power.

But you have to understand, even with Shepard, TIM never comes clean. Even if we stop the reapers he will take the tech from them and absolutely enslave every alien race, or at least put them under dictatorship. He will throw out the alliance  and kick everyone out of the council (If they aren't already human). This will cause alien races to revolt and wars will erupt. Not the best idea.

Wait, so now TIM's godly competent and limitless?

'Dominant' does not entail dictatorship, slavery, or genocide. They are not mutually inclusive.

TIM can try whatever he wants... but he's still going to have Cerberus (150+ operatives) to do it with. It really cuts down on his abilities, especially considering how post-Reapers everyone else is going to have their hands on Reaper debris to reverse engineer and study.

No TIM might not be godly but his partners will be. As soon as he has reaper tech he will have people flocking left and right to fund him. All he has to do is get influence. A alliance fleet won't stand up to a reaper fleet and they will drop their guns as soon as he asks. If he has the reapers first he will be calling the shots and can take what ever the hell he wants from the debris. If he is really for humanity he will surely try to get his roots as far as they can get, I dont expect a mass take over but slowly and surely he will. And no one will be able to stop him.

Also I wouldn't expect him to do genocide or slavery, but would he make humans have more rights than aliens? Absolutely. Genocide would happen if they revolted which would surely happen especially with the krogan or turians.

[Dean_the_Young]

wizardryforever wrote...

Ieldra2 wrote...

I believe understanding is the key to the future. Unless there is a compelling reason to do so, you do not destroy knowledge. Were the Reaper threat not present, denying the base to to TIM might, or might not, be compelling enough to justify destroying it, but with the Reaper threat present, it's definitely not.
As a result of this belief, I am an avowed enemy of the notion that there are "things man was not meant to know". I do not subscribe to the notion that that knowledge can be evil.

That's the thing though, all the knowledge of the Collectors has already been extracted by EDI, when she mined their computers.  That's where the info on the datapad at the end of the game comes from.  So keeping technology for knowledge that you already have is rather pointless. 


Of course, there's no guarantee that EDI got everything she could from the base, so you could justify it by saying that there could be more there.  EDI is pretty thorough though, so I don't think so.  Really, you're risking a lot by keeping decidedly dangerous technology on the off chance there might be something useful to be learned that you don't already know.  You're right that knowledge itself is not evil, but how that knowledge is obtained or used can be.

If all the knowledge in the base were already obtained, there would be no point for TIM to keep the base: he could simply rebuild everything in secret, without any confrontation with Shepard. There would be no basis for any delimma, and the choice wouldn't even be an issue because, again, TIM wouldn't lose anything if he had the knowledge (which, as EDI was already giving him info, he would already have).

EDI has gained information, but we have nothing to suggest (and the entire choice to imply against) that she got 'everything', or most of everything, or even a lot of anything. The datapad at the end was... a picture of Harbringer. Nothing more.

And how is there an 'off' chance something usable can come from it? We've spent half the game scrounging Collector, Reaper, and evil merc group technologies. We

This is a rather masterful decision on Bioware's part, because there are just as many pros as there are cons for each side.  I for one chose to destroy the base, mostly because I saw nothing there that could be of use against the Reapers.  Definitely nothing that EDI wouldn't have already extracted, and nothing worth the dangers of keeping the base, much less under Cerberus control.

Reaper shields, material sciencies, AI construct study, weaponry, engines, mass effect core technologies, husk derivatives, genetic engineering, seeker swarm technology, and particle beam advances are nothing of use?