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[Magical Master]

DarthCaine wrote...

The real question is: why didn't he just blow up the prisoners when you let him go? He could have just as easily escaped.

No, the real question is why the Normandy didn't kill track and kill Balak, either on the ground or in his ship.  Even if Balak blew the whole place and killed Shepard, the Normady would have still killed him.

Hell, that's the main reason I always take the Paragon choice.  I agree with the point about never letting the hostage taker escape being priority, even if it means the lives of one or more hostages.  But I think the choice is so sloppily implemented that I'm not going to cater to it given all of the options that should have been available (like the Normandy intercepting Balak).   I think if you let Balak start running that the 2 minute or whatever timer represents Balak getting out of the blast range himself (in terms of him not blowing the whole place...I'm not sure why he wouldn't still kill the hostages at that point anyway either).  But Balak should still be caught then anyway, period, regardless, as he needs a ship to get away from there.

I think one of the main plot holes is actually when you DO attack Balak and he's beaten, bleeding out or about to die (especially if you leave him for the Alliance or let him bleed out).  Why the hell doesn't he blow everything at that point, killing Shepard, squadmates, and Simon?

Modifié par Magical Master, 11 novembre 2010 - 03:40 .

[DPSSOC]

I don't think Balak has the whole facility rigged to blow, just the hostages and he sets those off at the outset of your fight. As for not capturing him, maybe he doesn't leave right away. He knows you've stopped the asteroid so it's not like he's in any real hurry to get away, he could just remain in his ship and, since ship sensors only pick up emissions (hence why the Normandy's stealth system works), all he has to do is sit put until he's sure you're gone. Or maybe the Normandy does go after him and he just manages to escape anyway. There's any number of plausible explanations for why he managed to get away that don't involve plot holes or wizards.

[Dean_the_Young]

It could be as simple as the Normandy being on the wrong side of the asteroid.



Boardship. Keep asteroid between. Blind, random FTL jump. Escape.

[General User]

In the contemporary world, military ships and aircraft (esp. aircraft) are significantly more capable than their civilian counterparts.  If Balak did have a ship capable of reliably evading the Normandy, that's a fair bit of circumstantial evidence that he had Hegemony support.


Dean, I think your right about how Balak had his escape planned.  I’m thinking that, In order to reliably keep asteroid between his ship and the Normandy, Balak would first have to be able to reliably predict the Normandy’s initial approach vector.  To do this he would have to have a “spotter” or “spotters” picketing the possible approaches.  This really isn’t so inconceivable, esp. for an experienced terrorist (or one that has military training), and it’s another piece of circumstantial evidence for Balak having Hegemony support or sanction.


There are a few things I can’t figure out…


DPSSOC, if Balak was waiting in his ship for the Normandy to leave, how did he control his own emissions?  Wouldn’t the Normandy detect him?  I think the, trying to go after him but failing is quite likely.


How could Balak keep his ship hidden?  If the Normandy had its stealth engaged, how could any batarian ship know where precisely they needed to be in the first place in order to avoid the Normandy?  The Reapers might be able to detect a ship with a heat emissions sink, but I don’t believe the batarians can. 


If the Normandy didn’t have its stealth engaged, why didn’t Pressley and Joker do a sweep to find Balak’s ship?  They HAD to have known Balak had a ship of some sort (that asteroid didn’t have a Stargate). 


One would assume a space going warship (esp. one built for scout or recon missions) would have some, likely extensive, remote sensor probe capabilities specifically to provide 360° sensor coverage around things like asteroids and planets.  If they didn’t have those probes, why not engage the emissions sink and do a sweep along the X and Y axes of X57?  Kinda a catch-22 situation.


In any case, what I really can't figure out is how, even if Balak managed to keep his ship out of the Normandy’s line of sight, was he able to get to it?  I mean, he departed (assuming he was let go) from the same location as Cmdr. Shepard, if the Normandy didn’t, for some reason, see Balaks ship they were damn sure to be monitoring Shep and her team!  How did Balak make it to his ship w/o being spotted?  


Can anyone think of an answer, cause I’m stumped.

Modifié par General User, 12 novembre 2010 - 01:31 .

[Dean_the_Young]

In the real world, FTL ability isn't cheap and readily available. Don't need a cruiser to get places: something as small as the Normandy Shuttle can do FTL, and even the Mako can use a mass relay.



What does it really take for Balak to escape? A covered shuttle that couldn't be seen from above the asteroid, or simply wasn't shot down for any number of reasons. Like, for example, not directly moving into a hostage crisis scenario by cutting off the enemy's line of retreat.

[General User]

Well, yeah! If you think about it logically!  So much about FTL in Mass Effect is left totally unexplained, if one thinks about it, there are all sorts of interesting implications to FTL ( and other mass effecting) technology as presented that simply haven't materialized (yet).
 
Personally, I see no reason why a shuttle couldn’t jump straight to FTL directly after takeoff. But that doesn’t explain how Balak got to his ship in the first place. As I see it, once Balak stepped aside both he and Shepard were in a race against time, Shepard to disarm the bombs, Balak to -not only reach his ship surreptitiously- but takeoff unmolested and get into FTL. Unless his ship was VERY close at hand, that’s a tall order for, what about three or four minutes? Since Balak’s ship had to be close, why didn’t the Normandy and or its resident team of super-commandos have that covered? There couldn’t have been that many potential candidates for escape craft in a 3-4 min. radius of that atrium looking thing where Shep. And Balak had their showdown.
 
Isn’t cutting off the enemys line of retreat standard military procedure, like when the police seal off all exits to a hostage crisis? And if the enemy is allowed to retreat, the only avenue available should be a trap. I’m not saying blowup all small craft on the surface before or after going in, though that is an option, but why not have Garrus, Wrex, or any number of the Normandy’s Marine Det. covering the exits and give the Normandy orders to shoot down anything attempting to take off?

Besides, if a random batarian terrorist has access to something like the Conduit, X57 was the least of our worries!

[Dean_the_Young]

I imagine he walked out the door. Or ran. Or had the shuttle approaching for a pickup already. Or all three.





Cutting off retreat is for when you want to destroy the enemy, but it also put the enemy in a corner, and more willing to be desperate. You don't, for example, trap an enemy in a place where collateral damage is unacceptable, because you'll be guaranteeing collateral damage. When a hostage crisis is already in place, yes, you want to cut off retreat so you can control the environment, but it wasn't necessarily a hostage crisis at the beginning, and not blowing up the shuttles (especially without knowing if hostages were on them) allowed an 'out' for Balak/his men to leave sooner rather than later. If you destroy it, you're trapping Blak and his men in that corner with the hostages.



Leaving the shuttle leaves the possibility of avoiding a hostage holdup. Blowing them up guarantees it.



Why not blow the ship as Balak excapes? Presumably because he can still kill the hostages at that point, Commander Shepard said let him go, and and/or not being able to.

[Magical Master]

DPSSOC wrote...



I don't think Balak has the whole facility rigged to blow

Have you ever done the Paragon ending?

Why not blow the
ship as Balak excapes? Presumably because he can still kill the hostages
at that point, Commander Shepard said let him go, and and/or not being
able to.

If he could still kill the hostages at that point, then why wouldn't he have done so as soon as he was out of the door (that's another part that doesn't add up no matter what)?

The bottom line is what General User said.  The Normady was tracking Shepard and would have seen Balak exiting the facility.  They could have easily followed him to his ship/shuttle/whatever.  It apparently takes less than 2 minutes to disarm the bombs if you save the hostages, and it would take 30 seconds to even get to the door of the facility.  So how far exactly is Balak going to be going in 90 seconds? If Balak had a shuttle/ship to pick him up relatively close to the door the Normady can intercept it.  If Balak had a shuttle/ship hidden on the other side of the asteroid or something, Normady can easily track him and beat him there.

[General User]

I’m sayin’ why weren’t those doors covered? Again, I’m not necessarily advocating a preemptive strike on all craft on the surface of X57, but they should have at least been covered! If he had a shuttle on approach for pickup, wouldn’t Shepard have had to issue orders to the Normandy not to shoot it down? I heard no such orders.



As soon as Kate made contact with Shepard, Shep. had to have known she was dealing with at least a potential hostage crisis, certainly by the time the second torch was put out. In any instance, Shepard knew she was dealing with a hostage situation before she walked into the final confrontation. In which case, wouldn’t Shepard have wanted to control that environment?



I’m not so sure Balak’s behavior is predictable under any circumstances, I mean, the guy’s a genocidal nut job. His men may have been evil, but they were still rational enough. I can see allowing Balak’s men the possibility of leaving alive (if in chains) to limit the possibility of any desperate moves, but not an actual escape of Balak on his own terms! If anything that encourages hostage deaths because Balak, and his men, might just think they’d actually get away with it! According to every TV show and movie I’ve ever seen, military or police, the good guys always offer their way out to the hostage takers as the only way out alive.



Shepard had to have assumed Balak had a “dead-man switch” of some sort wired to the bombs, but once these bombs were disarmed, I see no reason to allow Balak to escape alive.

[Dean_the_Young]

Magical Master wrote...

DPSSOC wrote...



I don't think Balak has the whole facility rigged to blow

Have you ever done the Paragon ending?

Why not blow the
ship as Balak excapes? Presumably because he can still kill the hostages
at that point, Commander Shepard said let him go, and and/or not being
able to.

If he could still kill the hostages at that point, then why wouldn't he have done so as soon as he was out of the door (that's another part that doesn't add up no matter what)?

We can accept four general answers, and only one of them is 'because the game said so.'

Because he didn't want to, because he couldn't, or because Balak sticks with his deals.

The bottom line is what General User said.  The Normady was tracking Shepard and would have seen Balak exiting the facility.  They could have easily followed him to his ship/shuttle/whatever.  It apparently takes less than 2 minutes to disarm the bombs if you save the hostages, and it would take 30 seconds to even get to the door of the facility.  So how far exactly is Balak going to be going in 90 seconds? If Balak had a shuttle/ship to pick him up relatively close to the door the Normady can intercept it.  If Balak had a shuttle/ship hidden on the other side of the asteroid or something, Normady can easily track him and beat him there.

Gameplay time never exactly trails with story time.

It hardly takes much time todo anFTL jump. That doesn't take long at all, and doesn't mean the Normandy can successfully intercept anymore than, say, the Collector Ship was able to shoot down the Normandy during the Collector Ship ambush... and in that, the Normandy was right by the ship.

[Dean_the_Young]

General User wrote...

I’m sayin’ why weren’t those doors covered? Again, I’m not necessarily advocating a preemptive strike on all craft on the surface of X57, but they should have at least been covered! If he had a shuttle on approach for pickup, wouldn’t Shepard have had to issue orders to the Normandy not to shoot it down? I heard no such orders.

Why does Shepard stick to a three man team? Why do we never see those marines on the Normandy ever do anything? Why didn't we simply blast the torches with the Normandy, stopping the crisis before we even landed? Why would it even take Shepard and the Normandy to do that?

It's fiction, dramatic effect beats strategic realism, and the writers aren't qualified or capable of maintaining or even approaching that level of detail in the first place. Don't look to mass effect for military sci fi.

[General User]

Bingo, I could not agree more.

Modifié par General User, 12 novembre 2010 - 05:41 .

[WillieWonkaSauce]

I let him live, most of the time.



I just wish the decision had more impact on ME2, maybe addressed in future DLC. He'd make an awesome optional squadmate(like a Morinth/Samara choice).

[DPSSOC]

General User wrote...
DPSSOC, if Balak was waiting in his ship for the Normandy to leave, how did he control his own emissions?

By keeping it powered down.  My take was that the emissions are specifically from engine use not general electrical operations.  So as long as Balak kept his engines off he could still conceivably operate sensors and life support and wait for the Normandy to leave.

General User wrote...
How could Balak keep his ship hidden?  If the Normandy had its stealth engaged, how could any batarian ship know where precisely they needed to be in the first place in order to avoid the Normandy?  The Reapers might be able to detect a ship with a heat emissions sink, but I don’t believe the batarians can.  
 

If the Normandy didn’t have its stealth engaged, why didn’t Pressley and Joker do a sweep to find Balak’s ship?  They HAD to have known Balak had a ship of some sort (that asteroid didn’t have a Stargate). 


One would assume a space going warship (esp. one built for scout or recon missions) would have some, likely extensive, remote sensor probe capabilities specifically to provide 360° sensor coverage around things like asteroids and planets.  If they didn’t have those probes, why not engage the emissions sink and do a sweep along the X and Y axes of X57?  Kinda a catch-22 situation.

I refer you to Therum where Joker is able to pick up the Prothean ruins but not the individual Geth.  Now is it possible that the Normandy has sensors they just weren't using, sure, but it's also possible the Normandy was never intended for groundside recon (what with the stealth system being rendered moot by a telescope).

General User wrote...
In any case, what I really can't figure out is how, even if Balak managed to keep his ship out of the Normandy’s line of sight, was he able to get to it?  I mean, he departed (assuming he was let go) from the same location as Cmdr. Shepard, if the Normandy didn’t, for some reason, see Balaks ship they were damn sure to be monitoring Shep and her team!  How did Balak make it to his ship w/o being spotted?

You ever try to pick out individual people on the ground while in a plane?  It's remarkably difficult, most likely the Normandy picked up that someone left but was unable to determine if they were hostile, and since Shepard was obviously still in the facility they either dismissed him as an escaping civillian or simply dismissed him.

Alternatively we can just revert to the "Shepard is master of all" explanation and assume the crew just went, "The Lord(or Lady) Shepard has spoken, the Batarian goes free."

[General User]

T’was my understanding that heat was the primary emission used in ship to ship detection in Mass Effect, if so wouldn’t Balak have to leave the heat on or, you know, freeze to death? (is that what happened? lol)



What happened on Therum? It’s been a good while since I played Mass Effect and I don’t remember.



I guess I just figured, since the Normandy is a recon vessel, has a ground vehicle, and is equipped for ground landings, that it would have other gear focused on a ground recon mission. To my way of thinking, that would include remote sensor probes, that could see “on the far side” of a planet or other astronomical body, and/or provide an “eye in the sky” should the ship land.



I have indeed tried to pick out individual people on the ground from an aircraft, more than once… and found it to be extremely easy. Then again the aircraft I was in was equipped with advanced imaging equipment and was holding station above the target. Much as the Normandy would/should have been.



C’mon! If ANYONE comes running out a hostage/ terrorist situation, you’d think that person would be, umm… questioned, at the very least! Even if they were an escaped hostage, they would be picked up and their ID verified and taken for medical care.



If I were Shepard, and I found out that Pressley (or whoever was in command of the Normandy), had let Balak go AFTER I had disarmed the bombs… I would be upset. Mostly with myself, since it would be my own fault for not communicating my intentions/status.



The more I think about/discuss this mission the lower my opinion of the writing in general.

[Skilled Seeker]

This scenario repeats itself in ME2 with Zaeed's loyalty mission. Any explanation for how Vido gets away there?

[Dean_the_Young]

When was it said Vido ever went into space?

[Moiaussi]

Dean_the_Young wrote...

In the real world, FTL ability isn't cheap and readily available. Don't need a cruiser to get places: something as small as the Normandy Shuttle can do FTL, and even the Mako can use a mass relay.

What does it really take for Balak to escape? A covered shuttle that couldn't be seen from above the asteroid, or simply wasn't shot down for any number of reasons. Like, for example, not directly moving into a hostage crisis scenario by cutting off the enemy's line of retreat.

Umm, in the 'real' world, FTL is still non-existant.

In Mass Effect, the Mako can use a relay, but that does not mean it can fly to the relay. If a shuttle can FTL on it's own, it isn't a shuttle. It is something else.. a scout ship or interceptor (common designation for a short range FTL fighter), but not a shuttle.  There is no evidence that there are actually any FTL small craft in ME, unless one of the books has one that I missed.

If there are FTL small craft, why didn't Balak just rig such a shuttle with nukes and launch it at FTL into the colony? It would have been a lot safer than using the asteroid.

Any shuttle or small craft would have had to have been able to keep the asteroid between it and the relay all the way to the relay though.. or to be able to FTL.

Regardless, the Normandy would have had to stay perfectly stationary and not actually circle the asteroid. It also would pretty much either have to have approached this situation with stealth down (which makes no sense given they were expecting trouble), or the Batarans been *very* lucky.

If ships as small as shuttles can use FTL in ME, the writers are foolish. It means people will start to question the lack of FTL missiles, which would seem to be the ultimate weapon.

[Moiaussi]

Skilled Seeker wrote...

This scenario repeats itself in ME2 with Zaeed's loyalty mission. Any explanation for how Vido gets away there?

Presumably he flew to a more heavily guarded part of the planet and Shepard didn't consider himself to have the resources to follow without having to result to orbital bombardment.

Dealing with small unit vs small unit is one thing, as is the equivalent as Geth had limited landing capacity on the Citadel. Taking on large units, company str or better, as a single squad is another matter.

[Felene]

Moiaussi wrote...
Umm, in the 'real' world, FTL is still non-existant.

"Traveling at Warp Speed"

Not really, but close! We just need to figure out a way to make more anti-matter to power it.

[Moiaussi]

Felene wrote...
"Traveling at Warp Speed"
Not really, but close! We just need to figure out a way to make more anti-matter to power it.

Very interesting, but they just say the scientist wrote a paper on it, they didn't seem to say if the paper was published or peer reviewed.

Also, a working theory as to how it might be accomplished does not provide means to accomplishing it. Even if anti matter was a sufficient energy source, you would still have a lot of problems, such as not only containing the reaction to channel the energy into a warp field, but to be able to create such a field that warps space around the ship without warping the ship itself.

The moving sidewalk example was flawed, too, in that the sidewalk is a conveyor belt with no actual compression. There would be wake issues. If such a FTL drive actually worked, the field itself would be a weapon... you could warp any space with it, including occupied space. Having such a field pass into a planet or even into another such field would be a very bad thing.

My point remains though that there is no FTL drive 'in reality'

[Dean_the_Young]

Moiaussi wrote...

Dean_the_Young wrote...

In the real world, FTL ability isn't cheap and readily available. Don't need a cruiser to get places: something as small as the Normandy Shuttle can do FTL, and even the Mako can use a mass relay.

What does it really take for Balak to escape? A covered shuttle that couldn't be seen from above the asteroid, or simply wasn't shot down for any number of reasons. Like, for example, not directly moving into a hostage crisis scenario by cutting off the enemy's line of retreat.

Umm, in the 'real' world, FTL is still non-existant.

In Mass Effect, the Mako can use a relay, but that does not mean it can fly to the relay. If a shuttle can FTL on it's own, it isn't a shuttle. It is something else.. a scout ship or interceptor (common designation for a short range FTL fighter), but not a shuttle.  There is no evidence that there are actually any FTL small craft in ME, unless one of the books has one that I missed.

If there are FTL small craft, why didn't Balak just rig such a shuttle with nukes and launch it at FTL into the colony? It would have been a lot safer than using the asteroid.

Any shuttle or small craft would have had to have been able to keep the asteroid between it and the relay all the way to the relay though.. or to be able to FTL.

Regardless, the Normandy would have had to stay perfectly stationary and not actually circle the asteroid. It also would pretty much either have to have approached this situation with stealth down (which makes no sense given they were expecting trouble), or the Batarans been *very* lucky.

I do believe you deliberately missed the individual points in context to debate semantics. Like, for example, repeating the entire meaning behind how we don't have FTL, while Mass Effect terrorists can.

If ships as small as shuttles can use FTL in ME,

We only see that several times in ME2.

the writers are foolish. It means people will start to question the lack of FTL missiles, which would seem to be the ultimate weapon.

The writers are military fools, no mistake.

Not that most people on this board, including myself, can claim to be experts or sensible by any measure.

Modifié par Dean_the_Young, 13 novembre 2010 - 12:10 .

[Moiaussi]

Dean_the_Young wrote...

I do believe you deliberately missed the individual points in context to debate semantics. Like, for example, repeating the entire meaning behind how we don't have FTL, while Mass Effect terrorists can.

We only see that several times in ME2.

Dean, I didn't leave it at semantics. I explained why it is problematic for there to be FTL drives that small. Which are the 'several times' we see FTL shuttles in ME2? What is any time we see an FTL shuttle in ME2?

The writers are military fools, no mistake. Not that most people on this board, including myself, can claim to be experts or sensible by any measure.

One does not have to be an expert to be able to recognize basic tactical concepts, and to the extent people here are FPS veterans, they may even have practiced such concepts online.

[Skilled Seeker]

Dean_the_Young wrote...

When was it said Vido ever went into space?

It doesn't. Which is why its strange the Normandy couldn't shoot the helicopter from orbit or just track them.

[Skilled Seeker]

Moiaussi wrote...

Skilled Seeker wrote...

This scenario repeats itself in ME2 with Zaeed's loyalty mission. Any explanation for how Vido gets away there?

Presumably he flew to a more heavily guarded part of the planet and Shepard didn't consider himself to have the resources to follow without having to result to orbital bombardment.

Dealing with small unit vs small unit is one thing, as is the equivalent as Geth had limited landing capacity on the Citadel. Taking on large units, company str or better, as a single squad is another matter.

Why not orbitally bombard the blue suns?