315 réponses à ce sujet

[mineralica]

Kahoku's death and Shadow Broker's claims on information Shepard got from Cerberus' bases. In dialogues SB is directly treatening player with cosequences of not giving data, and which consequences we have? Attempt to give body to Collectors, which is independent from choice about data.

[Inverness Moon]

I'm really hoping BioWare does something good with Cerberus in ME3. As mentioned in the OP, there should be a reason that you would want to go renegade and work with Cerberus because it means results. As it is right now, whenever the Cerberus debate occurs, incompetence is always brought up because people have a low opinion due to their perceived success rate.

I don't want Cerberus to be just another group of incompetent bad guys. That is obviously cliched and I would really like something different to be done.

I also completely agree that BioWare missed a huge opportunity considering Shepard's resurrection. Shepard being resurrected from the dead and stuck full of cybernetics is much more interesting to me than any of the other teammates' problems excluding Legion. I would have expected some sort of philosophical discussion with Legion considering how Shepard was killed then revived much like the geth are. I imagine that would have some sort of impact on Shepard's sense of self.

I also think it is an interesting thought that he might be an AI imprinted with Shepard's memories. That would certainly be more exciting than what they've done. So I'm hoping the topic of Shepard's resurrection is actually touched upon in ME3 in relation to the reapers or something.

Edit:

Something else that I think would be interesting that I thought of recently was if Shepard was more synthetic now that Cerberus led him to believe at first, but they disabled his more advanced capabilities, such as an ability to interface directly with machines, because the collectors were an immediate problem and Cerberus thought it might interfere with the mission. After the collectors were dealt with, Shepard probably has much more breathing room so that could possibly be touched upon. It would also be a good reason for Shepard's next meeting with TIM, since we know that they haven't cut all ties no matter what choice you make in ME2.

Modifié par Inverness Moon, 20 novembre 2010 - 12:24 .

[Count Viceroy]

Inverness Moon wrote...

I also think it is an interesting thought that he might be an AI imprinted with Shepard's memories. That would certainly be more exciting than what they've done. So I'm hoping the topic of Shepard's resurrection is actually touched upon in ME3 in relation to the reapers or something.

Cool idea, but would be a massive retcon. You'd need an ark to survive on these forums.

[Inverness Moon]

Count Viceroy wrote...

Inverness Moon wrote...

I also think it is an interesting thought that he might be an AI imprinted with Shepard's memories. That would certainly be more exciting than what they've done. So I'm hoping the topic of Shepard's resurrection is actually touched upon in ME3 in relation to the reapers or something.

Cool idea, but would be a massive retcon. You'd need an ark to survive on these forums.

True, but I still think BioWare shouldn't have passed by the opportunity to touch upon some philosophical issue. I would really like to know what they were thinking when they decided to completely ignore the whole issue of resurrecting a man who has been dead for 2 years.

While I do hope they go into this in ME3, I think it is unlikely. Perhaps BioWare just doesn't think it is worth it? I don't know. Perhaps I'll just have to rely on CD Projekt to get my thought food.

Maybe its a symptom of the new game development environment where product it seemingly much more expensive and studios have to gather under the umbrella of big publishers who don't like risks.

Wow, I'm all depressed now. Need to think happy thoughts. 

Modifié par Inverness Moon, 20 novembre 2010 - 12:31 .

[Nicodemus]

@ Googlesaurus



While I agree with you about how EDI could accurately identifiy them as Prothean, EDI does as iakus posted identify that the collectors are Prothean due to the fact that the collectors share a quad strand that only one other race has been known to have.



the bit that explains it is at about 3 mins into the video.



You are probably right that statis pods don't last 50,000 years without some sort of maintenance schedule but then again we are dealing with a machine race that has been active and dormant for eons and have created technology far in advance of most known species. We do not know what they are capable of, however the fact that the Reapers created the Mass Effect transit system should give us an indication that they probably have a lot of other technologies that we cannot at this time dismiss. Nor should we dismiss the fact that we know nothing of the internal workings of the Reapers, all we have seen is the insides of a defunct one that was still emitting a mass effect field millenia after it had been rendered useless. For all we know it may have had a crew to service it's needs.



I agree that the writing was terrible, but it is what it is, so we have to deal with it until the next installment, and hope that they do a better job and clear up some of the woolier strands they have left unwoven.



I disagree with your ascertation that the harvesting occurs after the invasion. We have no proof that in previous harvestings that they haven't already started a process and then came in and finished it off. All we have to go on is that they have started to begin the process with the human race this time and we stop them.



I agree that there is no proof that Harbringer and Sovereign communicated but we have to assume that communication has occured. How else would Sovereign communicate with the other Reapers to prepare to invade? Wouldn't Sovereign have communicated with the collectors to see what species there are out there for harvesting? Wouldn't the collectors have communicated with Harbringer to relay the information that the citadel relay was closed and that Sovereign is dead? I think we have to take for granted that communication has occurred even though there is nothing to actually say that they have.



The last cutscene doesn't show them powering up, it shows them entering the light emmisions from the Milky Way. They have been travelling for 2 1/2 years in the void between the galaxies due to the fact that the Citadel Relay was closed. Sovereign was supposed to open the relay to let them into the galaxy, with that closed they had to make thier own way to the galaxy and that meant powering up and flying for 2 1/2 years. Think of it like a single street lamp, everything outside that area of light emmision is in the dark, but things are still moving they only get illuminated when they get near the source of the light emmisions. That is what the cutscene shows, the Reapers finally getting close to the Milky Way galaxy.



Thanix cannon rivals a cruisers firepower. Yeah, I think you are right. I think we'll have to chalk this one up to poor writing again.



Building the Reaper wasn't a dumb move, it was just one of the plans we knew of, just like using the heretic geth as troops was one of thier plans. No decent bad guy has 1 plan, they all have multiple plans that are in various stages of fruition. Just look at what TiM had going on at any 1 time.



Yes, we know what they did with the Protheans and are able to conjecture what the Keepers are, but we also have evidence of other species being wiped out. If you read some of the data on planets we scan it provides information on ruins and species that are extinct, most by what looks like orbital bombardment. The proof of this is in listening to the babble that Harbringer utters while he is fighting you. He mentions different species and thier potential. He also states that the Reapers are our "salvation through destruction". There is plenty of evidence that is in the game for this bit of the discusion, you just have to pay attention.

[sagefic]

Project Lazarus has been mentioned, but this is the part I do not, cannot understand:

Why did Shepard have to DIE? (as in, fully, totally, flatline)

A 2-year coma with massive amounts of physical damage to shep's body would have achieved exactly the same things from a plot point of view. Shepard would be gone for a long time; the galaxy would have gone on without her/him. Shepard would need re-constructive surgery (you get your facial and class reset button); Shepard would wake to find he/she had been the object of a major medical undertaking and 'owed' Cerberus big-time for it.

^ All that could be accomplished with Shepard not actually dying. In fact, in the ME comic Redemption, Liara is initially told by Feron that Shepard is "not quite alive, not dead either." It was like the writers themselves had not yet made up their mind as to what Shepard's state was.

In ME2, the death references were equally jumbled:
"You were dead as dead can be when they brought you here" - wow, okay. that seems pretty clear. only jacob admits in the next sentence that he's no doctor, so he can't give shepard any details at all
"While you were sleeping, whole colonies have been disappearing" - wait, is this some euphemism? cause i thought shepard was dead. did shepard get revived and was "under" for a while? okay, so how long were shep alive? the whole time? none? Miri never tells and you can't actually ask her. I found this maddening.
"I was in some kind of coma while Cerberus rebuilt me" - wait, so does shepard believe she/he was dead? is she/he just sugar-coating it for ash/kaidan on horizon?
"I got better/I was only mostly dead"- okay, funny lines, but given that we get NO explanation as to the truth, it sort of feels like the joke is at the audience's expense

Religions are based on people coming back from the dead. Throughout human history people have been obsessed with cheating death. Then Shepard does it and... no comment. And I don't even want to get started on Shepard's lack of response to coming back from the dead. maybe your shepard is a total stoic, but the shepard i play is not a total meathead. she may not be terribly philosophical, but she would question her own death and resurrection, to be sure.

It seems that either a) MORE should have been made of Shepard's death (DEATH, people) or it should have just been a coma. There is absolutely NO need to make it a full on death unless something more was done with it - like Shepard being an AI or something crazy like that was meant to happen. But nothing does happen.

So Shepard's death ends up being a major case of Michael Bayism.  If one explosion is good, TEN must be better. If a coma works, a DEATH is even better.

IF there was a point to her/his death and we see that in ME3, I will gladly eat my words. If that is the case, I look forward to the payoff. In the meantime, Shepard's death is the part I just do not get.

Modifié par sagequeen, 20 novembre 2010 - 02:32 .

[Googlesaurus]

Nicodemus wrote...

@ Googlesaurus

While I agree with you about how EDI could accurately identifiy them as Prothean, EDI does as iakus posted identify that the collectors are Prothean due to the fact that the collectors share a quad strand that only one other race has been known to have.

the bit that explains it is at about 3 mins into the video.

I've played through that scenario four times. EDI postulates the Collector-Prothean connection from the similar DNA structure, then she accurately traces the pedigree of a single individual back to a specific region of space prior to the last Reaper invasion. It would be impossible to do that if the DNA was completely rewritten. If you only see the silhouette of a car, you cannot determine that it is a 1964 Pontiac GTO built in Detroit. 

Nicodemus wrote...

You are probably right that statis pods don't last 50,000 years without some sort of maintenance schedule but then again we are dealing with a machine race that has been active and dormant for eons and have created technology far in advance of most known species. We do not know what they are capable of, however the fact that the Reapers created the Mass Effect transit system should give us an indication that they probably have a lot of other technologies that we cannot at this time dismiss. Nor should we dismiss the fact that we know nothing of the internal workings of the Reapers, all we have seen is the insides of a defunct one that was still emitting a mass effect field millenia after it had been rendered useless. For all we know it may have had a crew to service it's needs.

And with all that technology at their disposal the Collectors become redundant except in the case of a fluke failure. Why a sentient bio-synthetic race would need manual repair is just damn baffling. 

nicodemus wrote...

I disagree with your ascertation that the harvesting occurs after the invasion. We have no proof that in previous harvestings that they haven't already started a process and then came in and finished it off. All we have to go on is that they have started to begin the process with the human race this time and we stop them.

Harvesting has to occur after the invasions. The Reapers enter the galaxy through the Citadel relay, and only a vanguard is left behind specifically to activate that relay. If the vanguard can do the process by himself, there would be no need for the entire invasion in the first place.  

Nicodemus wrote...

I agree that there is no proof that Harbringer and Sovereign communicated but we have to assume that communication has occured. How else would Sovereign communicate with the other Reapers to prepare to invade? Wouldn't Sovereign have communicated with the collectors to see what species there are out there for harvesting? Wouldn't the collectors have communicated with Harbringer to relay the information that the citadel relay was closed and that Sovereign is dead? I think we have to take for granted that communication has occurred even though there is nothing to actually say that they have.

By opening the relay. 

Apparently the Collectors didn't exist until ME2. They were shoehorned in and beg the question of the heretics in the first place. 

Would have made sense if the Collectors actually existed in ME1. 

Nicodemus wrote...

The last cutscene doesn't show them powering up, it shows them entering the light emmisions from the Milky Way. They have been travelling for 2 1/2 years in the void between the galaxies due to the fact that the Citadel Relay was closed. Sovereign was supposed to open the relay to let them into the galaxy, with that closed they had to make thier own way to the galaxy and that meant powering up and flying for 2 1/2 years. Think of it like a single street lamp, everything outside that area of light emmision is in the dark, but things are still moving they only get illuminated when they get near the source of the light emmisions. That is what the cutscene shows, the Reapers finally getting close to the Milky Way galaxy.

If they had been traveling for almost 3 years, it would have been shown at the end of ME1. And they were coming out of hibernation. 

Nicodemus wrote...

Building the Reaper wasn't a dumb move, it was just one of the plans we knew of, just like using the heretic geth as troops was one of thier plans. No decent bad guy has 1 plan, they all have multiple plans that are in various stages of fruition. Just look at what TiM had going on at any 1 time.

The heretic geth was a desperation plan, plain and simple. Saren and the entire "invasion" was a red herring that would have never happened if Saren never discovered Nazara in the first place. The entire point was to gain manual access to the Citadel without compromising the secrecy of the true threat. Nazara only revealed its existence when it believed that it was beyond reproach, and Plan B only started when Plan A (sending a signal to the Keepers to open the relay) failed. 

Again, did the Reapers really expect the Collectors to get enough humans to build a new Reaper? If Sovereign was communicating with the rest of his brethren, wouldn't they have known that their minions would stand no chance against the Alliance's fleets? Why risk revealing their entire bag of secrets for a plan that doesn't guarantee a surefire way of bringing the Reapers back?

Nicodemus wrote...

Yes, we know what they did with the Protheans and are able to conjecture what the Keepers are, but we also have evidence of other species being wiped out. If you read some of the data on planets we scan it provides information on ruins and species that are extinct, most by what looks like orbital bombardment. The proof of this is in listening to the babble that Harbringer utters while he is fighting you. He mentions different species and thier potential. He also states that the Reapers are our "salvation through destruction". There is plenty of evidence that is in the game for this bit of the discusion, you just have to pay attention.

We can conjecture that past races were destroyed by the cycle, but we cannot know the criteria of the Reapers in selecting species to be integrated into a new Reaper.

[Fraevar]

khevan wrote...

However, I agree completely that the way it was handled in-game was clumsy at best.  There are all kinds of implications to such a resurrection that were never even mentioned, much less explored.  Is there an afterlife?  What affect on Shepard would actually dying have, even if he/she was brought back?  It would open up all kinds of conversational opportunities with squadmates, crewmembers, etc, and give us a great subplot.  I think Bioware (intentionally or unintentionally) has explored (briefly) the idea of what is life, with the geth and other AI's, and this was a perfect opportunity to go all out with that kind of exploration, especially if Shepard were now an AI imprinted in a neural chip embedded in a reconstructed Shepard replica.  I almost think I would have prefered that as a "HOLY ****" moment about two-thirds of the way thru ME2, almost like Luke learning that Vader was his father.  A whole examine your existance moment that was totally ignored, and therefore wasted.

This.
That BioWare completely ignored death having any narrative implications is just so horribly wrong that I can barely express my distaste for it. The whole thing feels like a cheap gimmick, one you'd find in a Van Damme movie.

What I consider the greatest failure of ME2 is the fact that they set up the story as being Part 2 of: "Commander Shepard's Journey to Stop the Reapers". And then they don't do that. Instead they arbitrarily kill Shepard off for a game-mechanic and then sends her off on what amounts to one giant sidequest to stop the Collectors without making any sorts of progress with the Reaper plot. Adding insult to injury, everyone who adored or respected Shepard by the end of ME1 now suddenly thinks she's crazy or are acting like she's the Devil. As far as I can tell the *only* person who's consistent in maintaining respect for Shepard (and who isn't returning as as squad member) is Anderson. But unlike everyone else, Anderson isn't waiting around for Shepard to come solve his problems, he deals with his own stuff. But I am getting side-tracked here.

There are so many tiny "cool" gameplay mechanics that end up either conflicting with the story or being just a pale shadow of their potential. Like Cerberus. Never once is Shepard in a position where working for Cerberus actually puts her into a conflict of ethics/loyalty. Let's take the scars. We all know that they made the game mechanics as such that Renegade = Terminator. But what if - 1/3rd through the game - regardless of alignment, Shepard's scars start to get worse and she's having trouble keeping up. Miranda and Chakwas find out that there's something wrong with her, presumably because they had to awaken her prematurely. Now they are faced with a choice. Shepard can either allow this disability to develop, or they can raid a secret Alliance medical research facility and get the tech they need to reverse these effects. In doing so, however - Shepard might end up in a position where she would have to kill Alliance soldiers guarding the facility in order to get herself patched up and stop the Reapers.  Ethical conflicts, weighing the short-term against the long-term. *That* is how you make a game "dark", not just by saying it is, because you kill off the protagonist. That death needs to have repurcussions, and it is just so frustrating that in ME2 there are *none* as far as Shepard is concerned.

[Sable Phoenix]

Just to clarify something I said earlier, I said that ME1 established a veneer of hard science fiction.  It's not "diamond" hard, but like most good hard sci-fi, they introduced one "magical" concept (the Minovsky Particle of element zero and the mass effect) and built the rest of it out from there while keeping everything else real-world.  Unfortunately, as was previously mentioned, the Minovsky Particle of the Mass Effect universe does nothing for medical technology and reanimation, and so the whole Lazarus Project feels way out of place.

As someone else mentioned, too, there's nothing that's done by the resurrection, as it's presented, that couldn't have been done by a two-year coma, making the potential of the whole thing (and there is a lot of narrative potential in resurrection) totally wasted.

Modifié par Sable Phoenix, 20 novembre 2010 - 07:55 .

[Ahriman]

Thing about ignoring Shepard's resurrection looks like devs fear that Shepard start think how it's even possible and ... will die, like skeleton in one game.

Shepard's knowledge of Prothean.
Knowing a dead language that directly relates to the enemy should be *huge*, especially if the Collectors are geneticly altered protheans (although it is interesting that they didn't even consider the concept that the Protheans might just have evolved on their own over that time... it was thousands of years.... )

This. How could they forget about this? Shepard was on collector ship, he should understand how everything works there (I'm pretty sure collectors still use prothean language and software), but no: Suzi tells us everything. Does anyone from the new team even know that Shepard knows prothean Cypher? I understand that it was done because new players don't know about beacons, but we lose a large part of ME story here. Devs could just give Shepard few minutes to tell Mordin about this, for example.
At least after LotSB I have hope that they remember about this.

Modifié par Wizz, 20 novembre 2010 - 08:40 .

[Iakus]

adam_grif wrote...

Did she really say that? I don't remember that from the game :S

Indeed she did.

Now, we know that Eezo behaves a certain way with positive or negative currents passed through it. HOWEVER, Biotics are said to have "Element Zero Nodules in the brain", which presumably activate when electrical transmissions pass through certain areas of said brain.

Actually it's nodules in the "nervous system"  I guess that could include the brain, and it's probably an unimportant detail.

So how does activation of Eezo in a brain create biotic fields that are distant? That doesn't make sense. And how can both mass increasing AND lowering field be created by the brain's electrical activity? There is no polarity reversal switch inside a human brain!

And how does the ability to raise or lower the mass of objects give abilties such as PUSH and PULL? These abilities impart kinetic energy somehow, but how? This has nothing to do with Eezo fields!

For polarity fields, i imagine the cybernetic implants and/or the bio-amps have something to do with it.

As for push/pull, high mass fields create artificial gravity.  So I suppose they're using the fields to create local gravity wells in those cases (very local, it seems, but whatever)  They're only simulating TK.

Contrary to popular belief, Mass Effect fields are NOT the only magical technology in MEverse. Kinetic Barriers don't make sense for the same reason that Biotic push/pull doesn't, and apparently has the magical ability to render kinetic energy of objects inert.

Kinetic barriers seems to be a misnomer, since, again, they're using mass effect fields to create gravity to redirect objects. 

Also, Chakwas directly mentions the existence of "Inertial dampeners" on starships. Another pure magic that is not Eezo related!

Intertial dampeners are a necessity (fortunate or not) for any sf story that involves FTL.  Without them, the Collectors wouldn't have to take humans beyond the Omega-4 Relay to make smoothies   All I can think of is they use ME fields to counteract the accelerations needed to achieve faster than light travel, and keep the crew alive.

And how do the Mass Relays work? They can apparently (via magic) make a "corridor of space" "massless". How does that imply instantaneous travel? It doesn't, but in MEverse that's what it does, for no explained reason.

The Relays I'm willing to let go as "Sufficiently Advanced" technology.  The network is something no race currently in existence understands.  Except the Reapers.  Even the Protheans were only just starting to crack how they work when their culling came about..

Then in ME2, we get the Quantum Communicators (directly violates the No-Communication Theorem) and Lazarus project. Lazarus is comparatively tame compared to the other severe violations of consistency and physics!

All I know of the communications systems is that it runs on a Quantum Entanglement thingee.  Not being a science guy and relying pretty much on (non-hard) science fiction novels for my information, that should get around the communications problem with FTL.  Messages really would be instantaneous.

At any rate, all of these things (save the relays) seem to have a science-fiction basis of working, if not a scientific one.  Lazarus has handwaving "cutting edge technology" principle.  Which to me is about as useful as "five thousand gps worth of diamond dust and a high-level cleric"

Modifié par iakus, 20 novembre 2010 - 08:53 .

[AdmiralCheez]

iakus wrote...

Then in ME2, we get the Quantum Communicators (directly violates the No-Communication Theorem) and Lazarus project. Lazarus is comparatively tame compared to the other severe violations of consistency and physics!

All I know of the communications systems is that it runs on a Quantum Entanglement thingee.  Not being a science guy and relying pretty much on (non-hard) science fiction novels for my information, that should get around the communications problem with FTL.  Messages really would be instantaneous.

While entangled particles, as far as the math and our current observations go, do exist, it is currently impossible to control the state of these particles.  Not to mention the uncertainty principle, which says you can't obeserve something without altering it somehow.  So yes, quantum communicators are currently impossible.  However, I find them a lot more believeable than, say, biotic powers and faster-than-light travel.

[Moiaussi]

Talogrungi wrote...

We didn't experience the full ship, and take a look at a screenshot of the interior of the collector ship:

http://www.flickr.co...kie/4393429199/

That's a lot of pods.

That might be a lot of pods, but 650k? And regardless of how big it looks on the inside, it is nowhere near that big compared to the Normandy on any exterior shot. If the ship really is bigger inside than it is outside, shouldn't someone have mentioned that? Alternatively, if it really is big enough to carry 650k pods (note, minimum.. they were suggesting that its capacity was far beyond that, hence the suggestion of abducting the Earth population, which is Billions), why do they call it a cruiser?

[Moiaussi]

Nicodemus wrote...


The trouble with cloning is that each clone has a weaker DNA string than the original and over time that DNA string starts to break, so if you are using a lot of cloned DNA you start to get defective DNA strings. We don't know why they need all the human specimens but my guess would be that the pure DNA is important in the Reaper maturation process.

1) This is a universe where a dead body can be ressurrected *perfectly* without so much as memory loss. DNA degredation is just theory since in RL we are still working on cloning animals successfully.

2) Exactly how is all this mangled re-purposed DNA supposed to coordinate into anything useful anyway without massive recoding? If they are re-writing DNA to get such a project to work anyway, you figure they wouldn't be able to deal with any degredation that does occur?

[Taritu]

The biggest problem is simply working for Cerberus. Sure, you have to play along at first, but the moment you get to the citadel that should be possible to end.



Also, the way the council acts is beyond stupid, just not believable. Completely broke the 4th wall for me, I just couldn't see it as anything but a way of forcing you to stay with Cerberus.



You should have been able to, at the least start working for the Council or Alliance to both take down the Collectors and Cerberus.



Amanda turning on the Illusive Man when Cerberus hid her sister and knows where she is also remarkably inconsistent.

[pacer90]

Moiaussi wrote...

Nicodemus wrote...


The trouble with cloning is that each clone has a weaker DNA string than the original and over time that DNA string starts to break, so if you are using a lot of cloned DNA you start to get defective DNA strings. We don't know why they need all the human specimens but my guess would be that the pure DNA is important in the Reaper maturation process.

1) This is a universe where a dead body can be ressurrected *perfectly* without so much as memory loss. DNA degredation is just theory since in RL we are still working on cloning animals successfully.

2) Exactly how is all this mangled re-purposed DNA supposed to coordinate into anything useful anyway without massive recoding? If they are re-writing DNA to get such a project to work anyway, you figure they wouldn't be able to deal with any degredation that does occur?

Regardless of the actual processes of cloning, I believe the idea that each reaper is a "nation" has to do with the need for actual individuals. To have a bunch of clones is not to have a nation, you wouldn't have any minds involved.

[Moiaussi]

Nicodemus wrote...

That one is easy, Miri says that if there were any other survivors that they would already be there awaiting the shuttle. The implcation is that there is no one else left alive and if they are they won't be for long on the station. Even though theer are other shuttles available it seems that Miri, Shep and Jacob are jumping into the only one which has a pilot, thus it;s the only shuttle leaving.

Shepard has been N7, a Spectre, and in command of his own frigate, and noone taught him so much as how to pilot a shuttle? If nothing else, wouldn't it have communications?

They were in the Mech control room and didn't even look at the controls. They challenged WIlson on being there since he is a medic so why would he be there, but Miranda and Jacob aren't medics, and Shepard could even be an Engineer, yet noone even looks for the 'master off swtich' that one would think would be standard issue?

[Googlesaurus]

pacer90 wrote...

Regardless of the actual processes of cloning, I believe the idea that each reaper is a "nation" has to do with the need for actual individuals. To have a bunch of clones is not to have a nation, you wouldn't have any minds involved.

Clones, for all intents and purposes, possess minds. 

Modifié par Googlesaurus, 20 novembre 2010 - 09:37 .

[LorDC]

Googlesaurus wrote...

pacer90 wrote...

Regardless of the actual processes of cloning, I believe the idea that each reaper is a "nation" has to do with the need for actual individuals. To have a bunch of clones is not to have a nation, you wouldn't have any minds involved.

Clones, for all intents and purposes, possess minds. I don't see how you could justify the opposite viewpoint without bad metaphysics. 

But clones do not possess experience and personality of original. It is like computer without HDD. It still can calculate things but you don't have information you need.

[TuringPoint]

A lot of people would not like the Shepard-as-AI approach. Also, there is a problem with transferring even an AI intelligence into a different black box and restarting it, according to the ME codex. (I think) The intelligence tends to take on a different personality when it is restarted.



Cerberus wanted Shepard with the same personality. You can certainly roleplay that Shepard doesn't have the same personality, but it wouldn't fit with current lore.

[Googlesaurus]

LorDC wrote...

Clones, for all intents and purposes, possess minds. I don't see how you could justify the opposite viewpoint without bad metaphysics. 

But clones do not possess experience and personality of original. It is like computer without HDD. It still can calculate things but you don't have information you need.

That is not what qualifies an sentient being as having a mind. A cloned human would be a brand new individual with the same genetic code, like a delayed identical twin. 

Modifié par Googlesaurus, 20 novembre 2010 - 09:43 .

[Moiaussi]

pacer90 wrote...

Regardless of the actual processes of cloning, I believe the idea that each reaper is a "nation" has to do with the need for actual individuals. To have a bunch of clones is not to have a nation, you wouldn't have any minds involved.

It is possible that the Reapers are all just nuts... but do the slushies contributing the the baby reaper's pinky toe have the same say in matters as those contributing to its brain area? Do any of them have any say at all in that kind of mess? Are minds really involved at all? Maybe you think with your kneecaps, but most people use their brains (even if some seem to use them sparingly).

[pacer90]

Moiaussi wrote...

pacer90 wrote...

Regardless of the actual processes of cloning, I believe the idea that each reaper is a "nation" has to do with the need for actual individuals. To have a bunch of clones is not to have a nation, you wouldn't have any minds involved.

It is possible that the Reapers are all just nuts... but do the slushies contributing the the baby reaper's pinky toe have the same say in matters as those contributing to its brain area? Do any of them have any say at all in that kind of mess? Are minds really involved at all? Maybe you think with your kneecaps, but most people use their brains (even if some seem to use them sparingly).

Only going by whats told to us in the game bud. Reapers say that transcend that which we know, each are a nation of a lot of individuals. A clone is not an individual, it has no memories or experiences.