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[Phaedon]

chris025657 wrote...

Well, there is more than just potential data on Reapers in the Collector base: it has a Reaper in progress and the machinery and technology needed to build one. That alone could prove valuable to understanding more about Reapers. And with that understanding, you could look for and exploit weaknesses and potentially advance our

own technology for example.



There are certainly risks to studying it, but I see it like this:



Choice A: Destroy the base

Doing this eliminates the potential risks of keeping the base (such as a project failure or TIM using in counterproductive ways), but it also eliminates any potential technological gains to hedge against the risk of total genocide at the hands of the Reapers



Choice B: Keep the base

Now there is the risks associated with keeping the base, but the potential to mitigate the risk from the Reapers.

True enough. But consider this:

a) All the turians managed to do after 2 years of access to Reaper tech was to create the Thanix cannon, which isn't too valuable.

The Collectors needed 2+ years to construct the 50% of a Reaper.



I am not saying that the CB tech won't be very valuable if BW wants it to be, but I wouldn't (personally) risk it.

I've just always viewed keeping the base as less risky and the Reapers as a significantly bigger threat than potential negative consequences of keeping the base.

Well, since we have reached this point (pretty much the end of the debate), I think that we could agree, that saving/destroying the base depends on two risks:

a) TIM mishandling the base

Destroying a valuable asset against the Reapers



It all comes down to this, the rest are just arguments to support which risk we chose to take. Now, there is evidence to support that both of these risk exist. And whether they are of equal threat, is up to everyone to decide. And yeah, that's the solution to the debate that I suggest.

I, for one, am freaking curious as to why they needed the Human goo to build a Reaper, and why they made it look like a three-eyed terminator. And I will let no fear compromise my curiosity.

Technically, they don't need the human goo to build a Reaper. Goo is used neither as fuel or material for it's construction. A Reaper is a machine where 'goo' is stored. At least that's my theory.

[GuardianAngel470]

GodWood wrote...

GuardianAngel470 wrote...
Every experiment we know of that Cerberus has conducted has ended horribly. Rachni, thorian creepers, husks, Shepard, Jack, everything. To me, it is too much of a risk.

The Lazarus project was a complete success.
As was the construction of the SR2 and EDI.

Complete success with the death of all but three of the people on the base. Not as complete as I would define it and again, no precautions against it.

EDIT: And EDI betrayed Cerberus in favor of Shepard. Not a success in the strictest sense of the word.

Modifié par GuardianAngel470, 19 octobre 2010 - 09:31 .

[GuardianAngel470]

chris025657 wrote...

GuardianAngel470 wrote...

he also risked his own life to view his revenge on Grayson. he isn't above an emotional decision, he isn't the cold and logical person he wants you to believe. 

Now granted, this occured post suicide mission so it can't be used to justify a decision. However, it was obvious to me as I talked to him (using paragon lines) that he wasn't the logical person he portrayed himself as. He was prone to recklessness, as known from the Cerberus missions in ME1, he was quick to anger, relatively speaking, and he was ruthless.

TIM wasn't intentionally risking his life to get revenge on Grayson. He need a test subject and Grayson was a former operative. It was really the unexpected Turian invention that made everything dangerous. 

Zaeed had killed dozens of Cerberus operatives in the past and TIM was willing to overlook this for his usefulness against the Collectors. Shepard could have also killed many Cerberus operatives but again, TIM took the logical route in investing heavily into bringing him or her back to fight the Collectors and Reapers. 

Actually he was, he says so himself after the base gets attacked by the Turians.

[Dean_the_Young]

GuardianAngel470 wrote...

GodWood wrote...

GuardianAngel470 wrote...
Every experiment we know of that Cerberus has conducted has ended horribly. Rachni, thorian creepers, husks, Shepard, Jack, everything. To me, it is too much of a risk.

The Lazarus project was a complete success.
As was the construction of the SR2 and EDI.

Complete success with the death of all but three of the people on the base. Not as complete as I would define it and again, no precautions against it.

And your evidence that no precautions were taken is...

[GuardianAngel470]

Inverness Moon wrote...

GuardianAngel470 wrote...

Inverness, what about the reaper nanotechnology that created a direct link to the Reapers in Dark space? Maybe not all hardware has viruses but hardware that can think for itself definitely does.

And it can write its own, like it did in Retribution.

What about it? Nanomachines aren't going to spontaneously appear in technology we created based on collector/reaper technology. I don't see what your point is.

Also, those nanomachines do what they do because they have software designed to make them act as viruses. TIM deliberately took the nanomachines as-is rather than creating his own so he could study the effects. This doesn't seem like a good example to me.

And what can write its own what?

Christmas Ape wrote...

I'm curious what the value of the metaphorical "wiped Collector hard drive" is. I mean, Cerberus already built EDI out of Reaper-tech, and she can pretty much tapdance through Collector systems like their security relied on Windows passwords, so I think it's fair to say their actual data storage and transmission systems are pretty much a known quantity. Assuming we purge the actual data completely for virus security - and assuming that a machine race who can produce geth-rewriting viruses with an evident minimum of trouble can't trap the firmware itself - we're left with some familiar technology.
And really, that the present races manufacture quantum mainframes and networked sapient software suggest to me that arguing about the capabilities of information technology of a species millions of years ahead of us, based on our present understanding, is a little like protesting that powered heavier-than-air flight is impossible because you're having a lot of trouble building a jet liner with flint knives and bearskins.

You seem to be implying that the collector base only has the value of a wiped hard drive, and not the value of a factory used for constructing reapers and advanced technology used to trade to organics.

We also really don't need to purge all the data in the collector base. Viruses are not magic, viral code will not be able to do anything if you don't execute it. The collectors wouldn't even need to have viruses in their computer since they didn't believe anyone would ever reach the base.

You're also making some pretty big assumptions about EDI's relative level of success and collector computer systems compared to the rest of the galaxy. Anyhow, it's not really the physical computer systems that are important.

You're also forgetting that the Reapers are partly biological which means there doesn't necessarily need to be software in their tech for it to operate. Any tech we find may be partly biological and self sentient on its own and if it were made of organic plastics there's no way we could tell the difference.

[Dean_the_Young]

Life signs.



The reapers are synthetic. They come from biological-based paste turned metalic (really the best example of a synthetic process yet), but no one, at any point, has confused any Reaper for an organic construct.



Reaper tech is just that: tech. It can highly capable. It can have hidden functions. But nothing has suggested that their technology itself-sentient, and have multiple examples of Reaper tech duplicated by non-Reaper means and materials.

[GuardianAngel470]

Dean_the_Young wrote...

GuardianAngel470 wrote...

GodWood wrote...

GuardianAngel470 wrote...
Every experiment we know of that Cerberus has conducted has ended horribly. Rachni, thorian creepers, husks, Shepard, Jack, everything. To me, it is too much of a risk.

The Lazarus project was a complete success.
As was the construction of the SR2 and EDI.

Complete success with the death of all but three of the people on the base. Not as complete as I would define it and again, no precautions against it.

And your evidence that no precautions were taken is...

The fact that one man, a greedy and self absorbed man, could turn all the mechs against the crew right under the noses of Miranda and Jacob as if he were changing the temperature of his private cabin. There were no subroutines in the software that required Miranda's approval, there were no backup shutoff systems that she could trigger from her omnitool.

Yes it is speculation, but it is well grounded. The SB obviously didn't have enough of an influence on the station to simply tell Wilson how to bypass the systems. It can be assumed from Jacob's loyalty mission that TIM holds tight control of data traffic during his operations. This leads me to conclude that a shunt program similar to the one Liara uses in LotSB would not be in Wilson's possession.
Wilson obviously got past the systems somehow but Miranda, in all her technical expertise, couldn't reverse the things he had unleashed. She should have been able to if there were failsafes and manual overrides in place, but she doesn't so I believe there wasn't.

[GuardianAngel470]

Dean_the_Young wrote...

Life signs.

The reapers are synthetic. They come from biological-based paste turned metalic (really the best example of a synthetic process yet), but no one, at any point, has confused any Reaper for an organic construct.

Reaper tech is just that: tech. It can highly capable. It can have hidden functions. But nothing has suggested that their technology itself-sentient, and have multiple examples of Reaper tech duplicated by non-Reaper means and materials.

I'm just saying that we know too little to completely rule out the possibility that Reaper tech could operate on its own without programs.

Also, a wiped harddrive does not mean a clean system. The US government doesn't allow the use of thumb drives in any of their computer hardware because there had been Chinese viruses planted in secondary memory banks. Even though the drives were empty, there were still viruses.

A complete EMP wipe would likely damage the components on its own and thus render it useless.

However, none of that is why I destroy the base, I'm just arguing for the sake of it because I saw flaws in an existing argument.

[Dean_the_Young]

No,it's pretty much groundless speculation.

Considering, you know, Jacob actually challenges Wilson about how he could have gotten security clearance. Which is a god-damn precaution.

Success of one person does not, and has never, automatically linked to an absence of preparation to the other. You can't even argue that there wasn't such a sub-routine, but that Wilson's means didn't get around it.

Wilson was an agent of the Shadow Broker, who in the story is well capable of beating and then taking advantage of security systems. (Another god-damn precaution.)

Modifié par Dean_the_Young, 19 octobre 2010 - 09:52 .

[AntenDS]

I don't trust TIM to do the right thing with the Reaper Tech. I would of saved the base if It was for the council but not for TIM. The Reapers is a threat all life in the universe and humanity isn't the only life in the universe. The many council races will bicker back and forth but at least it is a joint effort.

[NYG1991]

Just checked the poll earlier and been reading the main reasons for destroying the base. Seems the main reason for destroying it is people don't trust Timmy. While I destroyed it for this reason too I also wouldn't have trusted the council with it. I think both of them have their own agendas separate from the reaper threat and will just undermine sheps operations if given the base.



Just as well fight without it. So far, it's shep 2 - reapers 0. Just load shep in a torpedo tube and fire him at the reapers and he'll kill 'em one by one from within.

[GuardianAngel470]

Dean_the_Young wrote...

No,it's pretty much groundless speculation.

Considering, you know, Jacob actually challenges Wilson about how he could have gotten security clearance. Which is a god-damn precaution.

Success of one person does not, and has never, automatically linked to an absence of preparation to the other. You can't even argue that there wasn't such a sub-routine, but that Wilson's means didn't get around it.

Wilson was an agent of the Shadow Broker, who in the story is well capable of beating and then taking advantage of security systems. (Another god-damn precaution.)

And what was the backup plan? TIM should have known that the SB would be after Sheps body, where was the Backup plan in case he did? Miranda nearly gets killed, Jacob survives because of Shepard, and they were completely unprepared because Jacob tells you he was in his bunk asleep when the attack happened and that he had been fighting ever since.

Had I been TIM, I would have provided both the operative in charge, Miranda, as well as the man in charge of security, Jacob, with overarching control of the base software. He's clever enough to put limiting protocols in EDI's programming but he can't put the same kind of protocols in the security systems of his most important and vulnerable operation?

He can obviously write his own code and any agency or goverment worth their salt produces their own mission-critical hardware so either the mechs were standard issue Hahn-Keddar mechs, which in and of itself is a huge lack of precaution, or they were developed or modified by TIM. In the latter's case, you would expect some sort of protocols in the software that obviously weren't there.

[AntenDS]

NYG1991 wrote...
while I destroyed it for this reason too I also wouldn't have trusted the council with it. I think both of them have their own agendas separate from the reaper threat and will just undermine sheps operations if given the base.

The base would be good proof and it would allow them to work covertly.  The councill are pretty powerless and public knowledge of the reapers would show that.  I don't think any of them are working with the reapers they just can't do crap about it. 

[AntenDS]

double post

Modifié par AntenDS, 19 octobre 2010 - 11:45 .

[Thane19]

Here's something I don't understand. Why were the only two options to save it *and* give it to TIM, or blow it up?

How about this for a different ending: How about we keep the base, and don't give it to *either* TIM or the council?

We have the only known Reaper IFF, unless EDI transmitted the data to TIM, he cannot get through the Omega 4 Relay without getting his ship blown out from under him, I assume due to jumping right into the debris.

So a true Renegade decision would be to keep it- for Shepard to use. The Normandy turns around and heads back to the base, and that's our base of operations for strikes against the Reapers for Mass Effect 3- and put up a ton of defenses around the Omega 4 Relay, like a chokepoint- so if they try to jump through to get to you, you can destroy them. It would be a safezone.

Alas, since Bioware could only give us two options, something slightly complex, like the above scenario, could never happen. But I can dream.

Modifié par Thane19, 19 octobre 2010 - 11:51 .

[Inquisitor Recon]

Indeed the collector base and what lies within will be one more chance to convince the council the reapers are a real threat, and if they still refuse to believe, I'll turn them into a reaper smoothie.

[Arijharn]

If Wilson had an auto-breaking algorithm, then it wouldn't matter if Miranda's approval would normally be needed, because the program would just bypass that sort of thing. Case in point, Shephard (and Saren) managed to hack their control of the Citadel's arms, you'd think that normally that sort of thing would have very stringent security protocols, perhaps much more stringent than whatever checks and balances the Lazarus station would have.

[AntenDS]

Arijharn wrote...

If Wilson had an auto-breaking algorithm, then it wouldn't matter if Miranda's approval would normally be needed, because the program would just bypass that sort of thing. Case in point, Shephard (and Saren) managed to hack their control of the Citadel's arms, you'd think that normally that sort of thing would have very stringent security protocols, perhaps much more stringent than whatever checks and balances the Lazarus station would have.

I doubt anyone but the Prothens cracked the base code of the Citadel.  Saren and Shep weren't hacking the firewalls that the council put up but the base code originally made for the citadel and the trojan horse the Prothens put in.

Modifié par AntenDS, 20 octobre 2010 - 01:19 .

[GuardianAngel470]

Arijharn wrote...

If Wilson had an auto-breaking algorithm, then it wouldn't matter if Miranda's approval would normally be needed, because the program would just bypass that sort of thing. Case in point, Shephard (and Saren) managed to hack their control of the Citadel's arms, you'd think that normally that sort of thing would have very stringent security protocols, perhaps much more stringent than whatever checks and balances the Lazarus station would have.

The hacking program still needs to work within the confines of the system. It can't on its own create a new system, it just gives Wilson access to it when he normally wouldn't.

Protocols that could have been in place include an override switch. Because these things obviously work from a hub, such a switch could turn off the hub, prompting all the mechs to shut down.

Even if direct control of the mechs was cut off by Wilson, an underlying part of the code like an override would still remain active, and since such a code would be unknown to Wilson as he didn't write it, he would have no need to put in place his own OS as it were.

It could even be external. Say the software does get hacked but Miranda has access to power systems that have been tied into the security systems and she can shut down all power to the security systems without going through them.

There are dozens of failsafes that could have prevented that. It could even be something like Asimov's three laws but only for Cerberus employees. Even if Wilson got control of the mechs, he couldn't attack the cerberus personnel because the mechs would be programmed to not attack Cerberus personnel.

Anytime you rely on machines to do a job you are putting everything in their hands. To not prepare for the possibility of targeting corruption or sabotage is reckless.

[GuardianAngel470]

AntenDS wrote...

Arijharn wrote...

If Wilson had an auto-breaking algorithm, then it wouldn't matter if Miranda's approval would normally be needed, because the program would just bypass that sort of thing. Case in point, Shephard (and Saren) managed to hack their control of the Citadel's arms, you'd think that normally that sort of thing would have very stringent security protocols, perhaps much more stringent than whatever checks and balances the Lazarus station would have.

I doubt anyone but the Prothens cracked the base code of the Citadel.  Saren and Shep weren't hacking the firewalls that the council put up but the base code originally made for the citadel and the trojan horse the Prothens put in.

I don't think they hacked anything. There was an invisible system in place that the council didn't know about. Subroutines that have the Reapers control when they asked. These subroutines could be controlled from the Citadel's Master control center. This is actually the exact type of thing that I am talking about TIM not doing on the Lazarus project.

[GuardianAngel470]

I would have trusted Anderson with it. He isn't a politician, he's a military man used to getting things done but within the confines of reason.



I wouldn't have cared who he hired to look at it, as long as he oversaw everything.



Failing that I would have given it to the Geth or the Quarians. The former has nothing to gain from being reckless and in fact could most likely predict more possible outcomes and create precautions against them than anyone else and the latter just because of their expertise. I would make a point though to make peace between them and the geth and gotten their homeworld back before I gave it to them. In the end they might try to use it somehow against the geth otherwise.

[Inverness Moon]

Thane19 wrote...

Here's something I don't understand. Why were the only two options to save it *and* give it to TIM, or blow it up?

How about this for a different ending: How about we keep the base, and don't give it to *either* TIM or the council?

We have the only known Reaper IFF, unless EDI transmitted the data to TIM, he cannot get through the Omega 4 Relay without getting his ship blown out from under him, I assume due to jumping right into the debris.

So a true Renegade decision would be to keep it- for Shepard to use. The Normandy turns around and heads back to the base, and that's our base of operations for strikes against the Reapers for Mass Effect 3- and put up a ton of defenses around the Omega 4 Relay, like a chokepoint- so if they try to jump through to get to you, you can destroy them. It would be a safezone.

Alas, since Bioware could only give us two options, something slightly complex, like the above scenario, could never happen. But I can dream.

I don't mean to be rude, but what you just suggested is completely ridiculous. I'd much rather give it to Cerberus than your Shepard. At least I know Cerberus would actively use the technology in the base to try to find a way to stop the reapers, rather than just hole themselves up in the base while the rest of the galaxy is wiped out.

What you're suggesting isn't renegade, but stupid.

Modifié par Inverness Moon, 20 octobre 2010 - 04:04 .

[lovgreno]

GuardianAngel470 wrote...
Anytime you rely on machines to do a job you are putting everything in their hands. To not prepare for the possibility of targeting corruption or sabotage is reckless.

And Cerberus obviously almost always fail to make their machines safe.

[GuardianAngel470]

lovgreno wrote...

GuardianAngel470 wrote...
Anytime you rely on machines to do a job you are putting everything in their hands. To not prepare for the possibility of targeting corruption or sabotage is reckless.

And Cerberus obviously almost always fail to make their machines safe.

I did have to upgrade the normandy, even though I based all of my upgrades on assumptions that TIM could make.

[TcheQ]

Samara thinks the Illusive man doesn't have the wisdom to utilise the reaper technology. The virus hidden in the Reaper IFF should be evidence that Cerberus is not as prepared as he thinks. Reaper's are pure evil, there is no good that can come out of genetic experiments and alterations. At best, Cerberus will turn all it's operatives into an army of husks.