121 réponses à ce sujet

[lovgreno]

TIM is trying to to the right thing, you can't ask anyone for more than that. His idealism clouds his judgement, it's true, but that doesn't make him evil or good.

[_purifico_]

Therion942 wrote...

I have to, there's nobody else in the game for me to hate.
What, you don't expect me to hate Harbinger or the Collectors, do you? I mean I gotta stop them, but they're impossible to hate, sorta like Jacob.

\\

How can anyone hate Harbinger? He is sexaaay! I'd do him any time of the week. Unlike TIM. Seriously.
Besides he's a priceless provider of ME's best memes. Unlike TIM =)

[Christmas Ape]

Neofelis Nebulosa wrote...
Sorry, but you've lost arguemantary credibility with that one point!

This should be good. "You made a justification I don't buy as regards this one experiment - nothing you ever say can be correct!" Get a grip.

So cancer is cureable in that time, ... as if that makes it okay to do said stuff.

Define "okay". And I'm serious. How personally unpleasant can something be before you can never pursue it even in self-defense and survival?

That is exactly like shooting people with guns to test out how they react. You can heal gunshots too.

This non-sequitor does nothing for your case. We know how guns work and what gunshots do to the body.

And this argumentation on how many more people we'd lose if we don't know enough about biotics is another logical abomination so many people seem to make.

Your 20/20 hindsight appears to prevent you from imagining that once nobody knew a damn thing except "some aliens generate mass effect fields with their goddamn minds!" and a few clever people decided hey, that might be something we should look into.

First off, the only race to extensively use biotics in regular combat are Asari.

So? Mass troop movements are dying off as a weapon of war even today, and with orbital bombardment have been almost completely abandoned unless you've already won and are securing an urban center. Most combat is small-squad surgical encounters.

Tell me, how are the odds the Asari suddenly attack Humanity? Close to none, I'd say, unless of course Humanity provokes said actions.

Are you basing this on your extensive access to intelligence reports on asari political and military intentions, or because the asari told you they're not like that?

The rest of the Council Races and other species have little numbers of biotics and employ them in Special Forces and so rarely to be encountered in the first place. So by the time you'd get to deal with those

First, you mean, long before war was declared, in surgical operations to cripple your shipyards and strike the heads off your military units?

You deal with those, unless you spark interstellar war yourself, you'd have enough chances to get those informations in a non-forced manner.

Is your plan here "film enemy biotics tearing your troops apart" or "invite one (capture would be force) to your camp to teach you of their own free will (interrogating them would also be force)"?

Second, biotics are not a war-deciding factor. For once of course because they aren't common, for the better, Biotics don't make you a Super-Soldier. You are simply more deadly in combat.

And out of combat. Dressed in a prison jumpsuit, hands shackled behind you - and if they don't know to take the amp (or can't because it's implanted) you can tear apart a room full of armed guards. A diplomatic delegation, carefully scanned for weapons and explosives, erupt in a biotic fury and assassinate your head of state. Tell me - how would you secure a biotic prisoner of war before you know anything more than "they create mass effect fields"? As to superior tactics completely dominating biotics in combat, tell me - what was the Alliance procedure for handling an enemy capable of creating a singularity in 2161? "Shoot and pray"?

All the information you cite to make your case extends from the research you decry. Can't have it both ways.

Modifié par Christmas Ape, 11 octobre 2010 - 10:26 .

[Faolin]

Neofelis Nebulosa wrote...
Second, biotics are not a war-deciding factor. For once of course because they aren't common, for the better, Biotics don't make you a Super-Soldier. You are simply more deadly in combat. Strategy and tactics are far superiour methods on nullifying such a threat than torturing your own people.

Disclaimer: I think the galaxy as a whole would be better off if TIM
died in a fire. Or, was eaten by Thresher Maws. That were on fire.

That said, the quoted argument doesn't really stack up. Having biotic soldiers and employing good strategy and tactics aren't mutually exclusive. The entire conventional Alliance military is (presumably) dedicated to perfecting strategy and tactics.

However, because "I want good strategy" is such a no-brainer, you can guarantee the Turians and Salarians will be doing that too. So if the highly-disciplined and expertly led Alliance soldiers clash with the highly led and expertly led Turian military, whichever side has the most people who can rip people in half with their minds will have an advantage. Biotics won't win the war, but they sure as hell can't hurt, and so Cerberus' actions make sense.

The reason I dislike Cerberus is because they seem to equate humanity's survival with humanity's ability to kill everything else. If you accept that logic (as opposed to diplomacy, trade, etc) then Cerberus' actions can be fairly easily justified.

[Christmas Ape]

Faolin wrote...
The reason I dislike Cerberus is because they seem to equate humanity's survival with humanity's ability to kill everything else. If you accept that logic (as opposed to diplomacy, trade, etc) then Cerberus' actions can be fairly easily justified.

This, fortunately, you can have both ways. Let the Alliance diplomatic corps handle diplomacy and trade negotiations, it's what they do. Cerberus has their hands in there as well, but as Shepard is an N7 Marine and not part of a PoliSci think tank we tend to see their "let's make sure we can kill everything else in case trade and diplomacy fail" side a little more.

[Fiery Phoenix]

Count Viceroy wrote...

This just reminds me of the LEAVE BRITNEY ALONE fan on youtube.

Doesn't it?

[Mox Ruuga]

Zulu_DFA wrote...

Than stop playing Paragon!!!

Hm, looks like you got the wrong idea.

I DON'T play exclusively Paragon. In fact, it's up to nearly 50 / 50 split... I have Shepards who tell Miranda that "It's too bad you never made the offer" (about joining Cerberus) and mean it.

I think it's great to have morally ambiguous characters, and people like TIM. I just hope:

a) He won't be killed ignominously to satisfy the alien lover Paragons.
 The alien lover Paragons won't be railroaded to keep on meekly accepting his machinations. Not being able to throw Akuze in his face was one of the worst oversights from the writers. As were more opportunities to screw him over, than just that one N7 mission where you can choose where to send the data from the dead agent.

[008Zulu]

Gibb_Shepard wrote...

He seems to have the hots for matriarchs aswell. I guess not even Mr. human-dominance-at-all-costs can resist the asari.

Who can resist the Asari? The game's central romance seems to be centred around one of them, you have the option to sleep with another, though it will kill you. You get a free hookup with the Consort in ME1, The green Asari (from ME1) has a thing for you. The bartender on Illium seems interested, though she may be Liara's "father", and Samara has indicated that were she not older...

I bet if Benezia weren't under the influence of Sovereign, she would have made a pass too.

Oh yeah, those Alliance marines that Cerberus tricked into getting killed by the Thresher Maw, we don't know their backstory. Maybe they were on the Shadowbrokers payrol, Admiral Kohoku (spl?) had ties to the Broker, could very well have been his mole inside the Alliance.

[Christmas Ape]

008Zulu wrote...
Who can resist the Asari? The game's central romance seems to be centred around one of them, you have the option to sleep with another, though it will kill you. You get a free hookup with the Consort in ME1, The green Asari (from ME1) has a thing for you. The bartender on Illium seems interested, though she may be Liara's "father", and Samara has indicated that were she not older...

I bet if Benezia weren't under the influence of Sovereign, she would have made a pass too.

This sounds a lot more like "what asari can resist Shepard?" to me.

[doagrl]

008Zulu wrote...

Gibb_Shepard wrote...

He seems to have the hots for matriarchs aswell. I guess not even Mr. human-dominance-at-all-costs can resist the asari.

Who can resist the Asari? The game's central romance seems to be centred around one of them, you have the option to sleep with another, though it will kill you. You get a free hookup with the Consort in ME1, The green Asari (from ME1) has a thing for you. The bartender on Illium seems interested, though she may be Liara's "father", and Samara has indicated that were she not older...

I bet if Benezia weren't under the influence of Sovereign, she would have made a pass too.

Oh yeah, those Alliance marines that Cerberus tricked into getting killed by the Thresher Maw, we don't know their backstory. Maybe they were on the Shadowbrokers payrol, Admiral Kohoku (spl?) had ties to the Broker, could very well have been his mole inside the Alliance.

Admiral Kahoku only went to the Shadow Broker because he was being stonewalled by the higher ups in the Alliance military who were protecting Cerberus. Cerberus killed his men because they happened upon Armistan Banes and Cerberus needed them kept quiet about it then killed Kahoku when he got to close to exposing them.

Just a few of the many lives ended by TIM in his crazed pursuit of human dominance.

Modifié par doagrl, 11 octobre 2010 - 11:21 .

[Mox Ruuga]

Christmas Ape wrote...

This sounds a lot more like "what asari can resist Shepard?" to me.

Agreed.

And there is no central romance in the game.

[Computron2000]

The thing most people, who rationalise that experimenting on a few hundred for the good of a few thousand or by more than 1 magnitude, miss is that why not ask for volunteers?



Look at it this way. Those posters who fully support Tim's experiments for the good of all would probably be the first to raise their hands if they were asked, right? Even if the outcome was maybe 10, 20 or 30% success possibility, right?



Lets be realistic. He could have gotten his volunteers (probably not from the posters who avocate for him here) but by simply offering sufficient incentive. This is a time tested technique in history. Anything from revenge, cash, possible disease cures, etc would work

[betd2]

TIM always seemed to me just to be a user. people aren't people to TIM they're tools. Jacob, Miranda, the fifty marines he killed on Akuze, and even Shepard. They're just interesting pieces for him to manipulate. When someone in a postion of power starts thinking like that, I say it's time to put a bullet in his head. Creberus could still be useful, TIM isn't really that necessary.

[lost lupus]

Faolin wrote...

The reason I dislike Cerberus is because they seem to equate humanity's survival with humanity's ability to kill everything else. If you accept that logic (as opposed to diplomacy, trade, etc) then Cerberus' actions can be fairly easily justified.

War is an ugly thing, but not the ugliest of things. The decayed and degraded state of moral and patriotic feeling which thinks that nothing is worth war is much worse.

Modifié par lost lupus, 11 octobre 2010 - 02:04 .

[FuturePasTimeCE]

i have nothing against tim... not hating tim...



johnny's more interesting now.

[Zulu_DFA]

Mox Ruuga wrote...

Zulu_DFA wrote...

Than stop playing Paragon!!!

Hm, looks like you got the wrong idea.

I DON'T play exclusively Paragon. In fact, it's up to nearly 50 / 50 split... I have Shepards who tell Miranda that "It's too bad you never made the offer" (about joining Cerberus) and mean it.

I think it's great to have morally ambiguous characters, and people like TIM. I just hope:

a) He won't be killed ignominously to satisfy the alien lover Paragons.
 The alien lover Paragons won't be railroaded to keep on meekly accepting his machinations. Not being able to throw Akuze in his face was one of the worst oversights from the writers. As were more opportunities to screw him over, than just that one N7 mission where you can choose where to send the data from the dead agent.

I was kidding.

I do, however, find it a little strange that many people play multiple Shepards and even treat them more or less equally...

I had multiple characters in ME1 myself, but only intended two of them for import (one of them being a "paragade" Akuze survivor), but ME2 was so... meh.

Only TIM and Zaeed saved the game for me. They are long lost twin brothers, BTW.

[Zulu_DFA]

betd2 wrote...
When someone in a postion of power starts thinking like that, I say it's time to put a bullet in his head. 

You are a broken tool, my friend.

[Flamewielder]

Christmas Ape wrote...
TIM is iconic of "Terrible Choices For Perfect Reasons", whichever side of the mixed morality scale that's supposed to be. It's just that he's genuinely playing the billions game. Shepard likes to make the claim, but at the end of the day a person's moral compass isn't suited to a challenge like that; at best you can play it for dozens, but more likely you're making decisions you'll feel good about tomorrow. TIM accepts having to bloody his hands to the shoulder because it doesn't matter how uncomfortable he is, he's here for the species. Ten scientists on a derelict Reaper aren't the species, fifty Marines aren't the species, a few thousand children with cancer aren't the species. Cerberus is our genophage, our ruthlessly considered war crime to save a million times more than it claims. It must be so, and it must be him.

That's a description I agree with. He has embraced the Renegade path utterly, which is easy to excuse when comparing all sentient life in the galaxy vs say a few thousand. Bioware has retconned Cerberus from a former Alliance Military Covert Ops group gone rogue into a privately financed subversive organisation promoting human dominance. A rough parallel (and I don't imply any similarity in aims or means) would be Cerberus = IRA, Terra Firma = Sinn Fein).

There is nothing particularly paragon or renegade in being pro-human, as long as you use means that are considered morally acceptable. Pushing any agenda through illegal/unethical means is renegade, regardless of wether it is necessary or not. In other words Renegade does not equal Evil. That's oversimplistic.

Paragon and Renegade differ in their modus operandi, one trying as much as possible to obey social conventions, the other not caring as long as he gets the job done as quickly and as efficiently as possible. Neither will shy away from an unavoidable sacrifice for the greater good. Opportunity allowing, Paragon will ask for volunteers, will insist on full disclosure, will be frank and honest about what the consequences can be. The Renegade won't care and simply order his men into the grinder (or Thresher maw), experiment on kids and generally keeping his agents in the dark ("Ours not to question why, ours but to do and die...").

Sole Survivor Shepard has an understandable reason to hate TIM... he almost got eaten alive after all. Ruthless Shepard should embrace TIM as his long-lost brother and get his Cerberus Gold membership card with extra VIP benefits... War Hero Shepard simply doesn't trust TIM further than he can shoot him. No hatred, just a necessary unsavory ally. While his ulterior motives may still be unknown, he's predictable in the sense that his own existence is also at stake and he's being objective about it. No emotional outburst from TIM, he's too cold for that and has no time for angst or pity. I don't like him, I don't trust him, but I can't say I hate him and I agree that stopping the Reapers is more important than prosecuting Cerberus members for any crimes they may have committed (that can always come later, if we survive).

[Finnish Dragon]

In the end, Shepard has no reasons to trust TIM:



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.

[Zulu_DFA]

Finnish Dragon wrote...

In the end, Shepard has no reasons to trust TIM:

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.

In other words,

When TIM says "Shepard, there is a pot in the back yard, with a $100 note in it. Go fetch it.", I can totally distrust him about the $100 note. Can I distrust him about there being a reason for Shepard to go to the back yard? Not so much.

[smudboy]

Finnish Dragon wrote...
In the end, Shepard has no reasons to trust TIM:

Aside from that Jesus thing.

And the ship.

And the crew.

And handing the entire plot to him.

The fact is that TIM deliberately lied on Shepard regarding the Collector Ship

Which was a good thing.

and regarding Liara.

Did he?  Didn't Miranda find out Feron was working both teams, and working with Liara?  (I didn't read the comics, but it makes sense.)

He told that the Collector Ship was crippled by Turians and Turians sent a distress signal which Cerberus intercepted.

So that the infiltration mission would be successful.  No difference than a military commander not telling their subordinates need-to-know intel.

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.

Considering Liara gets all retconny, I don't see the issue.  Could've been some other character entirely.

TIM lies once to us, and that's for the good of the mission.

[Aradace]

I dont hate TIM, but at the same time, I dont trust him either. I kind of have Joker's mentality of "I dont trust anyone who gets paid more than I do." lol

[Zulu_DFA]

smudboy wrote...
Did he?  Didn't Miranda find out Feron was working both teams, and working with Liara?  (I didn't read the comics, but it makes sense.)

No. Actually Miranda knew from the starters that Feron had been often free-lancing for the Broker, and wanted to higher-bid him. But Feron refused at first. Then he (of his own will) went around her to TIM directly... And TIM "forgot" to tell that to Miranda, when they actually put Liara on Feron's team (both she and Liara herself were thinking that Feron worked with Liara only per her own contract, until Feron open up to Liara in the final issue of the comic).

This TIM's telling Shepard that Liara was working for TSB and couldn't be trusted was either an overlook on BioWare's part... or TIM's manipulative-son-of-a-bitсhery to the max.

Who knows. Maybe Liara never stopped working for TIM...