504 réponses à ce sujet

[Dean_the_Young]

PrimalEden wrote...
Iakus writes this better than I. The criticism that it is foolish to assume another solution will come along without having the base as a fallback option is not reassuring. Not with the base itself but the people left with it. To trust an organization to save lives when they already are responsible for so many employees dead to begin with.

They are also responsible for saving the lives of tens, even hundreds of thousands more lives: why not remember that? And moreover, why are you placing this argument of concern concerned for the fate of the Cerberus personnel who signed up voluntarily and accepted the risks? Why doesn't their willingness factor?

Destroying the base isn't going to prevent dangerous experiments on unwilling subjects for the sake of fast-paced technological gain. Cerberus is going to do all they can against the Reapers, no matter what you do. All you've changed is what they can bring to the table when the time comes.

It was not my intention to say there will be another way as the reason to destroy the base. The problem is with Cerberus. They factor into this significantly because of the damage their work causes. All it takes is a fatal flaw, one wrong ambitious decision, and they could cost humanity the war with the Reapers.

How?

What reasonable concern is there that can match, let alone surpass, the treat Grayson (didn't) pose?

[Dean_the_Young]

Grasser wrote...

I kept the base in my first playthru, even tho my char was paragon, (got zaeed to thank for that... since I had him with me in the final part, he made a good point lol).
But after the SM I was thinking wtf did I do... I just gave the base to a evil person... (that smile TIM wears at the end is defintly evil, lol, let alone all the other things he and his organistion does), also keeping the base is a big risk, what if the teams inside become indoctrinated?

They turn themselves into husks, Cerberus agents/soldiers are sent to clear out the baddies, and the now exposedindoctrination devices are found, disabled, and taken away for study of how to prevent indoctrination.

Of course,why would the teams study the tech inside the base when they don't have to? Retribution shows research of Collector Base technology was also done elsewhere, with no mass-indoctrination risk.

And the reapers could take it back, as I said b4, there is prolly still agents of the reapers around, I can't imagine things staying quiet til they arrive and yea that base would become their target.

So what? They don't have the Collector Cruiser or any similarly sized ship to be able to carryout colony attacks, nor the capable forces to do it. They don't have the defenses of the Omega 4 relay to defend themselves from counter attack. They can't get the primary use of the base (building a human Reaper) until the war is effectively already won anyway, and can always rebuild the base after the war.

There's nothing that capturing the base now will provide that couldn't have already been put in place by the Collectors, while 'recapturing it' has the primary effect of exposing the Reapers otherwise hidden agents... which is a very, very good thing to do now, when the Reapers aren't here to capitalize on it, rather than later, when they can take advantage.

[Dean_the_Young]

lovgreno wrote...
1. It is a factory for human genocide run by reapers. In the past reapers have always trapped their active (and almost all inactive) bases and equipment with traps that have never been detected untill it was too late.

What bases are these? What comparesto the Collector Base?

Even the Derilect Reaper wasn't a 'trap'in the sense of intentionally laid to poison the prize: even without active nano tech, it was just something that happened inside the Reaper, like a force of nature.

2. How can you be sure that radiation wave was sucessfull? That is a very big and unknown base. That reactor was not designed for wiping out all life and potential dangers and TIMmy knew very little about it. Also there could be more collectors somewhere else, And Harbringer could come back and assume controll of Cerberus. You can not say that can not happen and you have no way of detecting indoctrination untill it's already too late.

Of course you can detect indoctrination before it's too late: I can think off three off the top of the head. Mine the computer data for the bases internal systems (proven we can already do), put in a test subject to examine if someone is indoctrinated or not within a certain period of time, or cycle people and mechs until such a time you have studied indoctrination and can devise a test to detect the signal field on whether its safe to let people remain in the base.

Why shouldn't an alternative provided by EDI to TIM not work,and yet a self-destruct function (certainly not a design intention of the base never intended to be found or fought over) evaluated by the same source is?

Harbringer can only control Collectors through their unique implants and cybernetics (not existing in or designed for, Cerberus personel), and that setup is only capable through the Collector General (killed).

3. TIMmy and Cerberus are not stupid, so no I don't think they would. Returning reapers or/and collectors and indoctrinated Cerberus on the other hand, yes probably. Remember what happened to Saren and Benezia. Those sneaky reapers are clever like that.

Saren and Benezia were already aligned with helping Sovereign's goals: indoctrination didn't need to work much. Whenever we see it work against those who don't want to help, it destroys their capabilities: see the STG on Virmire. Cerberus can becounted on the 'has to be sandblasted to soup crackers' indoctrination zone, and like on the Derilect Reaper the default course for those is husks... which aren't a grave, grave threat to anyone.

Grayson was an expection because of the cybernetics prepared and pre-implaced in him by those who retained their capabilities.

5. I never said the deus ex machina to save the galaxy had to be somewhere else. It might, the galaxy is much bigger than the base you know. It might also be in the base if Harbringer didn't delete data too dangerous to be left in enemy hands when he left. It might also be nothing there or a trap. So untill we know how ME3 ends all we realy have is speculations and it would just be silly of me to claim to know the absolute truth in this matter.

Harbinger can't delete data tied up into the hardware... which was the intent of keeping the base.

6. Yes if you know how said booby-traps look and how to defuse them before it's too late. Cerberus however, don't. If you don't know how to controll the base, keep it safe from recapture (don't underestimate those sneaky reapers) and it have the potential danger to ruin everything you worked for you should consider the burned earth tactic.

You do know how we learn to identify how booby traps look like, yes?

[Grasser]

Dean_the_Young wrote...

Grasser wrote...

I kept the base in my first playthru, even tho my char was paragon, (got zaeed to thank for that... since I had him with me in the final part, he made a good point lol).
But after the SM I was thinking wtf did I do... I just gave the base to a evil person... (that smile TIM wears at the end is defintly evil, lol, let alone all the other things he and his organistion does), also keeping the base is a big risk, what if the teams inside become indoctrinated?

They turn themselves into husks, Cerberus agents/soldiers are sent to clear out the baddies, and the now exposedindoctrination devices are found, disabled, and taken away for study of how to prevent indoctrination.

Of course,why would the teams study the tech inside the base when they don't have to? Retribution shows research of Collector Base technology was also done elsewhere, with no mass-indoctrination risk.

And the reapers could take it back, as I said b4, there is prolly still agents of the reapers around, I can't imagine things staying quiet til they arrive and yea that base would become their target.

So what? They don't have the Collector Cruiser or any similarly sized ship to be able to carryout colony attacks, nor the capable forces to do it. They don't have the defenses of the Omega 4 relay to defend themselves from counter attack. They can't get the primary use of the base (building a human Reaper) until the war is effectively already won anyway, and can always rebuild the base after the war.

There's nothing that capturing the base now will provide that couldn't have already been put in place by the Collectors, while 'recapturing it' has the primary effect of exposing the Reapers otherwise hidden agents... which is a very, very good thing to do now, when the Reapers aren't here to capitalize on it, rather than later, when they can take advantage.

To be honest we have no idea what Forces the reapers truely had, hell until Mass Effect 2 exposed the Collectors as enslaved Protheans we had no idea they had any other forces than the ones they had with saren, whos to say what they have lurking in the Galaxy or who they have in their grasp.
Remember also, Fear is a powerful weapon, Fear of the reapers and what they are going to do, drove saren an elite spectre of the council to ally with them, and we do know more than the council and shepard know of the Reapers, how many ppl have already joined the ranks of the reapers?
Also it's implied they caused the Rachi to attack ages back and they've enslaved the protheans, remember they have been doing this for centries, they could have previous races enslaved just waiting to be reactived and the Yahg, Bioware would'nt introduce a new race for nothing, they too could be the target of the reapers for new slaves.
also there might even be a reaper hiding out in the galaxy currently, soverian stayed hidden for ages until it attacked.

Point is this, we have no idea of just what the reapers have in store or whos with them, I think Shepard and her friends and allies are gonna get a few Nasty surprises in the upcoming DLC's and ME3.
as for the Collector base, I doubt the reapers would allow the data on them and their agents to remain on the base, prolly purged it b4 the explosion.

Modifié par Grasser, 18 octobre 2010 - 12:35 .

[Dean_the_Young]

Grasser wrote...
To be honest we have no idea what Forces the reapers truely had, hell until Mass Effect 2 exposed the Collectors as enslaved Protheans we had no idea they had any other forces than the ones they had with saren, whos to say what they have lurking in the Galaxy or who they have in their grasp, remember also Fear is a powerful weapon, Fear of the reapers and what they are going to do, drove saren an elite spectre of the council to ally with them, and we do know more than the council and shepard know of the Reapers, how many ppl have already joined the ranks of the reapers?

Gee, if only there was some place in the galaxy likely to contain datafiles and references to all the Reapers allies in-galaxy and contacts for the Collectors...

Also it's implied they caused the Rachi to attack ages back and they've enslaved the protheans, remember they have been doing this for centries, they could have previous races enslaved just waiting to be reactived and the Yahg, Bioware would'nt introduce a new race for nothing, they too could be the target of the reapers for new slaves.

Remember also what the implications behind the Rachi were, and the geth.

There is nothing at this point suggesting any link between the Yahg and the Reapers. The ME lore has mentions of hundreds of races.

also there might even be a reaper hiding out in the galaxy currently, soverian stayed hidden for ages until it attacked.

That would be pants on head retarded, and I'm ashamed you're even trying to raise it as a legitimate possibility.

Point is this, we have no idea of just what the reapers have in store or whos with them, I think Shepard and her friends and allies are gonna get a few Nasty surprises in the upcoming DLC's and ME3.
as for the Collector base, I doubt the reapers would allow the data on them and their agents to remain on the base, prolly purged it b4 the explosion.

If the Reapers could keep data out of EDI's hands, we wouldn't have completed the game.

As for data in general, repeat after me:

You can not delete hardware with a software command.

You can not delete hardware with a software command.

You can not delete hardware with a software command.

[Inverness Moon]

Lunatic LK47 wrote...

Forgot one thing on B. Reapers can find a way to disable whatever tech we may have created. The Reapers are not morons. What's to say they already know themselves well enough to hit the magic off-switch when we're about to fire our first shots?

That is pure fiction. The reapers do not have magic powers, they can't simply wiggle their non-existent noses and have all your weapons systems simply cease to work. The only way that would be possible is if you equipped all your ships with weapons already pre-constructed on the collector base, which nobody is going to do. What Cerberus is going to do is datamine their computer and research their hardware and use what they learn to construct new weapons. Are you somehow suggesting weapons constructed form the ground up, where we have full knowledge of how every aspect works, could somehow be magically shutdown by the reapers? Nonsense.

[Grasser]

you seem to be assuming that Harbinger would actually leave important data to other operations of theirs just floating around on a base, remember it was Harbringer Directly controlling all aspects of the Collector's operations, he won't keep information of the reapers allies or any other reaper operations on that base.

also Saren and the Geth were never told about any other Reaper allies, it seems that Like Cerberus Cells, most reaper agents have no info on any other Reaper agents.

ok the base might have techonology and maybe a few important files on how the reapers are made of course, but I just don't think we'll find any info on any slaves or allies they currently have.

it will be interesting to see just what Cerbrus finds on that base and if they actually share it with shepard eventually.

[Dean_the_Young]

Grasser wrote...

you seem to be assuming that Harbinger would actually leave important data to other operations of theirs just floating around on a base, remember it was Harbringer Directly controlling all aspects of the Collector's operations, he won't keep information of the reapers allies or any other reaper operations on that base.

Besidesbeing pure bull**** by the well established fact that EDI, on multiple occasions, hacks and mines Collector computers, which are data storage devices... (and, by extension, Harbringer can't delete data EDI has already gotten)...

Repeat after me:

You can not delete physical evidence.

You can not delete physical evidence.

You can not delete physical evidence.

also Saren and the Geth were never told about any other Reaper allies, it seems that Like Cerberus Cells, most reaper agents have no info on any other Reaper agents.

The geth worked with the Collectors in ME2, so they were told at some point. Simply assuming they didn't know about the Collectors because we didn't see the Collectors in ME1 is, well, baseless supposition.

ok the base might have techonology and maybe a few important files on how the reapers are made of course, but I just don't think we'll find any info on any slaves or allies they currently have.

Why not?

The Collectors were, by all evidence and logic, the Reapers most significant asset remaining the the galaxy. If they weren't someone else would have been the head of their operations. They maintained an information network rivaling the Shadow Broker's. They coordinated with other Reaper allies (heretic Geth, as seen in firewalker pack). If there's any place in the galaxy you'll be able to uncover their existence, it's in the intact base.

Yes,I could sort of buy that Harbringer tries (not even necessarily sucedes, given what EDI can do within their systems) to wipe his data banks once the base is being destroyed/captured. But that isn't assured, complete, or, again. Physical evidence.

[Mr. Gogeta34]

Those that feel there's no relevant information to be found has no reason to destroy the base. You can't really use the "I don't trust TIM" line with that. If the base is useless it's useless.



If it's to look good in front of the Council, it still doesn't really help you... because they'd still have to take your word for it and are just as likely to distrust you.

[Lunatic LK47]

Inverness Moon wrote...

Lunatic LK47 wrote...

Forgot one thing on B. Reapers can find a way to disable whatever tech we may have created. The Reapers are not morons. What's to say they already know themselves well enough to hit the magic off-switch when we're about to fire our first shots?

That is pure fiction. The reapers do not have magic powers, they can't simply wiggle their non-existent noses and have all your weapons systems simply cease to work. The only way that would be possible is if you equipped all your ships with weapons already pre-constructed on the collector base, which nobody is going to do. What Cerberus is going to do is datamine their computer and research their hardware and use what they learn to construct new weapons. Are you somehow suggesting weapons constructed form the ground up, where we have full knowledge of how every aspect works, could somehow be magically shutdown by the reapers? Nonsense.

Considering Cerberus is known to take shortcuts, I am not ruling out that Cerberus may use the preconstructed weapons on the off-chance that attempting to build from the ground up turns out fruitless (whether this may happen in ME3 or not is yet to be seen.). Another possibility you may overlook is the Reapers may already have seeded their data with electronical viruses. After all, one measly IFF already caused the Collectors to abduct the Normandy crew. What's to say the fleet won't be immune to a similar problem with their weapons systems?

[Dean_the_Young]

How about that technological recreation doesn't work like that?

[PauseforEffect]

Sending Shepard in to stop the Collectors does not excuse their past actions. If you are going to give them credit for bringing in Shepard as a pat on the back for saving millions of lives, then they are also responsible for the base being destroyed as a better alternative since Shepard was told it was the commander's "choice".

I point out the absurdity of naively believing that an organization that would not even bestir themselves to save their own employees when something went wrong (since it would be a waste of resources) to go and use the base responsibly to save lives. The level of trust and faith base keepers have in Cerberus astound me after the apocalyptic mess they nearly started in Overlord. Their results are not consistent enough to trust with the base.

As for their claim that Cerberus personnel signed up for this voluntarily knowing the risk, that is a selective lie. Gabby and Ken Donnelly admit that they don't know much about Cerberus beyond that they support what the Alliance was denying. The Illusive Man himself withholds information from Shepard to gain an advantage, often at the expense of Shepard and his team's safety. Well and good they were told that what they're doing is dangerous but Cerberus shot themselves in the foot for jerking people around like tools.

Shepard may not be able to stop Cerberus as a whole but that does not mean he/she has to enable them. You do what you can when you can with what you have.

[Dean_the_Young]

PrimalEden wrote...

Sending Shepard in to stop the Collectors does not excuse their past actions. If you are going to give them credit for bringing in Shepard as a pat on the back for saving millions of lives, then they are also responsible for the base being destroyed as a better alternative since Shepard was told it was the commander's "choice".

There is no delima in this is, since Cerberus operatives and crewmen (including Jacob and Miranda) were right along with it, and those two are undeniably Cerberus. While closely aligned,Cerberus does not equal TIM, and TIM does not equal Cerberus.

Cerberus had far more to do with saving millions of lives than just 'bringing in Shepard', and you should be intellectually honest enough to admit this outright.

I point out the absurdity of naively believing that an organization that would not even bestir themselves to save their own employees when something went wrong (since it would be a waste of resources)

What case in particularly are you talking about? The Derilect Reaper was considered 'too risky' to go back to after the Team's loss, which seems to be the exact sort of concern people damn Cerberus for not having.

Is it about not always breaking people out of prison? That's a reasonable decision as well.

to go and use the base responsibly to save lives. The level of trust and faith base keepers have in Cerberus astound me after the apocalyptic mess they nearly started in Overlord.

If I didn't trust anyone who made galactic mistakes, I would only have the most insignificant parties to work with. The Asari matriarchs provided the systemthat let Benezia go, the Salarians had the genophage and then almost saw a cure fall into the hands of the blood pack, the Council Spectre instutution naturally gives way to people like Saren , and the Turians First Contact war kicked off the entire mess by justifying Cerberus and its fears in the first place. And lets not forget how we had to comit treason to the Alliance to save the galaxy in the first place.

Using the base 'responsibly' isn't needed to save lives. And those lives, humans and aliens alike by increasing our means and chances against the Reapers, are the most important reasons to let Cerberus use them.

Their results are not consistent enough to trust with the base.

You don't even know what consistent for Cerberus is.

As for their claim that Cerberus personnel signed up for this voluntarily knowing the risk, that is a selective lie. Gabby and Ken Donnelly admit that they don't know much about Cerberus beyond that they support what the Alliance was denying.

They knew they were going into a high-risk occupation punishable by execution if they got caught, in order to help Shepard against a galactic threat. They certainly knew they were agreeing to risks, unless you truly intend to insist that they are epic idiots of legendary caliber.

The Illusive Man himself withholds information from Shepard to gain an advantage, often at the expense of Shepard and his team's safety. Well and good they were told that what they're doing is dangerous but Cerberus shot themselves in the foot for jerking people around like tools.

TIM never lied about how the Collector Vessel wasn't a risk. You can ask him about that specifically.

Moreover, you're arguing against a position that was never made. There was never a point made about how TIM is always 100% informative, but that's what you're arguing against here. Why? Because you can't deny that Shepard and his team know the sort of risks they have to take fighting the Collectors?

Shepard may not be able to stop Cerberus as a whole but that does not mean he/she has to enable them. You do what you can when you can with what you have.

Irony, coming from the person throwing away two of the threereachable  assets we have against the Reapers at this point.

[MisterDyslexo]

I don't get why destroying the base is paragon. They could at least do what they did in the first Mass Effect. There was Save the Council (paragon), focus on Sovereign (neutral), and Leave the Council to die (renegade). Couldn't have been that hard for this

Option 1: Destroy the Base-Paragon
It was an abomination and needed to be destroyed.

Option 2: Destroy the Base-Neutral
I don't trust Cerberus or TIM. They'll probably just use it for their own agenda

Option 3: Destroy the Base-Renegade
TIM's a jerk, screw him (powerhungry, ego-maniacal, racist, evil, whatever you want to paint it)

Option 4: Save the Base-Paragon
It'll save lives, and it may bee our only way of defeating the reapers

Option 5: Save The Base-Neutral
Its good to have, but I won't let TIM go too far with this

Option 6: Save the Base-Renegade
Help stop the Reapers, and secure human dominance for good

I'm no expert writer or psychologist or anything, but those make sense to me.

Modifié par MisterDyslexo, 18 octobre 2010 - 10:09 .

[Iakus]

[quote]Dean_the_Young wrote...
What do you think the Alliance used Cerberus for, then? Small-scale technology theft? [/quote]

Then why go rogue in the first place?


[quote]
Two experiments of the same project line. Shepard had no proof or evidence of anything untoward, so how was letting Shepard go after the fact a 'bad' idea?

Why does Toombs getting away have to be incompetence on Cerberus's part, as opposed to chance and skill on Toombs? They aren't mutually exclusive.[/quote]

1) Fake distress signal in the middle of a thresher maw nest?  I'd call that something untoward.  So did Kahoku.

2) Toombs' escape might be chalked up to good fortune.  But afterwards?  The galaxy thinks he's dead.  No resources, not even a genetically engineered hottie in a tight outfit to get him up to speed on the last few years.  Yet he was able to systematically hunt down and kill almost all the Cerberus scientists responsible for his captivity.  If that's not a catastrophic failure on Cerberus' security, I want him on my squad!

[quote]
The implication in the mission was that Cerberus showed up and took away husks for study from an already-happening event. Not that they caused the event in the first place. Admittedly, it is vague enough to be argued otherwise, but nothing says Cerberus caused the Colony of the Dead. We only know that it cameby during/after, and before Shepard allived.[/quote]

Given the first time Dragon's Teeth are seen in 50,000 years is Eden Prime, I call that one heck of a coincidence.

[quote]
If we want to imagine things Rachni can't do, why not just imagine Rachni can summon the Reapers and be done with it? It's just as valid a hypothetical, and just as supported as well. We can also imagine what might have happened had the Rachni [/quote]

Then we focus on what did happen:  Two bases completely wiped out, and a third with only three survivors out of a complement of 90.  All because Cerberus had to touch the fire.

[quote]
In a sense, TIM does maintain oversight. But it isn't constant oversight, like people regularly consider. Archer did have to provide updates regularly to show progress (or lack of it). What we get early on in Overlord is Archer saying 'we've had a breakthrough, demonstration to follow,' and between then and the intended review the VI-human hybrid that was the brother went crazy.[/quote]

So, TIM's just bad at filling management positions?

[quote]
That's not objective grounds to say 'this is too dangerous for the galaxy,' though. Galactic survival outweighs all of those costs by such ridiculous margins that it should barely require reminding. The cost to Cerberus teams is something that the Cerberus personel volunteered for, and while the cost to non-volunteers is reprehensible, the cost of them and those countryside monsters is negligable to the survival of the galaxy.[/quote]

I think it is objective grounds.  Reaper technology is more dangerous by order of magnitude than rachni or geth.  How much information can possibly be gained if you have to keep replacing the research teams due to terminal turnover, not to mention destruction of equipment?

[quote]
Already, through stopping the Collectors alone, Cerberus has outweighed the human cost of all their inhumane, criminal actions combined to such an extent that the lives saved versus the lives cost doesn't even come out to a percent fraction. We can look at Horizon, where 'only' half the colony was saved, and find magnitudes more lives saved than Cerberus's implied, suspectable death tolls combined.[/quote]

Miranda: "As Cerberus operations go, this is one of the best I've been part of"
Shepard: "Maybe that's because this isn't a Cerberus operation"


[quote]
And that's just one colony, without reference to the rest. You don't have to like TIM, you don't have to believe that Cerberus shouldbe unleashed, to recognize that Cerberus has done far more good than bad for the galaxy.[/quote]

Not really a statement of its competence, but I like this phrase "Every predator defends its territory"




[quote]And hundreds outweigh trillions?[/quote]

Hundreds are a sign of bigger things to come.

[quote]Cerberus is arms length. Only the fingertips of Civilization need be burned if they do it.[/quote]

If I truly believed Cerberus could manage that, blowing up or keeping the base would be a much tougher call.

[quote]
That's an inherently untrue conceit. Risks come from misunderstandings and ignorance of the technology, and working from scraps and incomplete systems only heightens that ignorancy. [/quote]

Ignorancy? 

The turians already learned how to build a big honkin' space gun out of Sovereign.  Hardware from it went into building EDI.  I'm willing to bet wreckage from :  a trashed Collector base, a trashed Reaper larva, and a trashed Collector Cruiser will still give up some secrets.  That's in addition to material left behind on Horizon and Mordin's own research into Seeker swarms and the Collector plague on Omega. 


[quote]  Blown up by the Turians and Anderson.

Which is the only reason why Grayson got out into the galaxy in the first place.[/quote]

So, base trashed, people killed, and monster roaming the countryside, then.

Surprise, surprise.

[quote]
So, knowing that it isn't feasible...?[/quote]

Advanced Omega- class Destroyers?

[quote]
A lot of very valuable collector and reaper tech is non-weapon related. Collector corpses alone could be gold mines for biotic, cybernetic, and genetic research for improving the ground troops against Reaper ground armies, simply in the sense of fortifying and boosting pre-existing abilities.
[/quote]

Fortunately, Shepard managed to kill a bunch of them on Horizon.  And scan one on the Collector ship in such detail that EDI was able to pinpoint its ascestral homeworld.

Modifié par iakus, 18 octobre 2010 - 10:23 .

[chris025657]

MisterDyslexo wrote...

I don't get why destroying the base is paragon. They could at least do what they did in the first Mass Effect. There was Save the Council (paragon), focus on Sovereign (neutral), and Leave the Council to die (renegade). Couldn't have been that hard for this

Option 1: Destroy the Base-Paragon
It was an abomination and needed to be destroyed.

Option 2: Destroy the Base-Neutral
I don't trust Cerberus or TIM. They'll probably just use it for their own agenda

Option 3: Destroy the Base-Renegade
TIM's a jerk, screw him (powerhungry, ego-maniacal, racist, evil, whatever you want to paint it)

Option 4: Save the Base-Paragon
It'll save lives, and it may bee our only way of defeating the reapers

Option 5: Save The Base-Neutral
Its good to have, but I won't let TIM go too far with this

Option 6: Save the Base-Renegade
Help stop the Reapers, and secure human dominance for good

I'm no expert writer or psychologist or anything, but those make sense to me.

I'd have to agree with this. I sort of have a paragon rationale in keeping the base because I'm not willing to risk the potential lives that could be saved with the technology from that base. 

[MisterDyslexo]

iakus wrote...

Cerberus is arms length. Only the fingertips of Civilization need be burned if they do it.

If I truly believed Cerberus could manage that, blowing up or keeping the base would be a much tougher call.

That's an inherently untrue conceit. Risks come from misunderstandings and ignorance of the technology, and working from scraps and incomplete systems only heightens that ignorancy.

Ignorancy? 

The turians already learned how to build a big honkin' space gun out of Sovereign.  Hardware from it went into building EDI.  I'm willing to bet wreckage from :  a trashed Collector base, a trashed Reaper larva, and a trashed Collector Cruiser will still give up some secrets.  That's in addition to material left behind on Horizon and Mordin's own research into Seeker swarms and the Collector plague on Omega. 

There's something I heard in the first Mass Effect that I feel applies here. It was on Peak 15, Noveria, where the Rachni got loose. One of the scientists said something along the lines of "We look out the windows and there's nothing there. We forget there's an outside world that is affected, and why it tells us what we should or should not do. Maybe thats why science is led by ethics."
now thats all paraphrasing, but when you let scientific exploration go to far, there are dreadful consequences. For example, Akuze (yes I know they were part of the Alliance, but I doubt that they would send 50 people there if they knew that all of them would be meat) and Overlord. The project studying the Maws might've started out simple, like collecting larvae or something, or it might've started out big, like capturing them to study in labs. But eventually it all snowballed into the Akuze incident.

I'm not saying that its terrible to hand over the base, but Cerberus scientists are often victims of "Curiousity killed the cat", and quite frankly, I doubt that they can contain whatever mess they make by themselves.

On another totally unrelated note, does anybody know how exactly Shepard got off Akuze, or how the thresher maws went away? If there's another thread point me towards it, or else just ignore this last part

[Lunatic LK47]

Dean_the_Young wrote...

How about that technological recreation doesn't work like that?

Dean, I'm not sure who that was toward to. If it was towards my post, the Reapers could still find a way to bypass the systems with electronic warfare of some kind. What's to say that their potential malware viruses in their Collector Base data won't electronically shut down key components for our Reaper tech?

[Iakus]

MisterDyslexo wrote...

There's something I heard in the first Mass Effect that I feel applies here. It was on Peak 15, Noveria, where the Rachni got loose. One of the scientists said something along the lines of "We look out the windows and there's nothing there. We forget there's an outside world that is affected, and why it tells us what we should or should not do. Maybe thats why science is led by ethics."
now thats all paraphrasing, but when you let scientific exploration go to far, there are dreadful consequences. For example, Akuze (yes I know they were part of the Alliance, but I doubt that they would send 50 people there if they knew that all of them would be meat) and Overlord. The project studying the Maws might've started out simple, like collecting larvae or something, or it might've started out big, like capturing them to study in labs. But eventually it all snowballed into the Akuze incident.

Dr Palon:  "The outside world doesn't exist here.  Just walls of ice and rock.  There's only the work.  The discovery.  it's easy to forget why science is guided by ethics.  Maybe we're paying for that now"

On another totally unrelated note, does anybody know how exactly Shepard got off Akuze, or how the thresher maws went away? If there's another thread point me towards it, or else just ignore this last part

I've never seen an explanation. 

[Dean_the_Young]

Lunatic LK47 wrote...

Dean_the_Young wrote...

How about that technological recreation doesn't work like that?

Dean, I'm not sure who that was toward to. If it was towards my post, the Reapers could still find a way to bypass the systems with electronic warfare of some kind. What's to say that their potential malware viruses in their Collector Base data won't electronically shut down key components for our Reaper tech?

Because ****ing hardware doesn't have ****ing computer viruses. ****ity **** ****, I am ****ing sick of people not having a ****ing clue of what ****ing technology actually ****ing entails when it's ****ing demonstrated that it doesn't ****ing work that way in the same ****ing game.

In the words of South Park, ****ity **** **** ****ers.

Now that I've vented that from my system with the help of the automatic censoring...



Lunatic, if the Reapers could arbitrarily shut down 'reaper tech', they would have done so and prevented Shepard from being able to take the base in the first place. The Thannix cannon is Reaper tech. EDI (which, you know, beat the tar out of the Reapers cyberwarfare abilities) is Reaper tech. The Reaper IFF, which allowed us to get through the Relay in the first place, is Reaper tech.

And that's just a fraction of what Reaper tech entail. The other fraction is everything else we can and do use. The Collector Armor, Collector Particle Beam, the Collector Assault Rifle which you can use are all Reaper tech. Mass Effect generators are Reaper tech. Mass Effect guns are Reaper tech. Mass Effect fields, including biotics, are Reaper tech.

'Software viruses' aren't replicated when you reverse engineer hardware, as Cerberus and every species in the galaxy has demonstrated an ability to do when studying Prothean remains. Software viruses don't even work from external triggers without sensors to give a trigger, and nothing in hardware replication necessitates those sensors (to receive a 'do not work) system have to be made even if, for some bizaar, crazy reason, you replicate the software entirely without looking for something so obvious that teenagers/twentysomethings can think of it.

When you reverse engineer hardware and create your own software to manage it, as everyone did with the last 200 year tech jump (the Prothean ruins) and the last Reaper tech assimilation (Thannix and EDI), software isn't replicated at all, and those hypothetical viruses never amount to anything in the first place.

So, in review, the study of hardware does not copy have software viruses. Let's try this.

Hardware does not have computer viruses.

Hardware does not have computer viruses.

Hardware does not have computer viruses.

[S-A128]

The base had to be destroyed and i will always destroy till there's nothing left from it. and what if collectors where still on it

[Pacifien]

If you need to vent in the thread, you probably need to step away from the thread. Possibly even for 24 hours.

Modifié par Pacifien, 18 octobre 2010 - 11:24 .

[Dean_the_Young]

[quote]iakus wrote...

[quote]Dean_the_Young wrote...
What do you think the Alliance used Cerberus for, then? Small-scale technology theft? [/quote]

Then why go rogue in the first place?[/quote]Zulu]
Or did they? 
[/Zulu]

Plenty of reasons. Accumulating differences of priorities. Differing views on proper role. Increased caution onthe part of the Alliance as time goes by (see Corsairs initiative, and failure).

[quote]
1) Fake distress signal in the middle of a thresher maw nest?  I'd call that something untoward.  So did Kahoku.[/quote]And this has... what to do with Akuze?

Akuze wasn't triggered by a fake emergency. A colony did really go silent. (We don't even hear if Cerberus was behind that part even, or if the Cerberus role came after the colony.)

[quote]
2) Toombs' escape might be chalked up to good fortune.  But afterwards?  The galaxy thinks he's dead.  No resources, not even a genetically engineered hottie in a tight outfit to get him up to speed on the last few years.  Yet he was able to systematically hunt down and kill almost all the Cerberus scientists responsible for his captivity.  If that's not a catastrophic failure on Cerberus' security, I want him on my squad![/quote]You want him on your squad.

[quote]
Given the first time Dragon's Teeth are seen in 50,000 years is Eden Prime, I call that one heck of a coincidence.[/quote]Not true, actually. Among the half-dozen other 'dragon's teeth dug up on small mining colony X' missions, Kaiden mentions that 'machine cultists' are a phenomenum that happens occasionally.

[quote]
Then we focus on what did happen:  Two bases completely wiped out, and a third with only three survivors out of a complement of 90.  All because Cerberus had to touch the fire.[/quote]If civilizations didn't play with fire, we wouldn't be having this conversation.

Losing control of the Rachni was bad, but hardly a galaxy-damaging disaster. The potential value of having succeded, however, would have had galaxy-shaping benefits.

[quote]
So, TIM's just bad at filling management positions?[/quote]No, most people don't understand what management positions entail.

[quote]
I think it is objective grounds.  Reaper technology is more dangerous by order of magnitude than rachni or geth.  How much information can possibly be gained if you have to keep replacing the research teams due to terminal turnover, not to mention destruction of equipment?[/quote]Answer yourself: how many lives was EDI worth? How many lives the Reaper IFF? How many lives in the coming war, if it is one by a war of attrition, will have been saved by the development of the Thannix as opposed to the older guns?


[quote]
Miranda: "As Cerberus operations go, this is one of the best I've been part of"
Shepard: "Maybe that's because this isn't a Cerberus operation"
[smilie]http://social.bioware.com/images/forum/emoticons/lol.png[/smilie]


[quote]
Not really a statement of its competence, but I like this phrase "Every predator defends its territory"[/quote]Humanity is a predator species. I see no reason to apologize for the comparison, or to romanticize the prey.

[quote]
Hundreds are a sign of bigger things to come.[/quote]The trillions that can follow, yes.

[quote]
If I truly believed Cerberus could manage that, blowing up or keeping the base would be a much tougher call.[/quote]How many times has Cerberus had a problem it couldn't send someone to fix that threatened the galaxy?


[quote]Ignorancy?  [/quote]The Truthiness of the day.

(And the fact that parts of my keyboard are beginning to stick with more frequency...)

[quote]
The turians already learned how to build a big honkin' space gun out of Sovereign.  Hardware from it went into building EDI.  I'm willing to bet wreckage from :  a trashed Collector base, a trashed Reaper larva, and a trashed Collector Cruiser will still give up some secrets.  That's in addition to material left behind on Horizon and Mordin's own research into Seeker swarms and the Collector plague on Omega.  [/quote]No one is denying that you can gather information from scraps. But scraps are in no way as good a resource, nor are they inherently safer technolgy development platforms.

You do realize that the people most likely to be studying the Collector remains on Horizon are the Cerberus aid/salvage teams, yes?
[quote]
So, base trashed, people killed, and monster roaming the countryside, then.

Surprise, surprise.
[/quote]Anderson attacking is a normal occurance for you?

Monster roaming the countryside didn't do much anyway.
[quote]
Advanced Omega- class Destroyers?[/quote]Why stop there?

I want Paragon Star Forges!


[quote]
Fortunately, Shepard managed to kill a bunch of them on Horizon.  And scan one on the Collector ship in such detail that EDI was able to pinpoint its ascestral homeworld.[/quote]So, you're admitting giving Cerberus collector technology to play around with is a good thing? 

[Dean_the_Young]

Pacifien wrote...

If you need to vent in the thread, you probably need to step away from the thread. Possibly even for 24 hours.

Or it was a joke.

[Inverness Moon]

I think some people don't realize that hacking in the game isn't the same as hacking in real life. Being able to hack geth multiple times like in the game is virtually impossible. Remote hacking like that would involve taking advantage of security flaws in programs using open communication ports. Not only that, but the geth have had 300 years to develop their programs and eliminate potential security problems.

Anyhow, I brought this up because it applies electronic warfare by reapers too. The only way for the reapers to disable your weapons as easily as some are suggesting, whether they are based on their own technology or not, is if the software was designed with that security hole in mind.

Now I just realize, what if the guys making software for the Alliance get indoctrinated? It would be a repeat of Battlestar Galactica.

That is highly unlikely though. 

Modifié par Inverness Moon, 18 octobre 2010 - 11:36 .