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[Collider]

SmokeyPSD wrote...

Um, why is the Akuze background not being talked about by The Illusive Man a negative?

No, not by TIM. By Shepard.

[Nightwriter]

SmokeyPSD wrote...

For me with the choices I picked I felt pretty antagonistic as it is toward him. I at least had already decided I was going to hear him out on the base while talking to Jacob even before I stepped onto the hologram deck.

I really do reject the idea of Cerberus's servant aswell. I felt less of a servant of Cerberus than I did the Council honestly. The Illusive Man brings you back with the objective of giving you a very, very long leash and backing you all the way. That doesn't compare to your dealings with the council at all. It feels like a proper two way alliance. Both benefit enormously. It most likely will end in tears, no matter what we all choose at the end of ME2 but the Collector's and the Reaper's the main threat against the entire galaxy. The stakes are extremely high. Only Shepard and The Illusive Man seem to truely understand this. The Illusive Man is prepared to do more than the Alliance and Council combined, every step of the way with Shepard.
The council however questions just about everything you do and finally when you do track down Saren and pull things into perspective, the Council has weak knees, completely. It's almost like the council did not really expect much from the first human spectre.

In the end you walk away from the council the moment you return to the citadel and it's grounded. You go against their authority.

I really don't understand how people can feel this way.

The Council gives you leads and then backs off. You're a free agent. TIM actually gives you orders and you must follow them. Now. Right now. You can protest but it means nothing. You are a protesting child who must still clean their room.

Part of this is that I'm not motivated by the Collectors. I hope you can see how this disrupts everything. TIM tells me about the Collectors and I quirk an eyebrow but I do not instantly feel they are this dire threat which necessitates working with these people.

[SmokeyPSD]

? I still don't understand



In the end it's way in the past, and though shaping who Shepard is, seeing his entire family die not really relevent to this at all.

[SmokeyPSD]

Your a free agent, until you bring it home and then they tell you to do nothing.

[Nightwriter]

psienesis wrote...

Council law, in Council space, is as solid a governing body you're going to find that spans half of a galaxy and uncounted trillions of people of various species. In the Traverse, where most of the set-pieces of ME2 are placed, the Council is a foreign state, who's laws don't apply.

Back on the Citadel, there's all of two people of any importance who know what really happened in ME1. Councilor Udina and his assistant, Admiral Anderson. Anderson is not a Councilor, he's just Udina's assistant. Udina is a politician, and supremely selfish and obviously a shrewd humanocentric idealist (which, basically, makes him and TIM the same). Udina doesn't listen to Anderson, Anderson has no political clout. All of the Councilors you convinced to help you fight the Geth and Saren died when you let their ship get blown up during Sovereign's attack on the Citadel. Udina has no interest in trying to tie the other races of the Council into a pact of war against an enemy in a region of space they don't control and haven't even seen. It's politically untenable for him, and also provides him with little immediate profit. Not to mention that, in ME2, the bulk of the Council's military might is human, so in a long or particularly violent conflict, Humanity has the most to lose, especially if the enemy is not attacking the colonies of other races. Even if such a war were to come about, Udina may fear that humans would be too weakened by its course to maintain a hold on the political power they had so recently gained. Thus... no Council help for Shep. Udina never liked you anyway.

Basically, there's two worlds at work here. There's however you played ME1, and then there is the "canonical" events that ME2 assumes. I didn't go that route in my ME1 play-throughs, but apparently I left the Council to die, left Adenko to die at Saren's Quick-Krogan-O-Matic lab and punched a baby or something. Whatever, this is the backstory we are presented with in ME2.

Me, I play "Grey Shep", making Paragon/Renegade choices based on whatever I feel is the right choice at the time. This keeps both scores right about the same throughout the game (though does, at times, deny choosing either of their dialog options). That said, Cerberus is not your enemy in the same way that the Geth or the Collectors or the Reapers are your enemy. Sure, you've had entanglements with them in the past, whenever one side got in the path of the other, but they're humans, with human morals, human emotions and human drives. Familiar. Understandable. They have things you can relate to and, if needed, exploit. Cerberus is my enemy only when Cerberus makes themselves my enemy, and they're apparently not enemy enough to pass on spending 4 billion credits to resurrect my frozen corpse *after* tipping of Liara and friends to rescue it from the Shadow Broker, who was going to sell my remains to the Collectors.

Act 1 plays out in the best way that it could have, given the constraints of the game and the fact that it had to be accessible to people who'd never played ME1. Seeing yourself die, your ship blow up, chaos and bloodshed, just to wake up in a laboratory with some weird glowy bits on your skin, is enough to provide the most basic, primary motivation to work with Cerberus: you owe them your life. Cerberus alone has offered you a chance to avenge your untimely end.

There is, of course, the unstated threat that Miranda hints at. She wanted to put in a control chip, but TIM said no. That doesn't mean you don't have a cortex bomb implanted in your skull. They've also got your DNA and a particularly fat file on all your adventures. They could just space-walk you, clone a few million copies, and through neural induction and implanted memories, remake you in the Cerberus image. Eventually, they might get one that works. There's all of 2 returning characters from ME1 recruited into the Normandy SR2 crew... and, to be honest, I almost never use Garrus for anything. Didn't in ME1, either. Like the character well enough, but there are other, better people to fill the role he takes in squad actions. The adventure can get along without him. Having the "real" Shep to recruit these people just makes it easier, not really required.

So, while the idea of escaping the lab alone to return to the Citadel only to find that you've been listed as MIA: Presumed Dead and a brand-new Council that isn't going to listen to you anyway and that ponce Udina firmly holding the reins of power, is interesting and, sure, would have been an interesting, alternate beginning, it really does nothing but add thirty minutes to an hour of travel and cut-scenes to put you right back at Cerberus Lab #2 with Jacob and Miranda and your long-distance call to TIM. From a pacing perspective, and from a design perspective for a player new to the series, I can see why they didn't go that route. It's unnecessary, because you get the same information from TIM, which Anderson confirms if and when you bother to go back to the Citadel to talk to him. If you've played ME1 before, you know that the Council moves but very slowly, and the galactic bureaucracy would tie you up in red tape until the Collectors were knocking on the door before you could even get the keys to a starship.

So basically, this is another case of ME1 players suffering for the game's stand-alone status.

[RiouHotaru]

Nightwriter wrote...

I really don't understand how people can feel this way.

The Council gives you leads and then backs off. You're a free agent. TIM actually gives you orders and you must follow them. Now. Right now. You can protest but it means nothing. You are a protesting child who must still clean their room.

Part of this is that I'm not motivated by the Collectors. I hope you can see how this disrupts everything. TIM tells me about the Collectors and I quirk an eyebrow but I do not instantly feel they are this dire threat which necessitates working with these people.

I admit to feeling some sense of communist choice, but then again, TIM is offering the only lead, and the only group seeming to be taking the potential threat seriously anymore.  I don't like him any more than you do, but he isn't wrong, 2 years later and everyone immediately dismissed your claims (Pun intended).  I found it odd that out of everyone who DISbelieves me, that TIM thinks I'm onto something.

Then he offers up Freedom's Progress (Oh the irony of the name...), and though suspicious, I take the bait.  I mean sure, if nothing comes up, then I'll try again where I left off.  If he's right...then there's a credible threat to address.

[Nightwriter]

What potential threat? Offering the only lead to what? As of the first TIM conversation, I mean.



Oh and I'd never thought about the irony of the name and just laughed my ass off, so kudos.

[Christmas Ape]

Nightwriter wrote...
I really don't understand how people can feel this way.

The Council gives you leads and then backs off. You're a free agent.

Who is not only answerable to them but did things wrong, every time, no matter what you do. You get denied Ilos because you set off a 20 kiloton warhead in the Terminus Systems that destroyed an army of krogan bent on overthrowing their sorry asses - in most circles that's considered a net gain. You get grounded because the Council won't accept anything you say until you rub their faces in it, regardless of how many times you prove yourself right. I spent half of Mass Effect asking the screen "Why did they even appoint me? Am I being set up to fail and embarass the proud nail that is the Alliance?".

TIM actually gives you orders and you must follow them. Now. Right now. You can protest but it means nothing. You are a protesting child who must still clean their room.

tIM alerts you to situations that are happening now. Right now. Things that will stop happening in very short order and are directly and intimately related to the mission. "I don't want to stop the Collectors from taking the Horizon colonists" is just petulance because you want old Daddy back. As far as I'm concerned, the game needs to let you ignore time-sensitive opportunities because they come from tIM as much as it needed to let you avoid Noveria because it's too cold.

Part of this is that I'm not motivated by the Collectors. I hope you can see how this disrupts everything. TIM tells me about the Collectors and I quirk an eyebrow but I do not instantly feel they are this dire threat which necessitates working with these people.

I think that's pretty much going to be the uncrossable gulf. By the time I knew who blew up my ship, I felt pretty certain Pressly wasn't the first Alliance officer to mistake their activity for slaver raids. They've been out there grabbing colonists for who knows how long. How many have we lost from the shadows? How many unanswered deaths, how many lost colonies? I know everything I needed to know in three words: "They're targeting humanity". That's enough for Shepard, or at least it should be.

Modifié par Christmas Ape, 29 octobre 2010 - 09:43 .

[SmokeyPSD]

Yeah for me personally the Illusive Man's leaning towards what decisions he would prefer from you is obvious, but he backs you regardless eitherway. The biggest leads he gives you still work in the same respect as the councils leads did, they merely provide direction. They aren't "orders". Sure, they might be from a gameplay perspective, your locked in to go, but that's metathinking. If your immersed in the dialog it really isn't different to getting the lead to go to Virmire many occurances.



Not so with the council. on my 2nd playthrough I've ended up either disconnecting or just not reporting back to them anymore at all.

[Nightwriter]

So... you didn't like the Council, so you don't want to work with them. Yet though I don't like Cerberus, I'm not allowed to not want to work with them?



As for your second point - I'm referring to the design choice.



And for your third, my biggest thing with the Collector presentation is the tell-don't-show approach. I hear about colonies going missing before I see it. Sometimes I wish the opening of ME2 had involved me seeing the Feros colony getting abducted. But the colony didn't canonically survive.

[RiouHotaru]

Nightwriter wrote...

So... you didn't like the Council, so you don't want to work with them. Yet though I don't like Cerberus, I'm not allowed to not want to work with them?

As for your second point - I'm referring to the design choice.

And for your third, my biggest thing with the Collector presentation is the tell-don't-show approach. I hear about colonies going missing before I see it. Sometimes I wish the opening of ME2 had involved me seeing the Feros colony getting abducted. But the colony didn't canonically survive.

Glad I could make you laugh ;D

And wait, Feros didn't?  I recall being told they DID make it.  Shiala said so herself.

...Unless you're referring to YOUR canon, in which case I apologize.

[SmokeyPSD]

No, I like the council as a whole. It's not that I don't want to work with them. I do work with them, I want to, still want to, I even save them in my 1st and what I consider my canon playthrough. That however shapes my character and my view of the council. I'm critical of my specific dealings with them and their judements in the time of ME1.

[Nightwriter]

Sorry, I meant some renegades imported an ME1 playthrough where they killed the Feros colony. So what I suggested wouldn't work.

And that's pretty much an exact parallel of my feelings for the Council, Smokey.

Modifié par Nightwriter, 29 octobre 2010 - 10:06 .

[Christmas Ape]

Nightwriter wrote...
So... you didn't like the Council, so you don't want to work with them. Yet though I don't like Cerberus, I'm not allowed to not want to work with them?

Who's telling you what you can or can't want? Even if they are an intolerably self-satisfied political body with no real authority, deeply ingrained speciesism, and a historical record of engaging in genocide and the intentional infliction of humanitarian(alienitarian?) crises on species who defy them, I recognize the narrative necessity of their involvement. I reject them as a body and as an authority, but they can unlock the doors that will let me hunt down Saren for his part in Eden Prime and eventually lead me to the Virmire Revelation. They are a requisite element in the story, and even if I get forced into working for them I get why.

As for your second point - I'm referring to the design choice.

I...yes? What? They chose to make the plot missions non-optional. They did it the first time too. Is it about the sense of urgency they attempt to create by requiring you to pursue them? You might not have felt it, but I found that sorely lacking in the first game and appreciated the effort.

And for your third, my biggest thing with the Collector presentation is the tell-don't-show approach. I hear about colonies going missing before I see it.

Considering just how much exposition is already found in the franchise, I didn't really mind a tiny bit of it being about the plot. Why weren't we shown more about Spectres instead of having to listen to Chakwas opine vaguely and Jenkins gush like a kid coming out of a Star Wars movie?

[SmokeyPSD]

I seem to have misunderstood. Perhaps you weren't even directing



So... you didn't like the Council, so you don't want to work with them. Yet though I don't like Cerberus, I'm not allowed to not want to work with them?



at me

[Nightwriter]

Christmas Ape wrote...

Who's telling you what you can or can't want?

Not directed at you specifically, just your side of the argument. Sorry about that. See:

Smokey PSD wrote...

So pretty much, you just don't like the Illusive man and Cerberus. Nice.

Though I should point out, I mean, it's not entirely unreasonable for the player to have a negative impression of Cerberus after playing ME1, right?

Christmas Ape wrote...

I...yes? What? They chose to make the plot missions non-optional. They did it the first time too. Is it about the sense of urgency they attempt to create by requiring you to pursue them? You might not have felt it, but I found that sorely lacking in the first game and appreciated the effort.

I actually agree with this. It's more things like "I want to contact the Alliance" and TIM just going "no", and TIM tricking you or manipulating you and you just take it. You can be angry, but it is impotent anger - he even tricks you again.

Christmas Ape wrote...

Considering just how much exposition is already found in the franchise, I didn't really mind a tiny bit of it being about the plot. Why weren't we shown more about Spectres instead of having to listen to Chakwas opine vaguely and Jenkins gush like a kid coming out of a Star Wars movie?

Agree with you again. However I feel things like what a Spectre is aren't quite as important as the driving engine of the whole plot (the Collectors).

Compare it to ME1. The opening is very personal, we're right on Eden Prime when it happens and we see everything go down. Then we go to the Council and they tell us we're not allowed to do anything about it. Which makes us want to do something about it.

In ME2, we're told about the Collectors, are shown nothing, and then told we want to do something about it.

[Christmas Ape]

Nightwriter wrote...

Christmas Ape wrote...
Who's telling you what you can or can't want?

Not directed at you specifically, just your side of the argument. Sorry about that. See:

Smokey PSD wrote...
So pretty much, you just don't like the Illusive man and Cerberus. Nice.

Though I should point out, I mean, it's not entirely unreasonable for the player to have a negative impression of Cerberus after playing ME1, right?

All good, just making sure it was clear I don't mind if you don't want to work with Cerberus. Just so long as you can see the narrative argument for it.
I do absolutely grant you it's reasonable to take that stance. I didn't share it, but I think my impressions of Cerberus between the two games is a bit of a side-track from the issue.

Christmas Ape wrote...
I...yes? What? They chose to make the plot missions non-optional. They did it the first time too. Is it about the sense of urgency they attempt to create by requiring you to pursue them? You might not have felt it, but I found that sorely lacking in the first game and appreciated the effort.

I actually agree with this. It's more things like "I want to contact the Alliance" and TIM just going "no", and TIM tricking you or manipulating you and you just take it. You can be angry, but it is impotent anger - he even tricks you again.

I have a theory, actually; the SR-2 doesn't have a conventional FTL comm, just the QEC and a burst-feed data transmitter for email. It seems odd otherwise that no-one ever uses it.

Christmas Ape wrote...
Considering just how much exposition is already found in the franchise, I didn't really mind a tiny bit of it being about the plot. Why weren't we shown more about Spectres instead of having to listen to Chakwas opine vaguely and Jenkins gush like a kid coming out of a Star Wars movie?

Agree with you again. However I feel things like what a Spectre is aren't quite as important as the driving engine of the whole plot (the Collectors).

It's sort of a big point of Mass Effect, I'd say, the nature and obligations of Spectres. We do see Freedom's Progress, which is what you're looking for just later, while all we really see about Spectres is everyone overstating Nihlus' armament (seriously, what is up with that? He's got a shotgun, and everyone describes him like a walking armory) and then him getting shot in the back of the head.

Compare it to ME1. The opening is very personal, we're right on Eden Prime when it happens and we see everything go down. Then we go to the Council and they tell us we're not allowed to do anything about it. Which makes us want to do something about it.

They blew up my ship and killed me so they could re-enact Eden Prime several times over. I'm giving this one to the Collectors.

In ME2, we're told about the Collectors, are shown nothing, and then told we want to do something about it.

They blew up my ship, and they killed me and half of my crew. I didn't know what they were yet, but I knew they thought they'd finished me off.
That's not a mistake one gets to make twice.

Modifié par Christmas Ape, 29 octobre 2010 - 10:49 .

[SmokeyPSD]

I too was wary and had negative views of cerberus coming into ME2. It just started to feel like you were saying I hate just being handled by Cerberus and being given orders mindlessly by them. I'd rather it be done by the council. Not really much logic behind wanting to not work with them. Just bias, not saying I feel that. Just explaining my initial comment.

[Nightwriter]

Well, blowing up my ship isn't really the story-driver. The story-driver is these missing colonies. I'm not working with Cerberus because my ship got blown up. I'm working with them because of these missing colonies. So I think I should see one go missing first, get angry, try to go to the Council, get stonewalled, then turn to Cerberus. This feels more like the natural order of things.

I agree with you about Nihlus and the Spectres, but they do follow the show-don't-tell rule when they introduce you to Saren. So they do effectively motivate you to stop the enemy.

Modifié par Nightwriter, 29 octobre 2010 - 10:57 .

[Christmas Ape]

Nightwriter wrote...
Well, blowing up my ship isn't really the story-driver. The story-driver is these missing colonies. I'm not working with Cerberus because my ship got blown up. I'm working with them because of these missing colonies. So I think I should see one go missing first, get angry, try to go to the Council, get stonewalled, then turn to Cerberus. This feels more like the natural order of things.

I agree with you about Nihlus and the Spectres, but they do follow the show-don't-tell rule when they introduce you to Saren. So they do effectively motivate you to stop the enemy.

Your first and last sentences are relevant to each other for me; I was motivated to stop the enemy because they blew up my goddamn ship. That's why I keep returning to it.

And hell, the Council stonewalled you at every opportunity save "Here's your badge" and "Oh yeah, we've had an STG team monitoring Saren's activities for a while now, but it didn't seem relevant...", and all of that started with "Oh noez, the Terminus Systems! We can't possibly risk making the pirates angry!" - which is where we were losing colonies. I saw Council stonewalling coming from the moment "human colonies are disappearing" reached my ears.

[Nightwriter]

So am I at a disadvantage because I knew the Normandy was going to be destroyed months and months before the release? And that it was a necessary plot mechanic? That's why I don't incorporate it into my motivation against the Collectors. Plus the Collector attack is pretty impersonal, I'd have liked to see some actual Collectors in the Normandy.

And I still feel we should've at least gone to the Council first. Why? Because the Council's whole reason for denying us help is "you're working with Cerberus". Which is why it's so backwards we agree to work with them before we ask the Council for help. Since I didn't want to work with Cerberus - since I did want to come to the Council first - this is especially frustrating for me. I didn't choose to work with Cerberus, but am treated like I did.

Modifié par Nightwriter, 29 octobre 2010 - 11:21 .

[Christmas Ape]

Nightwriter wrote...
So am I at a disadvantage because I knew the Normandy was going to be destroyed months and months before the release? And that it was a necessary plot mechanic? That's why I don't incorporate it into my motivation against the Collectors.

I guess so. Spoilers are bad for you.

Plus the Collector attack is pretty impersonal, I'd have liked to see some actual Collectors in the Normandy.

It's not Star Trek, they don't have transporters. It would have been ridiculous.

And I still feel we should've at least gone to the Council first. Why? Because the Council's whole reason for denying us help is "you're working with Cerberus". Which is why it's so backwards we agree to work with them before we ask the Council for help. Since I didn't want to work with Cerberus - since I did want to come to the Council first - this is especially frustrating for me. I didn't choose to work with Cerberus, but am treated like I am.

At least some of it seems to be that you're also mentally unstable, and while your heroism at the Battle of the Citadel wins you some points you're still openly motivated by what the Council publically considers a paranoid delusion and will not be seen to encourage.

[Nightwriter]

I don't think it would've been ridiculous. It would've been cool. Collectors dropping in through holes in the roof. They can survive in vacuum space. They're mindless automatons. They're coming for Shepard, they want Shepard. It would solve the whole why-did-they-blow-up-the-Normandy-if-they-wanted-Shepard's-body dilemma. But never mind.

The Council acknowledges the Reapers at the end of ME1. That's what gets me. They make you feel like you're committed to stopping the Reapers and the whole galaxy is on board now.

[Christmas Ape]

Nightwriter wrote...
I don't think it would've been ridiculous. It would've been cool. Collectors dropping in through holes in the roof. They can survive in vacuum space. They're mindless automatons. They're coming for Shepard, they want Shepard. It would solve the whole why-did-they-blow-up-the-Normandy-if-they-wanted-Shepard's-body dilemma. But never mind.

I rather like that they acknowledge that actually boarding a spaceship undergoing evasive maneuvers is basically impossible without magic teleporters. If you could deliver them in boarding torpedoes - wouldn't you just use torpedoes? Sure, it would be nice to get Shepard, but the Reapers are big picture thinkers in a way we don't comprehend well and I can see them settling for dead pretty handily. She's just one organic.

The Council acknowledges the Reapers at the end of ME1. That's what gets me. They make you feel like you're committed to stopping the Reapers and the whole galaxy is on board now.

Yeah, in a real "you, me, and the streetlight" meeting on the Presidium hours after the Battle of the Citadel, a meeting which is even more circumspect than the induction of a Spectre.
"I have no recollection of that discussion, Shepard."

[Nightwriter]

If Collectors can board the Normandy SR2, they can board the Normandy SR1.

And it's not about that, Christmas, it's about the impression the game gives the player.