2146 réponses à ce sujet

[Alessar]

I would assume galactic unity being compromised follows along the lines of when you tell tim how friends are beneficial to which he replies "It's hard to take that method when the whole universe looks at you as a threat."



Yet I assume leaders wouldn't act irrationally when the enemy is right on your foot steps and you have the possibility to up your chances against them.

[Zulu_DFA]

Dean_the_Young wrote...
Strange, how in decades of existing Cerberus has only had one galactic-risk incident... which could have been solved by anyone, including themselves, with orbital bombardment.

Which made it kinda a plot hole all that blah-blah about "galactic risk". There is something to Cerberus' conducting their "evil experiments" in non-populated areas... Secrecy?

Modifié par Zulu_DFA, 11 octobre 2010 - 04:39 .

[Dean_the_Young]

Zulu_DFA wrote...

Dean_the_Young wrote...
Strange, how in decades of existing Cerberus has only had one galactic-risk incident... which could have been solved by anyone, including themselves, with orbital bombardment.

Which made it kinda a plot hole all that blah-blah about "galactic risk". There is something to Cerberus' conducting their "evil experiments" in non-populated areas... Secrecy?

...that's not a plot hole, because it's still a risk. It's a risk with a solution, but tha solution was heavy handed enough (and game-driven) to be avoided.

[Dean_the_Young]

I think it's more of a case of the Heretic virus: once you touch the system, you're infected. The only way to avoid that is to know of the threat prior to system contact... and no one knew about Overlord's issue, so no one would have known to avoid it.

[Barquiel]

Dean_the_Young wrote...

Why is galactic unity destroyed because a shadowy extremist group has the base? Under what form of mass stupidity do the Asari refuse to work with the Turians refuse to work with the Alliance refuse to work with the Salarians because none of them have the base?

Explain this. Reasonably. Where in the game is it even implied?

I think there is plenty of potential for tensions and conflicts if an avowed enemy of the council...a group that wants to secure human dominance...gets advanced technology to increase its influence
It would be different if everyone treats the reaper seriously, but that's not the case...and a war between council races is the last thing we need. For example, I doubt the events in ME:Retribution were helpful for the diplomatic relations between humans and turians.

Modifié par Barquiel, 11 octobre 2010 - 05:16 .

[smudboy]

Finnish Dragon wrote...

The Collector Base may have useful technologies in a struggle against the Reapers.

If we know it builds Reapers, then we know it will have useful technologies against the Reapers.

However, it may be a great Trojan Horse. The problem is that we don´t which is it. We don´t know enough about the base´s history and how the Collectors got that base. In the end, if we decide to take that base we would be acting being blind and deaf in darkness hoping to find something useful and hoping to avoid beasts. 

Because we don't know, we study it to know.

The fact is that TIM deliberately lied on Shepard regarding the Collector Ship and regarding Liara. He told that the Collector Ship was crippled by Turians and Turians sent a distress signal which Cerberus intercepted. He knew that the Collectors sent that message in order to lure Shepard to a trap. TIM told Liara worked for the Shadow Broker while he knew that Liara was instrumental delivering Shepard´s body to Cerberus and he knew that Liara was after Shadow Broker. Sorry, but TIM cannot be trusted. He can say whatever he want but once you lost someone´s trust then regaining it will be very hard thing to achieve.

I don't like being lied to either, but it paid off.

As far as I understood ME2 Liara, she was retconned, so there are diverging opinions on what's right and wrong about her.

No, TIM doesn´t deserve the base. The track record of Cerberus research is awful and it would be probable that either Cerberus would fail that as well with drastic consequences or TIM would gain something that would benefit him and Cerberus but not the rest of the Galaxy. Organisations like Cerberus aren´t well known for sharing their information with other parties. They will most likely keep some of the information they achieve and only give the results of their research on need-to-know basis.

Why doesn't TIM deserve the base?  Fighting the Reapers is priority #1.  It doesn't matter who deserves the base, so long as it's studied: I don't know of any other group that takes such measures aside from Cerberus.

Other races like Asaris, Turians and Salarians will probably be much more useful when fighting against the Reapers than TIM and Cerberus. Asaris and Turians had experience fighting with the Sovereign and if Shepard chose to save the Destiny Ascension then he/she saved Asaris with that knowledge and experience and possibly many Turians as well. I would expect that both Asari and Turian navies will study the information they got from that battle.

Yes, I'm sure entire armies are more effective at fighting a war.  This is about research, which Cerberus is very good at, sans the ethical leeways.

I think that information from actual combat situation is much more important than any information what the Collector Base can offer if saved.

Knowing how to even attack your enemy -- granting an advantage --  is more important than any combat situational information (an argument after the fact.)  Because that battle could be the last one.

The fact is that intelligent military leaders want to learn not only from mistakes which they made but also mistakes that leaders from other nations made. I assume that Asari, Turian and human military leaders are doing this which means that they do have pretty much information regarding how individual reaper perform in a combat situation.

Ah?  They don't even believe in Reapers.

I think the most important issue regarding saving the Destiny Ascension is that a large part of that combat experience is saved as well and that is much more important than the life of the Citadel Council in a long run.

What combat experience?  It can get destroyed if Shepard doesn't choose to save it.  What possible data was acquired?

So now we're comparing the holes made in the Destiny Ascension as more relevant information than a base that makes our enemy.  Seriously.

[Flamewielder]

Dean_the_Young wrote...
What other Collector cruiser?

Conversations between Shepard and EDI where Shepard expresses surprise at the news that this vessel is the same vessel that's been "dogging me for 2 years" clearly suggest Shepard believes there may be other collector vessels. If he cannot dismiss the possibility the base might be essential in defeating the Reaper, he cannot dismiss this possibility that Collector re-inforcements might show up post detonation and reclaim the base.

The Collectors primary form of defense was not being reachable. Once that defense was surpassed, aka once the Reaper IFF was recovered and replicated, it became a matter of when, not if, the Collector Base would fall.

Precisely. And as Harbinger knows we've somehow aquired the key to get in, what's keeping it from changing the lock on us? It's not like we can go to our local locksmith and ask it to make another one... But Harbinger, on the other hand IS the locksmith. HE can change the lock on us.

If base is essential:

Base is blown up = fail                       -1
Base is kept but recaptured = fail    -1
Base is kept = lets assume we win+1


If the base is NOT critical

Base is blown up = we may win     +0.5
Base is kept but recaptured = fail   -1
Base is kept = we may win              +0.5

It comes down to how likelier is it that the Collectors can retake the base vs wether the base is critical or not...

...or perhaps "It wonders wether the formerly deceased Spectre feels fortunate"?

[General User]

Ieldra2 wrote...

General User wrote...
Do you feel that stopping the Collectors is an intelligence goal? I could see that if goal was to capture the CB from the beginning. But the option to capture the base is something that comes up literally at the last minute.

Yes, it is an intelligence goal. At the start we're talking about finding the "Collector homeworld". You can't expect the SR2 to fight a whole world of aliens, and we don't even know at the start if one world is the only one they have, so the primary objective was to find a way to stop them from abducting more human colonies, with implementation of that goal depending on feasibility. You couldn't reasonably have expected to be able to kill them all, or to kill most of them. Theoretically, it could have even had a diplomatic solution. 

I call stopping the Collectors a “military goal/objective” largely due to its scope. As you say, it could have had a diplomatic (or even "other") solution. 

Shepard’s primary objective was never either “finding the ’Collector homeworld’” nor was it “to find a way to stop them from abducting more human colonies”. Yes Shepard has to find those things (among others), but she also has to do them (the latter anyway). Those are both secondary goals, challenges to be overcome on the way to a larger objective, in this case, stopping the abduction of human colonies by the Collectors using any means necessary. 
 
Freedom’s Progress the only pure intelligence/recon mission in the game (with no objective beyond finding out “what the hell’s going on out there”), everything else was to gather intel to support the military objective, stopping the Collectors. 
 
With the possible exception of Horizon (which had both intel and military objectives), every mission in the game is geared toward building for the assault on the Ω4 relay. That was the mission! Everything else (loyalty missions incl.) was preparation. Whatever come next will be part of a larger campaign against the Collectors masters, of which the CB was only the opening act.
 No one could have predicted how truly vulnerable the Collectors were once the Ω4 relay had been breached. The opportunity to salvage an intelligence windfall (an intact CB) was something that came up only at the last minute and does not change the nature or objectives of the mission going in (or, for paragons, going out ).

[Flamewielder]

Shandepared wrote...
Remember that at this point Shepard and TIM are both assuming that the Collectors are originating from a planet somewhere.

And can we safely assume that we got ALL of them and that there are no others floating around in space on other missions of collection? Just as we cannot assume the base is non-critical, it would be imprudent to assume the Collectors have ALL been destroyed.

The fact that he has nobody to control on the base. Harbringer was using the base with his Collector minions, controlling them directly when necessary. Now they are all dead so Harbringer can do nothing.

Again, that's a mighty big assumption with trillions of lives in the balance. If the Collectors DO have ships left somewhere, they'll be coming back. Better hope the swiftly dwindling number of Cerberus operatives (what's left now, 150?) is going to be enough to stop the next Collector boarding action (they did so well repelling them on the Normandy...).

[Dean_the_Young]

Flamewielder wrote...

Dean_the_Young wrote...
What other Collector cruiser?

Conversations between Shepard and EDI where Shepard expresses surprise at the news that this vessel is the same vessel that's been "dogging me for 2 years" clearly suggest Shepard believes there may be other collector vessels. If he cannot dismiss the possibility the base might be essential in defeating the Reaper, he cannot dismiss this possibility that Collector re-inforcements might show up post detonation and reclaim the base.

The same period that had Shepard admitting he was wrong? Besides the freedom of creative interpretation (the 'it can't be a coincidence' relating to that yes, one ship has been hounding him), yes, he can.

EDI goes into the Collector Ship's data banks, which we know had valid information. She goes through the Collector Base's data, including schematics of the base which would indicate logistic facilities such as ports and supplies.

Precisely. And as Harbinger knows we've somehow aquired the key to get in, what's keeping it from changing the lock on us? It's not like we can go to our local locksmith and ask it to make another one... But Harbinger, on the other hand IS the locksmith. HE can change the lock on us.

...just like he did once he knew that Shepard had the IFF in the first place?

There's no indication the Reapers can do that at this point: EDI has had multiple occasions to find out, the Mass Relay network is repeatedly described as being controlled from the Citadel (the place the Reapers need to get to in the first place), and, again, the fact that Harbinger doesn't do that the minute the Reaper IFF is installed on the Normandy.

Of course, it's all semantics because we have every opportunity to learn of any other Collector presence on multiple occasions in ME2, do not, and every post-game material acknowledges the Collectors as being stopped after the Suicide Mission, which all fits into every indication in-game that, yes, there is only one Collector Cruiser.

If base is essential:

Base is blown up = fail                       -1
Base is kept but recaptured = fail    -1
Base is kept = lets assume we win+1


If the base is NOT critical

Base is blown up = we may win     +0.5
Base is kept but recaptured = fail   -1
Base is kept = we may win              +0.5

It comes down to how likelier is it that the Collectors can retake the base vs wether the base is critical or not...

...or perhaps "It wonders wether the formerly deceased Spectre feels fortunate"?

You can make any argument if you make up the numbers to suit you. For example, a full 1 fail if the base is recaptured regardless of whether or not it is critical, even though by the point the Reapers can get the humans to make a Reaper, they've effectively won the war against Humanity already.

[Dean_the_Young]

Flamewielder wrote...

Shandepared wrote...
Remember that at this point Shepard and TIM are both assuming that the Collectors are originating from a planet somewhere.

And can we safely assume that we got ALL of them and that there are no others floating around in space on other missions of collection? Just as we cannot assume the base is non-critical, it would be imprudent to assume the Collectors have ALL been destroyed.

Yes.

EDI and TIM are in a position to know, being in the Collector Systems.

 

Again, that's a mighty big assumption with trillions of lives in the balance. If the Collectors DO have ships left somewhere, they'll be coming back. Better hope the swiftly dwindling number of Cerberus operatives (what's left now, 150?) is going to be enough to stop the next Collector boarding action (they did so well repelling them on the Normandy...).

There are no more Collectors.

[Zulu_DFA]

Dean_the_Young wrote...

There are no more Collectors.

Ooops!..

Wrong, Dean. I'm sure there are. If only to drop in a couple of missions with them as boggies in ME3...

Nowever, there are no more Collector Bases, and that's what is of critical importance.

[Phaedon]

Ieldra2 wrote...

Phaedon has asked me to present my view on how the base could be useful. Here is it:

The base contains the knowledge to build a new Reaper.
Perhaps those here who destroy the base haven't tried to envision what that really means: Reapers are constructs, so any facility made to build one must have something like a set of blueprints or instruction manuals on the process of building one. That's practically everything there is to know physically about them, excepting only such things like emergent abilities, intelligence and motives. We can reasonably expect to gain knowledge of
(1) Materials and methods used for the shielding we've seen at work at the battle of the Citadel
(2) How the Reapers can make long-distance runs though space without benefit of mass relays. Strategic value: if the Reapers shut down the relays (they're theirs after all), we'll still be able to operate.
(3) Materials and methods used for indoctration we have no defense against so far. Get Rana Thanoptis on this and hopefully we'll soon have a defense.
(4) The weapons that could slice an Alliance ship in half in a second (possibly the Turians have made inroads here, but Shepard doesn't know how much, so this point still counts)
(5) If the Reapers have any hidden weakness, analysing the way they're built will also reveal them.
The base should also have samples of the materials used, which may be unknown so far to galactic civilization. So it's not just a matter of downloading all the data and blow it up, even if you assume you can download everything from one place.

Since Shepard doesn't know he's in a game where perfect solutions always work, he must assume that galactic civilization needs that knowledge, since it's pretty much a given that we won't win against the Reapers without a technological upgrade. True, we don't know if there will time to absorb all that knowledge, but again, dare we assume we'll win without any of it just because we don't trust TIM?

Blueprints ? May I remind you that even the Collector General is a tool ? The Collectors are the Reapers' little toys/tools. They don't have any blueprints. Well, Cerberus could still get info from the base, since they can investigate the structure of the Reapers or the genetic material of the Collectors, or whatever, 

Ieldra2 wrote...

Phaedon wrote...

Ieldra2 wrote...

Phaedon wrote...

Uh, why are we still discussing if Cerberus is evil or not ? We have been wasted 10 pages on this matter. They are evil. That's it. What we should debate about is if we can trust them with the base.

Of course we can't trust them not to misuse the base.

But: It doesn't matter!!! Because whatever it is they'll do with it, it is the lesser evil you risk. When you stand at the base and must decide, there are basically four scenarios you need to consider. In two of them we've made the correct decision. They are:
(1a) We don't need the base to win against the Reapers and we destroyed it.
(1b) We need the base to win against the Reapers and we kept it. 

What's interesting is the ways we can make a wrong decision:
(2a) We need the base to win against the Reapers and we destroyed it.
(2b) We don't need the base to win against the Reapers and we kept it.

As anyone can infer, (2a) results in galactic extinction. The results of (2b) are unknown, but unless "Cerberus plus the base" results in a "Reapers win" scenario where "Cerberus without the base" wouldn't have, (2b) is the lesser evil by such a big margin that there really should be no question about what to do. 

Thus, for the pragmatic reasoning for destroying the base, you have to argue that "Cerberus plus the base" will make the Reapers win, where "Cerberus without the base" wouldn't. To see how plausible that is, consider the logically equivalent statement "The Reapers need what Cerberus does with the base to win." 

In the end, you have to weigh the probability of the scenario
(3a) We need the understanding gained by the base to win against the Reapers.
against
(3b) The Reapers need what Cerberus does with the base to win against galactic civilization.

Considering that the Reapers are already technologically superior, I think (3b) is far less plausible. And that's not even considering that keeping the base is a reversible choice - Shepard can keep a close eye on what happens on the base and reconsider the decision to keep it if Cerberus f***s up again. Destroying the base is irreversible. 

Thus, if you trust TIM not to misuse the base or f*** things up completely or not is completely irrevelant unless you ascribe a significant probability to scenario (3b) *AND* assume the base can't destroyed fast enough at a later time. If you do - and I think especially in combination it's extremely unlikely - then the decision is a guessing game and arguing about it won't matter. In any other case, whatever TIM does with the base is the lesser evil, and keeping the base is the only strategically viable decision.

So, are you suggesting that destroying the base will by default make us lose in ME3 ? Even if we are talking about an IC approach, that is highly unlikely. I still haven't heard of any specific ways the CB can be vital for ME3. 

You don't understand the difference between a risk and a certainty, it seems. So let's put numbers in - completely arbitrary ones, it's just a test.

Let's assume there is a 90% chance we don't need the base to win, and a 10% chance that we do. If you destroy the base, you're betting on the 90%. That's a good bet, but can you really risk the 10% considering that the consequences are galaxy-wide extinction? Set the balance to 99:1. Keeping the base, you now have a 99% chance of some unspecified Cerberus atrocity - destroying the base, you have 1% chance of galaxy-wide extinction? Will you now risk the latter? 

We can't deal in certainties here, only in chances. How much chance of galaxy-wide extinction are you willing to risk to avoid those unspecified Cerberus atrocities? I say none at all, unless the consequences on the other side are comparable in magnitude. As Commander Shepard, we don't know any of those numbers, but it really doesn't matter that we don't because the consequences are so weighted toward one side. Again, unless you ascribe a significant chance to scenario (3b) above.

As far how exactly the base might help, I'll get back to that in a few hours.

Edit:
I should add that realizing this risk calculation took me about half a second when I faced that decision first, so don't tell me Shepard doesn't have the time. It just takes a bit longer to decipher and present my own thought processes to others. I even considered - and dismissed - the possibility TIM might be working for the Reapers. 

OK, let's see. You suggest that there is a small chance that the base will help, and you say that this can be done by the following ways:
1) Material for shielding - Which btw, was not used on the Reaper or the base.
2) More efficient thrusters - OK.
3) Materials/Methods used for indoctrination- There are none. It's telepathy.
4) The mass accelerator cannons- that a huge war machine like the Turians only managed to turn into a weapon that has equal firepower to a regular cruiser.
5) Reapers' structure. - Yup.

So, the way I see it, Cerberus has only a few months to research the Reaper thrusters and their weaknesses. Might as well work. But it's still not worth it. Why ? TIM thinks that he can handle it, but he can not. Might as well be a slight reference to the 'Ring'. Even if we accept that he might be able to handle it during the Reaper war, it's unlikely that he will not be using this kind of tech against people who are chasing him. The good guys.

Btw, here's a small list of motives  that I think that lead some people to destroying the base.

1) Paragon Points !!!1!!one
2) Closure for victims.
3) IC approach/Or an approach to see how things will turn out in ME3.
4) Distrust to both TIM and Cerberus.
5) Distrust to TIM
6) Distrust to Cerberus
7) Hypothesis that Reapers could be using the base against us.

I personally went with 4)

[Phaedon]

Zulu_DFA wrote...

Dean_the_Young wrote...

There are no more Collectors.

Ooops!..

Wrong, Dean. I'm sure there are. If only to drop in a couple of missions with them as boggies in ME3...

Nowever, there are no more Collector Bases, and that's what is of critical importance.

Well, the Collectors are just the Reapers' tools. I think that they would want all of them working on the Human Reaper and the abductions. Also, other than the Oculus, the Collectors only have one ship.

[Fixers0]

The problem there is, is that no mather we decide to do what the base, we can still defeat the reapers as both options will equal for the ending of Mass effect 3.



As mentioned a few pages earlier, Bioware will never lets us do something that could influence the outcome of Mass effect 3, just look at Me 1 to Me 2

[Dean_the_Young]

[quote]Phaedon wrote...

[quote]Ieldra2 wrote...

Phaedon has asked me to present my view on how the base could be useful. Here is it:

The base contains the knowledge to build a new Reaper.
Perhaps those here who destroy the base haven't tried to envision what that really means: Reapers are constructs, so any facility made to build one must have something like a set of blueprints or instruction manuals on the process of building one. That's practically everything there is to know physically about them, excepting only such things like emergent abilities, intelligence and motives. We can reasonably expect to gain knowledge of
(1) Materials and methods used for the shielding we've seen at work at the battle of the Citadel
(2) How the Reapers can make long-distance runs though space without benefit of mass relays. Strategic value: if the Reapers shut down the relays (they're theirs after all), we'll still be able to operate.
(3) Materials and methods used for indoctration we have no defense against so far. Get Rana Thanoptis on this and hopefully we'll soon have a defense.
(4) The weapons that could slice an Alliance ship in half in a second (possibly the Turians have made inroads here, but Shepard doesn't know how much, so this point still counts)
(5) If the Reapers have any hidden weakness, analysing the way they're built will also reveal them.
The base should also have samples of the materials used, which may be unknown so far to galactic civilization. So it's not just a matter of downloading all the data and blow it up, even if you assume you can download everything from one place.

Since Shepard doesn't know he's in a game where perfect solutions always work, he must assume that galactic civilization needs that knowledge, since it's pretty much a given that we won't win against the Reapers without a technological upgrade. True, we don't know if there will time to absorb all that knowledge, but again, dare we assume we'll win without any of it just because we don't trust TIM? [/quote]From an engineering perspective, blue prints are necessary in and of themselves: studying the existing designs can recreate them, in the same sense that with a corpse you can get a new drawing of a skeleton.

It's not the blueprints themselves that are important: it's the items that are and have been built by those blueprints, the items in the base.


[quote]
OK, let's see. You suggest that there is a small chance that the base will help, and you say that this can be done by the following ways:
1) Material for shielding - Which btw, was not used on the Reaper or the base.[/quote]They were going to build a reaper without shields.

Ahuh.


[quote]3) Materials/Methods used for indoctrination- There are none. It's telepathy.[/quote]It's repeatedly established as a machine-replicable field effect. It has a non-mind source.

[Flamewielder]

Dean_the_Young wrote...
The same period that had Shepard admitting he was wrong? Besides the freedom of creative interpretation (the 'it can't be a coincidence' relating to that yes, one ship has been hounding him), yes, he can.
EDI goes into the Collector Ship's data banks, which we know had valid information. She goes through the Collector Base's data, including schematics of the base which would indicate logistic facilities such as ports and supplies.

Given that the whole thing was a trap laid by Harbinger, we can question the amount and quality of data gathered by EDI as she was fighting off the Collector's hacking attempts. The bottom line is, no mention is made of other ships, nor is it confirmed that it was the only one.

...just like he did once he knew that Shepard had the IFF in the first place?

A good point. And yet the Base was unprepared for a boarding action. To Harbinger's credit, even with the IFF on board, it took some fancy flying and reinforced armor for the Normandy to survive the transition.

There's no indication the Reapers can do that at this point: EDI has had multiple occasions to find out, the Mass Relay network is repeatedly described as being controlled from the Citadel (the place the Reapers need to get to in the first place), and, again, the fact that Harbinger doesn't do that the minute the Reaper IFF is installed on the Normandy.

Still, the IFF device appears to be something controlled locally, otherwise the relay could have been unlocked by just calling Anderson and asking him to please add the Normandy to the VIP guestlist... My point still stands: even if Harbinger forgot to alter the IFF (and strenghten the base against boarding, etc...), we cannot assume he'll do us the favour of playing dumb forever.

Of course, it's all semantics because we have every opportunity to learn of any other Collector presence on multiple occasions in ME2, do not, and every post-game material acknowledges the Collectors as being stopped after the Suicide Mission, which all fits into every indication in-game that, yes, there is only one Collector Cruiser

When is EDI allowed a chance to dive into the Collector's computers? Not during the IFF mission, that Reaper was dead for millions of years, before the Collectors were created. Not when the Normandy is boarded either. Not on Horizon. Shepard is shown schematics AFTER blowing up or saving the base. EDI never makes it clear she found useful Reaper data until after the battle. We do not know, Shepard doesn't know either, he's got to take a chance: blow up the base to keep possible surviving Collectors from recovering it, or keep it in case it holds critical data essential to defeat the Reapers. EDI has no advice on the topic.


If base is essential:

Base is blown up = fail                       -1
Base is kept but recaptured = fail    -1
Base is kept = lets assume we win+1


If the base is NOT critical

Base is blown up = we may win                 +0.5
Base is kept but recaptured = we may win   +0.5
Base is kept = we may win                          +0.5

You can make any argument if you make up the numbers to suit you. For example, a full 1 fail if the base is recaptured regardless of whether or not it is critical, even though by the point the Reapers can get the humans to make a Reaper, they've effectively won the war against Humanity already.

Good point: let's make that option a possible win, since it is the same as blowing up the base if it's non-critical...

Modifié par Flamewielder, 11 octobre 2010 - 07:18 .

[Dean_the_Young]

Flamewielder wrote...

Dean_the_Young wrote...
The same period that had Shepard admitting he was wrong? Besides the freedom of creative interpretation (the 'it can't be a coincidence' relating to that yes, one ship has been hounding him), yes, he can.
EDI goes into the Collector Ship's data banks, which we know had valid information. She goes through the Collector Base's data, including schematics of the base which would indicate logistic facilities such as ports and supplies.

Given that the whole thing was a trap laid by Harbinger, we can question the amount and quality of data gathered by EDI as she was fighting off the Collector's hacking attempts. The bottom line is, no mention is made of other ships, nor is it confirmed that it was the only one.

And yet that data in the Collector Vessel was never implied or said to be wrong in any other way, and it was accurate in all the ways we needed.

Why should any mention be made of any other ships if there was only one?

Which was the point of that exchange with Joker?

 

There's no indication the Reapers can do that at this point: EDI has had multiple occasions to find out, the Mass Relay network is repeatedly described as being controlled from the Citadel (the place the Reapers need to get to in the first place), and, again, the fact that Harbinger doesn't do that the minute the Reaper IFF is installed on the Normandy.

Still, the IFF device appears to be something controlled locally, otherwise the relay could have been unlocked by just calling Anderson and asking him to please add the Normandy to the VIP guestlist... My point still stands: even if Harbinger forgot to alter the IFF (and strenghten the base against boarding, etc...), we cannot assume he'll do us the favour of playing dumb forever.

I'm afraid you're first sentence isn't clear.

The Mass Relays, controlled by the Citadel, have hidden functions built into them. We know this from ME1 and Cerberus news (the dark switches).

The Reaper IFF works by emitting a signal that triggers those hidden functions. This is ME2.

Nothing, in all our information, opportunities, or investigations, has suggested that the Reapers can change those built in functions. They didn't even change them when the (at least) last two Reapers, Derilect and Sovereign, were killed, and even with a matter of time of the first one the second has been in potential organic possession for years.

This isn't counting on Harbringer to remain stupid. This is wondering why a completely unproposed, un-indicated, and un-likely course of action will be invented at this point, and in direct contradiction with the narrative to boot.

Shepard is shown schematics AFTER blowing up or saving the base.

No, EDI had base schematics as soon as you crash landed on the base. Hence why the team gathered in the briefing room around a hologram of the base.
 
Then, as the mission progressed, EDI found more and more information, including functionality to let you keep the base in the first part. Before you made the choice.

EDI never makes it clear she found useful Reaper data until after the battle. We do not know, Shepard doesn't know either, he's got to take a chance: blow up the base to keep possible surviving Collectors from recovering it, or keep it in case it holds critical data essential to defeat the Reapers. EDI has no advice on the topic.

EDI has no advice on this topic because there is no topic to give advice on. The Collector Ship, already given to be singular earlier in the game, is dead, and a invented nother is never mentioned because it does not exist and so doesn't need to be. If it did, there would already be several opportunities to find out about it and be exposed.

[Zulu_DFA]

Flamewielder wrote...
Base is blown up = fail                       -1
Base is kept but recaptured = fail    -1
Base is kept = lets assume we win+1

Your "recaptured" argument sucks. No, I mean it, it really sucks.

Base is blown up = fail                       -1
Base is kept = lets assume we win+1
Base is kept but recaptured = fail    -1
Base is kept but recaptured but recaptured = win   +1
Base is kept but recaptured but recaptured but recaptured = fail    -1
Base is kept but recaptured but recaptured but recaptured but recaptured = win   +1
Base is kept but recaptured but recaptured but recaptured but recaptured but recaptured = fail    -1
Base is kept but recaptured but recaptured but recaptured but recaptured but recaptured but recaptured = win   +1
Base is kept but recaptured but recaptured but recaptured but recaptured but recaptured but recaptured but recaptured = fail    -1
Base is kept but recaptured but recaptured but recaptured but recaptured but recaptured but recaptured but recaptured but recaptured = win   +1

...

Modifié par Zulu_DFA, 11 octobre 2010 - 07:30 .

[Dean_the_Young]

Score: Base Kept + Recaptured^n = -1^n



Where n is the number of times recaptured, given that either side can recapture.

[Zulu_DFA]

Dean_the_Young wrote...

Score: Base Kept + Recaptured^n = -1^n

Where n is the number of times recaptured, given that either side can recapture.

That's assuming there is such thing as "-1".

But there is no. Fail = 0.

Our destruction was assured when we were all monkeys in Africa. It's been so for as long as poor Sovereign could remember itself. So we really loose nothing by blowing up the Base, let's give 'em that. The question is: what we may gain by keeping it? And the answer is: all the money in the world!

Modifié par Zulu_DFA, 11 octobre 2010 - 07:41 .

[Dean_the_Young]

Base kept is also a +1.



So, actually, the base becomes more valuable if it's captured!



(Would throw in the proper function to make it work, but the keyboard doesn't have the key needed.)