315 réponses à ce sujet

[FireEye]

iakus wrote...

I still think a half-finished dark space relay guarded by an army of indoctrinated colonists (and potentially crew) would have been better.  And darker.

Why must you toy with me so? 

[Anacronian Stryx]

iakus wrote...

I still think a half-finished dark space relay guarded by an army of indoctrinated colonists (and potentially crew) would have been better.  And darker.

They could have combined the plots.

Shep and squard turns a corner and see a massive half finished Mass Relay under construction.

Shep : "I figured they were trying to build a new relay to Dark space"

EDI : "yes that would make sense".

Shep :"But why would they need the colonists for that?"

EDI :" I do not know"

Shep lets move on.."

The squad enters another chamber and See's this :

Shep : "whats that?"

EDI :" I would speculate that it's the central processing unit of the mass relay...it's made up of both biological and artificial components".

Shep :"You mean to say that inside every single mass relay in the galaxy theres a unit like this..made from genetic material of thousands of beings?"

EDI :"I'm..i'm afraid so". 

[Mir5]

Anacronian Stryx wrote...

iakus wrote...

I still think a half-finished dark space relay guarded by an army of indoctrinated colonists (and potentially crew) would have been better.  And darker.

They could have combined the plots.

Shep and squard turns a corner and see a massive half finished Mass Relay under construction.

Shep : "I figured they were trying to build a new relay to Dark space"

EDI : "yes that would make sense".

Shep :"But why would they need the colonists for that?"

EDI :" I do not know"

Shep lets move on.."

The squad enters another chamber

Shep : "whats that?"

EDI :" I would speculate that it's the central processing unit of the mass relay...it's made up of both biological and artificial components".

Shep :"You mean to say that inside every single mass relay in the galaxy theres a unit like this..made from genetic material of thousands of beings?"

EDI :"I'm..i'm afraid so". 

I still think that the need for humans would be forced, but not as forced as in the game. Good job.

Modifié par Mir5, 26 novembre 2010 - 01:05 .

[darthbuert]

Anacronian Stryx wrote...

iakus wrote...

I still think a half-finished dark space relay guarded by an army of indoctrinated colonists (and potentially crew) would have been better.  And darker.

They could have combined the plots.

Shep and squard turns a corner and see a massive half finished Mass Relay under construction.

Shep : "I figured they were trying to build a new relay to Dark space"

EDI : "yes that would make sense".

Shep :"But why would they need the colonists for that?"

EDI :" I do not know"

Shep lets move on.."

The squad enters another chamber and See's this :

Shep : "whats that?"

EDI :" I would speculate that it's the central processing unit of the mass relay...it's made up of both biological and artificial components".

Shep :"You mean to say that inside every single mass relay in the galaxy theres a unit like this..made from genetic material of thousands of beings?"

EDI :"I'm..i'm afraid so". 

That would have been pretty awesome. Am I the only one that thinks this thing looks an aweful lot like a fetus?

Also, the issue of Miranda's father's identity might hopefully be resolved sometime in the future.

* Edit> typo

Modifié par darthbuert, 26 novembre 2010 - 05:57 .

[Iakus]

Legbiter wrote...

Guns that should fire in ME 3:

A) Shepard's Prothean cypher.
The Leviathan of Dis.
C) The Dark Energy buildup in Haestron's sun.

Of course these could all be red herrings.

A) Absolute must
  Not so sure it'll be revisited
C) I'm fairly certain it will, given Parasini's mention of dark energy as well

[Rekkampum]

iakus wrote...

Legbiter wrote...

Guns that should fire in ME 3:

A) Shepard's Prothean cypher.
The Leviathan of Dis.
C) The Dark Energy buildup in Haestron's sun.

Of course these could all be red herrings.

A) Absolute must
  Not so sure it'll be revisited
C) I'm fairly certain it will, given Parasini's mention of dark energy as well

Yeah, I remember that conversation with Parasini. Do you think she'll play a more important role as an NPC?

[Iakus]

Rekkampum wrote...

[Yeah, I remember that conversation with Parasini. Do you think she'll play a more important role as an NPC?

I hope so.  Garrus and Tali aside, returning characters had a distinctly unimportant role in ME 2. 

[Fiery Phoenix]

iakus wrote...

Rekkampum wrote...

[Yeah, I remember that conversation with Parasini. Do you think she'll play a more important role as an NPC?

I hope so.  Garrus and Tali aside, returning characters had a distinctly unimportant role in ME 2. 

They felt like a bland bonus.

[somebody99000]

iakus wrote...
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.

Na. The thing about entaglement is that while there is a "spooky action-at-a-distance" which appears to go FTL, it's totally impossible to transmit data that way. Basically, what happens is that you "entagle" two particles so that they're in a shared quantum state. Then you measure the state of one of the particles (the canonical example is a spin singlet state, since it's particularly simple--one particle will be spin up and the other spin down). The other particle is *forced* into having the complementary state. But the state you measure is *random*--quantum mechanics details *probability*, so the likelihood of your particle having one state is not one, and you can't set it (in the spin example, if "your" particle was spin up, it's partner would be spin down, true--but there would be a 50% chance of finding it in one or the other state, and like I said you can't "set" it to one beforehand). Physicists have known about the effect for over 70 years, so if it were practical for a communications system it would probably already be in use!

However, it is a common sci-fi Minkovski Particle-type thing, so it's not really a problem that the writers used it. The whole Lazarus Project thing is far more objectionable.

[somebody99000]

I'm not questioning their necessity in the story, I'm stating that the magic in the series cannot just be explained by a single scientific breach in the form of Eezo, but is actually rather far reaching and involves several magics. Mass raising/ lowering has no impact on Inertia. You will get squished into paste regardless of how low or high your mass is.

Yeah...well, except for the fact that gravitational and inertial mass are empirically identical. Reducing the mass reduces the forces needed to accelerate you at a given rate which (*if* materials strength is unaffected by the change in mass, which is a big if) would protect you against even very high accelerations (although there might be other issues, like the heart not functioning properly because the mass of the blood is lower and it flows differently), and would at least allow them.

The whole mechanism is rather similar to one introduced by the author Alastair Reynolds as a critical plot device in his series of hard space opera (which itself bears a couple of striking similarities to Mass Effect, although the whole atmosphere is darker; there's ancient life-destroying machines, alien civilizations (most of which, as a result of the machines, are quite dead) and so on. Humans lose in the end, though, by unleashing an *even worse* life-destroying machine. Designed as a terraformer, no less). Being an astrophysicist, he knew perfectly well that "ordinary" matter can't go FTL, so his "devices" have four possible effects on matter within their area of effect:
1: Lower mass. Most common. Lets engines with the same power output push a ship faster.
2: Raise mass. Rare but perhaps useful from time to time. Not really utilized in the books, though.
3: Zero mass. Never used, turns the area of effect into photons! Maybe useful as a bomb, but there are cheaper ways to do that (industrial antimatter production, for one)
4: *Imaginary* mass, which means the matter in the field *has* to go FTL. Hyper-dangerous; there are two times in the series where someone tries to use the device in mode 4, and it *always* blows up in their face. Some very...strange...things happen around a device in mode 4 if it malfunctions. Especially if it accidentally goes to mode 3, of course.

Of course, BioWare isn't staffed by physicists, so they got it a bit garbled. Just think of the mass effect drives as being 2-setting (mode 1 and mode 4) and everything's good. They also didn't want to writye a story where the protagionists can take 22 year naps (okay, cryo-sleeps) while on their little interstellar jaunts and every stellar system (at best) is its own state, in practice at least. Can't imagine why. That of course means they need FTL comms and travel.

[Iakus]

somebody99000 wrote...

However, it is a common sci-fi Minkovski Particle-type thing, so it's not really a problem that the writers used it. The whole Lazarus Project thing is far more objectionable.

I'm willing to live with that sort of trope.  This clearly isn't hard sf.   As you pointed out, the Lazarus Project doesn't even have that.  It's literally just hand-waving.

[Moiaussi]

FireEye wrote...

iakus wrote...

I still think a half-finished dark space relay guarded by an army of indoctrinated colonists (and potentially crew) would have been better.  And darker.

Why must you toy with me so? 

That would have been a great finale, especially if after leaving the base intact or blowing it, EDI deciphers data obtained while there and you find out that was just one such project, and many of the others are about to come online....

[Iakus]

Moiaussi wrote...

FireEye wrote...

iakus wrote...

I still think a half-finished dark space relay guarded by an army of indoctrinated colonists (and potentially crew) would have been better.  And darker.

Why must you toy with me so? 

That would have been a great finale, especially if after leaving the base intact or blowing it, EDI deciphers data obtained while there and you find out that was just one such project, and many of the others are about to come online....

Yeah, forget the fleet of Reapers as the final scene, show another Collector Base Shepard has no clue of the location to, With a team of Collectors working on a device that looks like a half-finished, scaled-down version of the Citadel.
..
Cue harbringer's final words:

"Human, you have changed nothing. Your species has the attention of those infinitely your greater. That which you know as Reapers are your salvation through destruction..."

[adam_grif]

somebody99000 wrote...

Yeah...well, except for the fact that gravitational and inertial mass are empirically identical. Reducing the mass reduces the forces needed to accelerate you at a given rate which (*if* materials strength is unaffected by the change in mass, which is a big if) would protect you against even very high accelerations (although there might be other issues, like the heart not functioning properly because the mass of the blood is lower and it flows differently), and would at least allow them.

The whole mechanism is rather similar to one introduced by the author Alastair Reynolds as a critical plot device in his series of hard space opera (which itself bears a couple of striking similarities to Mass Effect, although the whole atmosphere is darker; there's ancient life-destroying machines, alien civilizations (most of which, as a result of the machines, are quite dead) and so on. Humans lose in the end, though, by unleashing an *even worse* life-destroying machine. Designed as a terraformer, no less). Being an astrophysicist, he knew perfectly well that "ordinary" matter can't go FTL, so his "devices" have four possible effects on matter within their area of effect:

Acceleration (a) is change in velocity (delta v) over the time period it occurred (t). Lowering mass does not reduce acceleration, nor does it mitigate G forces acting on your body. Although less energy is expended with mass lowering magic, it will not prevent you from turning into a thin film of red paste.

I've already read Revelation Space and got most of the way through Redemption Ark, so I'm well aware of all that stuff. classifying Revelation Space as Hard SciFi is tenuous at best, since it arguably abandoned its Hard SF roots around the time when they introduced Cryo-arithmic engines that operate in explicit violation of thermodynamics, and the thing we are discussing here which allows for violations of Conservation of Energy/Momentum. That is to say, if you can use less energy to accelerate up to a speed than should normally be possible, then you can use that to create a perpetual motion machine. There are also the Conjoiner drives, wormholes to alternate realities, backwards and forwards in time for increased processing speeds, the Cache weapons that rip holes in spacetime....

Although that said, the way the inertia modification was working in Rev Space series is much better handled than it is in ME, where it is essentially handwaving. In Rev Space the physiological effects of mass-lowering were felt by the crew, and if you're using Mass Effect style FTL, not only should the sharp accelerations turn people into chunky salsa, but their bodies should essentially shut down, the colours inside the ship should go funky, lethal doses of cherenkov radiation should be present...

[Sable Phoenix]

Yet another Chekhov's Gun (and this really is one) and an indication that the Lazarus Project has rendered Shepard into something much more synthetic than when it started out:

Project: Overlord actually hacks Shepard.

Now... Overlord was not bad on its own.  But how much better would it have been, after the mission, to have a scene something like the cabin scene at the end of Lair of the Shadow Broker, except that this one has Shepard spooked by the implications of what the hybrid VI did, and perhaps even discussing with EDI and/or Chakwas just how much of the cerebrospinal tissue and nerual pathways and audiovisual cortex that Cerberus put back together are now artificial?

This is really the biggest weakness in ME2's writing... they rarely get into the effects of the events upon the characters, and they never explore what the events mean to the characters outside of their individual loyalty missions.  Which means, since Shepard has no "loyalty mission", we get nothing about the main character at all, at least until the end of Shadow Broker.

But anyway, back to my initial point.  This could be a significant Chekhov's Gun for the series.  It needs to be expanded upon and somehow factor into Shepard defeating the Reapers.  I don't know how it could play into or influence the whole Prothean Beacon visions thing, but if it could be tied to that, too, it might make up for the total lack of those being even mentioned during ME2.

Modifié par Sable Phoenix, 27 novembre 2010 - 10:04 .

[Ruiner347]

My understanding of science and physics and all that can be considered average at best. But if you asked a scientist or whatever they were termed back in the 1700's to explain modern avionics, I'm guessing he wouldn't do so well. 500 years ago the world was flat, 150 years ago aerial flight itself was some dude standing on a barn with paper wings strapped to his arms most likely. So why are you arguing about tech that's supposed to be centuries in the future using today's limitations? The game itself tells you that discovering the site on mars launched what is likely already overpowering advancements to what we understand as science another 200 years ahead. This explanation alone allows for a LOT of creative license that the Stephen Hawkings in this thread seem to have not taken into account. So I agree with bioware to simply accept that they can do this and move on to the infinitely important part of what are they doing and why is there a giant gaping hole in the roof of my ship?  

As a storyline goes, I agree the whole resurrection thing was a bit far, not saying it couldnt' be done with the science that is implied that they had, but they tell you themselves the cost is ungodly prohibitive. 5 billion credits wasn't it?  TIM put the entire income of mutliple interplanetary conglomerates to achieve Lazerus for 1 person.

As a storyline I would rather like to see the long term effects such a thing would have, ME2 is largely Shepard just waking up and blowing the crap out of collectors and mercs all over the Terminus. What if in 3 things start to degrade and go wrong and Shepard ends up needing Mordin and maybe even the Hanar to stabilize system rejection or the raw trauma  that such an endeavor would have upon a person's system? Maybe even a tie-in that takes you back to cerberus and TIM in 3 if you were paragon and defied them. Also could slide right into the whole what it means to be human story plot that has been inferenced in this thread. Could even be a lead in if Ashley is still alive about God and the soul of a being. Just one of my random thoughts...   Feel free to bash me or tell me I'm wrong at any point.  

Another thought on the gun discussion, the cipher is an understanding of the prothean existence. Introduced during the story of ME1 whose to say that a lot fo that data didn't get displaced during cerberus' reconstruction of Shepard and maybe it's still there but fully integrated into his/her brain as a result. And in 3 they need to find another working artifact in order to jumpstart it.. so to speak? 

Ok, I feel I've bored you fine people enough with my wall-of-text rant which was only originally supposed to be a couple sentences long and will go crawl back under my uneducated rock and get back to blowing up mercs.

Seeya.

[somebody99000]

adam_grif wrote...
Acceleration (a) is change in velocity (delta v) over the time period it occurred (t). Lowering mass does not reduce acceleration, nor does it mitigate G forces acting on your body. Although less energy is expended with mass lowering magic, it will not prevent you from turning into a thin film of red paste.

But F=ma. So reducing the mass does decrease the forces needed to achieve a particular acceleration, and as I said if materials have the same strength (= requires the same *force* to snap a bone, tear a muscle, crush an organ, etc.), then that will mitigate the effects.

adam_grif wrote...
I've already read Revelation Space and got most of the way through Redemption Ark, so I'm well aware of all that stuff. classifying Revelation Space as Hard SciFi is tenuous at best, since it arguably abandoned its Hard SF roots around the time when they introduced Cryo-arithmic engines that operate in explicit violation of thermodynamics, and the thing we are discussing here which allows for violations of Conservation of Energy/Momentum. That is to say, if you can use less energy to accelerate up to a speed than should normally be possible, then you can use that to create a perpetual motion machine. There are also the Conjoiner drives, wormholes to alternate realities, backwards and forwards in time for increased processing speeds, the Cache weapons that rip holes in spacetime....

Not gonna argue that since I agree that it's not hard sci-fi, just hard-ish space opera (something of a contradiction in terms, I know). I brought it up because the author does actually think through the effects of the things he posists and is less garbled about it than the ME writers are.

adam_grif wrote...Although that said, the way the inertia modification was working in Rev Space series is much better handled than it is in ME, where it is essentially handwaving. In Rev Space the physiological effects of mass-lowering were felt by the crew, and if you're using Mass Effect style FTL, not only should the sharp accelerations turn people into chunky salsa, but their bodies should essentially shut down, the colours inside the ship should go funky, lethal doses of cherenkov radiation should be present...

Of course, it's just a game, and as I said earlier, no one wants multi-decade interstellar trips, so you have to have FTL. And that, of course, means plenty of scientific holes. I'm not really bothered by the FTL stuff, and I have a kind of resigned atttitude towards all of the other stuff, too.

[Iakus]

Sable Phoenix wrote...
This is really the biggest weakness in ME2's writing... they rarely get into the effects of the events upon the characters, and they never explore what the events mean to the characters outside of their individual loyalty missions.  Which means, since Shepard has no "loyalty mission", we get nothing about the main character at all, at least until the end of Shadow Broker.

Yeah, the game is very insular.  What happens in one part doesn't really affect any of the other parts.  A big weakness in a character-centered storyline, where people are expected to grow and change.

I'm playing ME 1 again, and recently had the conversation with Ash about her family.  She actually got embarassed about going on and on about her sisters when my (colonist) Shepard's family was wiped out by raiders.  She asked if what happened to Mindoir was the reason I joined the Alliance.  I had answers ranging from "to explore space"  "to serve humanity" "to protect people" "to kill pirates"

That's the kind of personality-shaping content ME 2 really needed.

[Iakus]

Ruiner347 wrote...

As a storyline goes, I agree the whole resurrection thing was a bit far, not saying it couldnt' be done with the science that is implied that they had, but they tell you themselves the cost is ungodly prohibitive. 5 billion credits wasn't it?  TIM put the entire income of mutliple interplanetary conglomerates to achieve Lazerus for 1 person.

All that money for something which when you get down to it, Jacob and Miranda could have handled on their own.  Perhaps not as well, but since when was Cerberus concerned about a few dead bodies?  Also, I don't see where it was implied that humans or any other race had this level of technology.  Some races have natural regenerative capabilities, but I never got the sense that they could rebuild a human being "exactly" as before.

As a storyline I would rather like to see the long term effects such a thing would have, ME2 is largely Shepard just waking up and blowing the crap out of collectors and mercs all over the Terminus. What if in 3 things start to degrade and go wrong and Shepard ends up needing Mordin and maybe even the Hanar to stabilize system rejection or the raw trauma  that such an endeavor would have upon a person's system? Maybe even a tie-in that takes you back to cerberus and TIM in 3 if you were paragon and defied them. Also could slide right into the whole what it means to be human story plot that has been inferenced in this thread. Could even be a lead in if Ashley is still alive about God and the soul of a being. Just one of my random thoughts...   Feel free to bash me or tell me I'm wrong at any point.  

I would like that.  Heck, I'd like that as a piece of bridging DLC.  Anything that implies consequences for having "tampered with God's domain" as the saying goes.

Another thought on the gun discussion, the cipher is an understanding of the prothean existence. Introduced during the story of ME1 whose to say that a lot fo that data didn't get displaced during cerberus' reconstruction of Shepard and maybe it's still there but fully integrated into his/her brain as a result. And in 3 they need to find another working artifact in order to jumpstart it.. so to speak? 

In ME 1, the Cipher and the beacon's visions were precisely what made Shepard unique.  Without them, he was exceptional, but not one-of-a-kind irreplaceable.  I would have loved to have seen them make more use out of it, provide a true reason to spend billions of credits to ressurect him. 

The only problem with the beacon story you provided is that there's already an N7 mission where you find a working beacon at the end

[Ruiner347]

Trudat, forgot about that one. Well out the window that one goes XD

[supakillaii]

Is it just me, or are people overlooking the possibility that they may have well used some/lots of Old Machine technology in Lazarus? Or am I just missing something?

[Iakus]

supakillaii wrote...

Is it just me, or are people overlooking the possibility that they may have well used some/lots of Old Machine technology in Lazarus? Or am I just missing something?

It's possible.  I'm even holding out a little bit of hope that it's a gun to be fired in ME 3.  But there's zero evidence of it in ME 2.  This is mainly due to the characters' extreme lack of curiosity and inability to ask questions.  But all we're really told is Jacob's "cutting edge technology" line.

[adam_grif]

But F=ma. So reducing the mass does decrease the forces needed to achieve a particular acceleration, and as I said if materials have the same strength (= requires the same *force* to snap a bone, tear a muscle, crush an organ, etc.), then that will mitigate the effects.

The effects of reduced force are canceled out by reduced mass (the lower-forces have a bigger impact on the object since it has low mass). We're getting into tautologies here, but F= ma, the a never changes as you lower m even though F does.



The effect of lowering the mass of a human and then slamming them forward with a thousand G's of acceleration is the same as getting a mass of flesh 1000 times lower than a humans' total body-mass and slamming with thousands of G's of acceleration. In both cases, the meat gets pulverized into unrecognizable form, even though it took "less force" to accelerate the less massive object.

[Killjoy Cutter]

adam_grif wrote...

But F=ma. So reducing the mass does decrease the forces needed to achieve a particular acceleration, and as I said if materials have the same strength (= requires the same *force* to snap a bone, tear a muscle, crush an organ, etc.), then that will mitigate the effects.

The effects of reduced force are canceled out by reduced mass (the lower-forces have a bigger impact on the object since it has low mass). We're getting into tautologies here, but F= ma, the a never changes as you lower m even though F does.

The effect of lowering the mass of a human and then slamming them forward with a thousand G's of acceleration is the same as getting a mass of flesh 1000 times lower than a humans' total body-mass and slamming with thousands of G's of acceleration. In both cases, the meat gets pulverized into unrecognizable form, even though it took "less force" to accelerate the less massive object.

The question that's hanging here unasked -- what causes the "squish" during acceleration? 

(And don't say "the acceleration".)

[Sable Phoenix]

Killjoy Cutter wrote...

adam_grif wrote...

But F=ma. So reducing the mass does decrease the forces needed to achieve a particular acceleration, and as I said if materials have the same strength (= requires the same *force* to snap a bone, tear a muscle, crush an organ, etc.), then that will mitigate the effects.

The effects of reduced force are canceled out by reduced mass (the lower-forces have a bigger impact on the object since it has low mass). We're getting into tautologies here, but F= ma, the a never changes as you lower m even though F does.

The effect of lowering the mass of a human and then slamming them forward with a thousand G's of acceleration is the same as getting a mass of flesh 1000 times lower than a humans' total body-mass and slamming with thousands of G's of acceleration. In both cases, the meat gets pulverized into unrecognizable form, even though it took "less force" to accelerate the less massive object.

The question that's hanging here unasked -- what causes the "squish" during acceleration? 

(And don't say "the acceleration".)

Ever hit a tomato with a baseball bat?

You're the tomato.

The ship is the baseball bat.

Squish.