161 réponses à ce sujet

[wulf3n]

didymos1120 wrote...
No, you're just supposed to accept that it has yet to be explained.  You should also realize that you're making unwarrented assumptions about what the goo was.  You're assuming it was "magical gene paste" or whatever, but that's not really supported by the game.  Nothing in particular is really supported by the game, in fact. All we know is that what eventually happened to the captive humans was to get broken down into undifferentiated slurry, and that this slurry was then used in some fashion by the baby-Reaper-making apparatus.  All we learn from EDI's analysis is that she detected organic signatures withing the decidedly inorganic superstructure. 

I've made no assumptions about what the goo is. I don't know if it's food, broken down to basic materials like calcium and protein, but therein lies the problem. I know absolutely nothing about goo, the reapers plans, or even if there was any danger, hell maybe the reaper would have taken another 50 years to complete. The lack of information is what negatively affects the story.

Irrelevant of what the goo is used for it still means the Reapers, who despise all organic life, are dependent on organic life for procreation.
(now thats really just a personal gripe, you could argue that its ironic, or shows a flaw in their nature, so they're not all perfect beings, but to me it just nerfs them completely.) 

didymos1120 wrote...
I mean, she flat out tells you, TWICE even, that she can only begin to speculate as to what the hell's actually going on. She also emphasizes that she has no clue how many humans are required or how far along the process is.  The only context in which genetics comes up is that a certain level of diversity is one of the criteria in selecting a species for Reaper-hood, and EDI doesn't bring the subject up at all during her discussion.  At best, it's merely alluded to when she speculates that the Protheans were rejected, but even that's supposition.

That's great, but what I'm saying is that not explaining anything is detrimental to the story.

didymos1120 wrote...
Now, of course, you can choose to continue being bent out of shape about this, but it is what it is, and it was obviously done deliberately because they make a point of saying, via EDI, that "You don't know enough to figure this out right now."

Bent out of shape? what? i'm just pointing out my observations. If i was gonna get bent out of shape over ME2 it wouldn't be about the human reaper. And just because they acknowledge a lack of exposition, does not mean that its ok.

Modifié par wulf3n, 06 janvier 2011 - 02:18 .

[BiancoAngelo7]

wulf3n wrote...

 just because they acknowledge a lack of exposition, does not mean that its ok.

Qft.

[didymos1120]

BiancoAngelo7 wrote...

wulf3n wrote...

 just because they acknowledge a lack of exposition, does not mean that its ok.

Qft.

Contrariwise, you not liking a deliberate lack of exposition doesn't make it not OK.  It just means you personally don't like it.

Modifié par didymos1120, 06 janvier 2011 - 02:41 .

[Dionkey]

The collector general would be wayy better. The Human reaper in my eyes is something you would see in a B Movie.

[wulf3n]

didymos1120 wrote...
Contrariwise, you not liking a deliberate lack of exposition doesn't make it not OK.  It just means you personally don't like it.

How does this deliberate lack of exposition improve the story? this isn't a mystery game where we're trying to figure out who dunnit!

We're given no useful information on the reapers, to let us know what we actually accomplished. Okay we stopped the collectors from harvesting people, but what real danger was there? was 1 collector ship going to somehow beat the alliance fleets? were there enough non-alliance colonies to complete the reaper? what was the reaper going to do once it was completed? was there even a plan, or do the reapers just like to have and exact population all the time?

Without knowing what their plan is, we don't know what we've stopped, with out knowing what we've accomplished, we effectively haven't accomplished anything. They may tell us in ME3 but we'll have bigger problems to deal with then to feel anything from the revelation.

edit: More questions - why do they need human goo? DO they need human goo? could they make do with the Human goo they already had?

Modifié par wulf3n, 06 janvier 2011 - 03:22 .

[Yojimbo_Ltd]

It was a problem because up to that point, I was engrossed in the climax, and then it made me laugh....

[Slayer299]

Aigyl wrote...

Keep in mind even the Codex says the reasons behind the Human Reaper are unknown. The story behind it is not finished yet. The devs haven't forgotten about the Human Reaper, it will very likely be elaborated on in ME3 as RiouHotaru said. Mass Effect is a trilogy after all, not everything is going to be fully explained in the second Act.

To say the Human Reaper does not make sense without having played ME3 is like saying Saruman in the LOTR books does not make sense because you don't know why he's sided with Sauron exactly until Return of the King (the Palantir I think it's called - the corrupted orb thingy that doesn't make an appearance until the third book and explains how Saruman fell to the dark side).

That said I do wish they had gone with the 'organic' look from the concept art.

I'm sorry, but your analogy with Sauron and Saruman is just completely off. Saruman revealed he was working with Sauron waaayyy before RotK, in fact that reveal is happens back in FotR.  You learn about Sauron and Saurman during the meeting in ch 2 (yes I am something of a tolkien geek) and the same is true of the movie and even the palantir. Everything *is* explained prior.

So saying that we have to wait until ME3 to have it explained and make sense doesn't work. We don't have to understand everything about their reasoning for goo-fiying humans, but the baby Terminator look just made zero sense at all or the conveniently placed weak points for you to shoot the tubes or (my favorite) the 4 red targets on baby Termy that just said "shoot me!".

[BoogieManFL]

I was puzzled by it as an end boss as far as difficulty. I don't know if I got lucky each time I've played but it was, by leaps and bounds, the easiest boss fight in the game. My last time I didn't use the nuke launcher either. In fact the whole endgame I felt was kinda easy by comparison to many other parts. I had more trouble at timea when fighting multiple heavy mechs or those floating collector things. Especially since my companions apparently have no comprehension of what is a real threat and virtually always get owned unless I handheld them.

The first boss in Lair of the Shadowbroker however was basically a demigod and stupidly durable.

As far is it's purpose.. I dunno. The other reapers are big starships. Effective. That thing, while huge itself, wasn't nearly as big. Could it even travel through space without a carrier ship? How effective would a largely terrestrial only reaper be? When your goal is galactic conquest and extermination I would think not soo much.

Maybe after it had enough goo it would have been operational enough to function on it's own and they would have dropped it off on colonies or Earth to gooify more people into it and become more powerful.

As far as it looking like a Terminator.. How much else would a machine like human body look like without skin? The metal replaces the skeleton, so therefore not much other way for it to look..

Modifié par BoogieManFL, 06 janvier 2011 - 05:02 .

[RiouHotaru]

adam_grif wrote...

"Sufficently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic."

That's a non-argument. You may as well have said "they are so far beyond us that we can't understand." Ok, but then you have to admit that the writers don't understand what they were doing either, which means you've just destroyed your own position. That's not a defense!

It is too a defense.  It means that the alleged "nonsense" that people claim about the genetic paste stuff is fesiable, just outside the realm of science as we humans understand it.

[RiouHotaru]

Also, didymos has a point, they don't need to give exposition to explain everything. That's the point of the third game. To give a reasoning and explain things. If it's all revealed and exposed too early, then the story is ruined.

[Rip504]

Fans...

[Nightwriter]

Jabarai wrote...

Nightwriter wrote...

People think the science - or lack thereof - behind the Reaper is silly. The fact that it looks like a Terminator is just icing on the cake.

I'm not sure if it's silly, exactly. Of what I'm one hundred percent certain, however, is that you could say that everything that is scary and odd in, say, Twin Peaks is really rather silly. That is, if you simply wish to think so. But why would you do that?

I'd say that the levels of biotechnology the Reapers could be seen mastering are beyond what we can imagine. Storaging the data (i.e. knowledge, memories and so on) of each individual that ends up gooed and stored in a Reaper can also be seen quite viable and sensible.

And then we get to the appearance of the thing. Yes, it looks a bit naive, and a far cry from any other Reaper seen in the games. Then again, it's only claimed to be a reaper larva (assuming it doesn't refer to the constuct being unfinished), and a reasonable conclusion would be that it also ends up with a shell, similar to any other Reaper out there. Why the human figure, then, in the first place? Well, one possible reason would be entirely religious. The geth are capable of assuming gods or other 'higher purposes', so it stands to reason that the Reapers could, too. And no amount of arguments rooting for logic and sense can touch religion.

Frankly, few people are concerned in speculating or figuring out the Reapers' motives for doing what is generally regarded as silly stuff. I'd say it's a lot more rewarding that what seems like the favourite pastime here, poking and ripping holes in the story.

Consider, if you will, that it is made out of human goo. Yes, goo.

Humans are put into a blenderizer machine and turned into goo and the goo is funneled into the Reaper and a human shape somehow arises out of the goo, that human shape being made of metal and not goo at all. And the goo transfers the entire "essence" of our species into the goo Reaper, so this would be like drinking a smoothie and knowing what it's like to be a strawberry or a cocoa bean (depending on what flavor your smoothie is, I personally prefer chocolate). And it would also be like expecting the smoothie to turn you into a strawberry because it is made from strawberries, and also expecting that strawberry to be metal.

Modifié par Nightwriter, 06 janvier 2011 - 05:23 .

[AlanC9]

wulf3n wrote...

edit: More questions - why do they need human goo? DO they need human goo? could they make do with the Human goo they already had?

Those are easy.

They need goo because that's how the Reapers reproduce. Human goo in particular because humans are genetically unique among current sentients, as we learn in Mordin's quests. That's why the Collectors were experimenting with a plague that attacked nonhumans. Humans are to become Reaper chow, all others just get exterminated.

The goo they had was insufficient to finish the one Reaper they were working on; I'm pretty sure EDI tells you this. Long-term, of course, they need all  the goo they can get for their next generation. Hence the central role of Earth in ME3.

[GodWood]

...I can't tell if Alan's joking or not.

[AlanC9]

Nightwriter wrote...
Humans are put into a blenderizer machine and turned into goo and the goo is funneled into the Reaper and a human shape somehow arises out of the goo, that human shape being made of metal and not goo at all.

Obviously, they shape the metal casing like a human because they know where the goo came from. Come to think of it, the post you were replying to stated that.

[AlanC9]

GodWood wrote...

...I can't tell if Alan's joking or not.

Not.

I suppose we could wager some BioWare Points on this; I'd put a few hundred down on everything I said being proven in ME3.

Edit: I'm not saying that I like this, mind. Just that I think I know where Bio's going with the stuff they showed us in ME2. For instance, when they bring up human genetic uniqueness twice in the game, you know that's going to be a plot point.

Modifié par AlanC9, 06 janvier 2011 - 05:41 .

[adam_grif]

It is too a defense. It means that the alleged "nonsense" that people claim about the genetic paste stuff is fesiable, just outside the realm of science as we humans understand it.

No amount of scientific advancement can make things happen that don't make sense. If I told you the Reapers were deploying a new weapon in ME3 that killed people by "draining the round-ness out of them", thus turning them into giant fleshy cubes, would you also defend this ridiculous notion? How about if the Reaper ground forces employed the highly effective military tactic of walking on their hands, without wearing armor, and marching in straight line formations at machine gun fire. And the game told us that this was a brilliant military tactic and that the Alliance has to adopt it if it wants a chance to fight them off. Would it be sufficient for you to say "oh well the Reapers are sufficiently advanced tacticians, we can't question this"?

Because the idea of "human essence" being a key component in the construction of a starship is equally foolish. There is no such thing as human essence, Vitalism is nonsense. A mushed up human is no more useful than the elemental composition of humans that could easily be mass produced without the stupid reaper cycle of destruction and harvest. If they want to upload minds, then why do they need humans? Why does the Asari population breeding with other species make them "weak and unsuitable" for harvest? Surely a species whose individuals live to a thousand would contain much knowledge and wisdom and make them ideal, especially given that the Asari population is much larger than humans given their long history of space travel and colonization. Why do Salarians being "genetically fragile" make them unsuitable? Oh, so genes are used, not minds! The Reapers are interested in genetics.

Well, we're back to square one, where somehow a bunch of human DNA constructs human shaped robots (lol), and that this is how they breed, by kidnapping people and building stuff out of their mush. Never mind the fact that DNA is useless on its own and contains no intrinsic properties at all, cat DNA would be just as useless as human DNA. Never mind that DNA is only meaningful in the context of biology where it provides a recipe for your your body to form, somehow this is useful for building giant death robots. Sufficiently advanced, lol!

Modifié par adam_grif, 06 janvier 2011 - 05:41 .

[GodWood]

AlanC9 wrote...

GodWood wrote...
...I can't tell if Alan's joking or not.

Not.

Oh.


Okay.




Are you sure?

[didymos1120]

RiouHotaru wrote...

It means that the alleged "nonsense" that people claim about the genetic paste stuff is fesiable, just outside the realm of science as we humans understand it.

The "genetic paste" notion is pretty much just made up out of whole cloth anyway.  All we can say is that it's organic, and it's made of people.  The game just plain doesn't tell us what exactly it is, or what exactly it is being used for.  The dialogue is very deliberately vague.

I can understand if that lack of information disappoints someone, but  I swear, it's like people are trying to come up with the worst possible explanation they can think of, and then getting mad at the game for (supposedly) using it.  It's on the same level as getting p!ssed at your friend because he punched you in a dream you had the other night.

[didymos1120]

adam_grif wrote...

Because the idea of "human essence" being a key component in the construction of a starship is equally foolish. There is no such thing as human essence, Vitalism is nonsense. A mushed up human is no more useful than the elemental composition of humans that could easily be mass produced without the stupid reaper cycle of destruction and harvest. If they want to upload minds, then why do they need humans?

Case in point.  What reason do you have to think that EDI is endorsing vitalism in her use of the word "essence"?  I don't see how you extract that from her dialogue.  There simply isn't enough there to say what exactly she's getting at.

[wulf3n]

AlanC9 wrote...
They need goo because that's how the Reapers reproduce.

But why were they creating a new reaper now? what was its purpose? was it a temporary fix rather than travel all the way here? if so maybe it didn't need to fully complete! 

AlanC9 wrote...
Human goo in particular because humans are genetically unique among current sentients, as we learn in Mordin's quests. That's why the Collectors were experimenting with a plague that attacked nonhumans. Humans are to become Reaper chow, all others just get exterminated.

I wasn't so much asking do they need "human" i was asking do they need organic material all together, or do they have a non-organic alternative? maybe geth?

AlanC9 wrote...
The goo they had was insufficient to finish the one Reaper they were working on; I'm pretty sure EDI tells you this. Long-term, of course, they need all  the goo they can get for their next generation. Hence the central role of Earth in ME3.

Still doesn't explain the purpose of the reaper we destroyed?

What i've been trying to argue is ME2 was lacking a sense of achieving a greater goal, as a result of very little information.

In ME1 our goal's stop Saren and Sovereign, with the Achievement of halting the reaper invasion. 
In ME2 our goal's to stop the Collectors collecting, and then destroy the Reaper, but what did that achieve? what did destroying the reaper actually do? to know that we have to know what the reaper was for, and i don't see any reason not to have that information in ME2.

It would be like if Star Wars didn't have any information about the Death Star, we don't know why it's dangerous, or why it has to be destroyed, or what destroying it actually accomplished, and then saying hey don't worry its a trilogy it'll get explained in return of the jedi.

didymos1120 wrote...
The "genetic paste" notion is pretty much just made up out of whole cloth anyway.  All we can say is that it's organic, and it's made of people.  The game just plain doesn't tell us what exactly it is, or what exactly it is being used for.  The dialogue is very deliberately vague. 

I can understand if that lack of information disappoints someone, but  I swear, it's like people are trying to come up with the worst possible explanation they can think of, and then getting mad at the game for (supposedly) using it.  It's on the same level as getting p!ssed at your friend because he punched you in a dream you had the other night. 

You're probably right. I remember another thread a while ago with a supposed developer on 4chan going into some alternate ideas that explained the purpose of the goo, and it was actually somewhat interesting, and made the whole thing less ridiculous...slightly.

but i still don't see why the information about how reapers are built wasn't included in the game where the reapers creation is revealed. Won't we have more important things to worry about in ME3 than what the human goo is for? how does it make the game any worse including this information?

Modifié par wulf3n, 06 janvier 2011 - 06:05 .

[Jamin101]

wulf3n wrote...

Jamin101 wrote...

im surprised in this thread at the people constantly asking what the goo does. What does the red lightning on soverign do,? How exactly are we planet scanning etc?

The Goo is essential to understanding how the reapers are created, is it wrong to ask what it's doing in the creation of a "SYNTHETIC" being?

Jamin101 wrote...
Complaining about it being terminator or cheesy is one thing complaining it doesnt make sense from a science point of view is rediculous if you played me1 and me2 up to the boss battle

It doesn't make sense from any point of view let alone scientific. just Goo = Reaper, and we're supposed to just accept it?

still a third game, no need to give up everything, now you have something you wanna find out about which keeps interest up, writing achieved

[Jamin101]

adam_grif wrote...

It is too a defense. It means that the alleged "nonsense" that people claim about the genetic paste stuff is fesiable, just outside the realm of science as we humans understand it.

No amount of scientific advancement can make things happen that don't make sense. If I told you the Reapers were deploying a new weapon in ME3 that killed people by "draining the round-ness out of them", thus turning them into giant fleshy cubes, would you also defend this ridiculous notion? How about if the Reaper ground forces employed the highly effective military tactic of walking on their hands, without wearing armor, and marching in straight line formations at machine gun fire. And the game told us that this was a brilliant military tactic and that the Alliance has to adopt it if it wants a chance to fight them off. Would it be sufficient for you to say "oh well the Reapers are sufficiently advanced tacticians, we can't question this"?

Because the idea of "human essence" being a key component in the construction of a starship is equally foolish. There is no such thing as human essence, Vitalism is nonsense. A mushed up human is no more useful than the elemental composition of humans that could easily be mass produced without the stupid reaper cycle of destruction and harvest. If they want to upload minds, then why do they need humans? Why does the Asari population breeding with other species make them "weak and unsuitable" for harvest? Surely a species whose individuals live to a thousand would contain much knowledge and wisdom and make them ideal, especially given that the Asari population is much larger than humans given their long history of space travel and colonization. Why do Salarians being "genetically fragile" make them unsuitable? Oh, so genes are used, not minds! The Reapers are interested in genetics.

Well, we're back to square one, where somehow a bunch of human DNA constructs human shaped robots (lol), and that this is how they breed, by kidnapping people and building stuff out of their mush. Never mind the fact that DNA is useless on its own and contains no intrinsic properties at all, cat DNA would be just as useless as human DNA. Never mind that DNA is only meaningful in the context of biology where it provides a recipe for your your body to form, somehow this is useful for building giant death robots. Sufficiently advanced, lol!

terrible examples, because not wearing armour equates to the endless possibilities of what the "goo" is needed for, maybe i just dont get it.

you also should listen to harbinger ramble, he mentions why they dont choose asari, there is probably a youtube vid of it

your last paragraph is just needless insults. star ship fuel instead of causing cancer gives you the force lol yet eezo is sound scientific?