87 réponses à ce sujet

[Fiery Phoenix]

There is a supergiant with 17.5 Solar masses in ME1, but that's all I can remember, really.

[Uszi]

SLPr0 wrote...

160 years, between now, and then.

Moore's Law. You're assuming what we'd be able to image in 2160 - 2180 would be the exact same thing we could image today. I highly doubt that will be the case, provided we survive ourselves to get there.

Yeah, I'm pretty sure when the phonograph was cutting edge technology and everyone was riding horses, Thomas Edison never thought of anything half as crazy as an iPod.

Or... that we'd be blasting people into space using liquid oxygen and hydrogen to launch people at 17,500 mph straight into the sky and into orbit.

[SLPr0]

Moore's Law was not applicable in the time of Edison as it applies directly to the exponential advancement of computer based technologies as they apply to us post 1970 or so.

The advent of the computer changed how we can expect technology to evolve from here, and has also given us rough estimates on how fast we will reach the capabilities to be able to process data at the levels required to advance our species and our technologies. 160 years is a long time under Moore's Law, its like dog years except the dog keeps getting smaller and its metabolism keeps getting faster and it actually eventually dies before it was even born.

Yes I know, its out there, but its an accurate metaphor.

Modifié par SLPr0, 12 janvier 2011 - 04:28 .

[Archontor]

baryonic member wrote...

good luck spotting a 44km long station at 50.k lightyears, okay. we cant even see planets directly in ze closest star systems to us, we can only detect shadows and their gravitational pull, yes?

well they know it's exact co ordinates and it dosen't move...so it would be easy to spot

[Archontor]

Also i must point ou that they most likely mean about 50,000 years so if it was, let's say 50,500 years ago we wouldn't have a hope in hell of seeing it if it was say 49,000 years ago we'd still be seeing protheans.

[Archontor]

Sorry one last point the majoraty of the prothean extinction happened on unknown planets- we would'nt know to look

[xentar]

redzin wrote...
Yes, so it would indeed be possible if the Prothean extinction happened exactly 50,000 years ago, and if the distance really is exactly 50,000 lightyears.

And to those above saying that ME isn't "real science"; a large part of it actually is fairly close, or at least inspired by real science. The non-scientific things in ME (like FTL and biotics) are explained by adding to the current science, not by discarding it. There's plenty of references to real science in ME, which is one of the reasons it's so good.

This is an interesting notion, and that's what I like ME setting for, compared to other non-book sci-fi media. However, you could say that the mass effect itself discards current science since you can't travel FTL/create artificial gravity by changing mass (what you can probably do is disintegrate matter due to violation of constant relations that make it stable). But artificial reduction of mass is indeed what's needed for the mass acceleration weapons to work (small ones anyway). This, a couple of things not thought of during creation (like absense of virtually undetectable in real time and quite devastating, if expensive FTL space weapons) and an embarrassing number of factual errors and hollywoodizations aside, ME setting is indeed one of the better ones outside books.

Modifié par xentar, 12 janvier 2011 - 05:11 .

[Nitram141]

Isn't one of the points about the Citadel that it's located within a nebula that makes it difficult to see/communicate with? I doubt you could see it with a telescope, even the VLT, but you might be able to see the nebula.

[atheelogos]

redzin wrote...

As the title says, the distance from the Citadel to Earth is 50,000 lightyears (according to this comic).

That got me thinking... theoretically, if they had a really good telescope on Earth, they could see the Reapers in action on the Citadel back when the Prothean extinction was happening.

It wouldn't be easy, but neither would FTL technology be. If they can use quantum entanglement and FTL technology, they can make a crazy telescope too.

So yeah, is this like a small plot hole or is there a reason they don't do this? Or is there a scientific reason why this wouldn't work that I've missed?

well I'm pretty sure no one can see through the nebula tha surrounds the Citadel. So thats one reason.

[Nitram141]

xentar wrote...

redzin wrote...
Yes, so it would indeed be possible if the Prothean extinction happened exactly 50,000 years ago, and if the distance really is exactly 50,000 lightyears.

And to those above saying that ME isn't "real science"; a large part of it actually is fairly close, or at least inspired by real science. The non-scientific things in ME (like FTL and biotics) are explained by adding to the current science, not by discarding it. There's plenty of references to real science in ME, which is one of the reasons it's so good.

This is an interesting notion, and that's what I like ME setting for, compared to other non-book sci-fi media. However, you could say that the mass effect itself discards current science since you can't travel FTL/create artificial gravity by changing mass (what you can probably do is disintegrate matter due tu violation of constant relations that make it stable). However, artificial reduction of mass is indeed what's needed for the mass acceleration weapons to work (small ones anyway). This, a couple of things not thought of during creation (like absense of virtually undetectable in real time and quite devastating, if expensive FTL space weapons) and an embarrassing number of factual errors and hollywoodizations aside, ME setting is indeed one of the better ones outside books.

Well, I haven't seen Michio Kaku do a show called 'The Science of Bionic Commando'... Agreed that, even if the science in ME is made up, at least some effort is made to make it look realistic and to explain it, unlike in certain other sci-fi franchises with blue aliens in them.

[kane442]

easy anwser is that the guy who did the comic messed up ....dont blame bioware ....on a side note who really cares its sci-fi the citadel is kinnda hidden in some kind of cloud anyways maybe it blocks if from sight unless you have some crazy scifi sensors . 

Modifié par kane442, 12 janvier 2011 - 05:03 .

[AL JA]

they have telescopes now on hawaii that can see through nebulas, you dont even need hubble or the other new space telescopes to see through a nebula. the op is correct and this is a plothole.

[Fredvdp]

samurai crusade wrote...

Really? because I would have guessed ME scientists and astronomers wouldn't used primative observation techniques?

I thought the point of this thread was to ask if this would be theoretically possible if they already had those telescopes, not if they should still build them and use them for other kinds of research.

Humans are newcomers in the galactic civilization and could have built those telescopes before discovering the relays.

Modifié par Fredvdp, 12 janvier 2011 - 05:30 .

[Reaver102]

Its only a plothole if you know what to look for in advance, somehow I doubt all there telescopes would be starring at the citadel waiting for it to happen. Would be really easy to miss the invasion of the citadel.

[redzin]

Reaver102 wrote...

Its only a plothole if you know what to look for in advance, somehow I doubt all there telescopes would be starring at the citadel waiting for it to happen. Would be really easy to miss the invasion of the citadel.

Well, theoretically speaking again, you could just build a telescope onboard a spaceship and move the spaceship into a position where it would be able to percieve the invasion.

They can build kilometer long spaceships (Dreadnoughts). Building a spaceship with a telescope would be fairly easy (the telescope should still be crazy though).

It would probably be difficult to find a suitable location though, and then get to it. Anyway, just saying that it could be done. And considering the impact of the event we're talking about (Prothean extinction), I believe people would at least try to observe it, if at all possible.

But yeah, this is a bit less likely.

Modifié par redzin, 12 janvier 2011 - 05:37 .

[Ulzeraj]

AL JA wrote...

they have telescopes now on hawaii that can see through nebulas, you dont even need hubble or the other new space telescopes to see through a nebula. the op is correct and this is a plothole.

"
Again you're refering to radioastronomy (infra-red spectrum telescopes can "see" heat emissions through the dust).

[Bullets McDeath]

"Why would they look through a telescope when they could just GO there?"



I lol'd.

[kmcd5722]

I suppose they could see it, although it would take a seriously high powered telescope to see it. The best telescopes today can't even resolve the surface of Pluto, let alone an object that is fifty thousand light years away. And considering the Citadel is extremely small in comparison, it wouldn't probably emit enough light to be even seen as a tiny pixel on a telescope. It would be cool, though...

[AL JA]

I think the op might be onto some thing here! http://www.scienceda...01109152447.htm

[SLPr0]

Nitram141 wrote...

Isn't one of the points about the Citadel that it's located within a nebula that makes it difficult to see/communicate with? I doubt you could see it with a telescope, even the VLT, but you might be able to see the nebula.

I addressed that with my spectrograph analysis offering back on the first page.

Even if we did not have the imaging capability to pentrate the dense gas and dust clouds of the Widow Nebula visually, we would still be able to use a spectrographic satellite array and get fairly supportive data that would support the theory of a Reaper invasion 50,000 years ago.

Catching and measuring the blue shifted light as it enters the region when the Reaper fleet exits the relay. And then doing eezo trace analysis for total potential eezo mass and then doing some math to work out exactly how many "objects" have entered the area suddenly by doing comparing the total eezo mass with the largest known dreadnoughts in 2180 or so, then dividing by the total eezo mass in area by the total eezo mass of one of our largest dreadnoughts (excluding perhaps the Destiny Ascension).

With that method alone you could effectively, without any visual data at all, extrapolate that the Citadel, 50,000 years ago, experienced some kind of event where suddenly hundreds or perhaps thousands of large ships arrived in the nebula all at once. Which to me would be enough data to give heavy creedence to the "theory" that the Protheans were wiped out in some kind of massive interstellar extinction event 50,000 years ago and it would indicate that some kind of gigantic fleet was involved.

If theres one thing that is common between the technology of the Reapers and the technology in use by the sapient species of the Mass Effect galaxy, its the use of eezo as drive core energy source.

The Reapers may be "eternal" but I rather doubt they've synthesized an unknown element they use as an energy source. Soveriegn stated the technology we use in Mass Effect, they created, so they could force us to develop along the technological paths they had created. Eezo is the common element between the Reapers and all other life in the galaxy, even if every single other thing about them is "unknowable".

Regardless, we don't have to see the attack, we just have to watch the light and analyse the trace elements in in the wavelengths. We can make rough guesses right now in the 21st century on the atmospheric and physical elements of planets we're seeing around other stars and this is achieved through spectro-analysis. The technology for analyzing light waves, in a society that lives at faster than light speed....must be quite advanced.

To be honest I'd say if the script wasn't already written for ME3, If I were BioWare I'd work something in regards to this into ME3 in regards to various organizations already having a rough estimate of the total Reaper numbers, based on having done some kind of normal light wavelength observations of this type.

Course doesn't help with the knowing "when" the Reapers are coming, all it really helps with is knowing roughly how many of them there are likely to be. Preparation for that number...may be irrelevant. But knowing the odds never hurts, and this is a more than viable way to have at least a semi-exact count of total Reapers possible.

[Nitram141]

^ I hope that Cerberus have some good astronomers then, because I can't see the Council or the Alliance funding that.



Also, instead of doing calculations based on the mass on the Destiny Ascension, why not estimate the mass of Sovereign or the the other one on Mnemosyne. We know its size and the materials it was made from...

[Nitram141]

double post

Modifié par Nitram141, 13 janvier 2011 - 05:54 .

[Khayness]

I thought telescopes aren't spyglasses.

And the Reaper invasion is a bit late, thanks to the Protheans meddling with the Keeprs and Shepard.

[SLPr0]

Oh also as a xeno-archaeological observation, we do not have any concrete data that the Reaper invasion at the Citadel happened exactly 50,000 years ago. Vigil gives no references to exact times.

Archaeological estimates are based on when the civilization appears to have become extinct, according to the information we have, the archaeological estimates state that the Prothean civilization became extinct 50,000 years ago.

Vigil stated that the extinction of an entire species can take hundreds of years. So playing devil's advocate here, its entire possible that we couldn't catch anything occuring at the Widow Nebula as of 2183 just because its exactly 50,000 light years from Earth. Its entirely possible that the initial invasion jump through the Citadel relay happened hundreds of years earlier. Long before we had any technology that could have detected it or would have even known there was a Widow Nebula at all.

The simple estimation of 50,000 light years = exact time of the Reaper attack through the Citadel mass relay is assuming everything is dated exactly. And we don't have enough data other than rudimentary story elements to support that it was exactly 50,000 years ago the event began, in archaeological terms when referring to the sudden extinction of a culture we tend to refer to exactly how long ago they appear to last have been active as a culture, such as the Clovis paleo-indians of North America we have established a fair but very hazy understanding of this culture through archaeological finds, but...even though we can date most of our Clovis finds dating from 10000BC - 9000BC or roughly a period of 1000 years, that does not exactly mean that the Clovis culture did not begin its rise a few hundred years before, nor does it mean every single Clovis paleo-indian vanished as of 9000BC, pockets of Clovis culture could have survived for a few hundred years afterwards or even been silently absorbed into smaller cultures huddling near the equator of the planet after the onset of the last ice age.

So there is no actual guarantee pointing anything at the Widow Nebula in 2183/2185 would show anything at all. Because theres no way to solidly lock the event as happening exactly 50,000 years ago.

Now with FTL drive I suppose you could, depending on the relay network, move your observational equipment around, to different LY distances from the Citadel til you did catch something, but trying to get an exact "hit" for when it occurred would be like searching for a needle in a haystack with that approach.

[Praetor Knight]

This is not a plothole. Like SLPr0 mentioned, the events are not exactly 50,000 years compared to Earth. And the 50,000 years is likely in Galactic Standard Time, not our contemporary time, which is shorter in comparison with the same number of days, for example.



http://masseffect.wi..._Standard_Time.



There can be a CDN Update:

Galactic News Break: Astronomers on Earth find strange phenomena and other objects in the Serpent Nebula, reports are coming in on other unexplained phenomena emerging from other near by systems.

Experts are baffled by what is being picked on the telescopes. Citadel and Alliance experts will be coming to Earth to review the data collected so far.