87 réponses à ce sujet

[archurban]

it's kind of funny all the time. people try to explain the nonsense of science in game for real. we won't ever get out to milky way even though technology will be highly advanced (I mean that really humans travel for long years without dying, then you could say hibernation. still ridiculous). I don't think that human can make light speed ship. it's faced with creation of durable materials, biology to keep people alive. mass relay? it will never happen. wake up, people. game is just game. imagination world. don't get into it too much.

Modifié par archurban, 13 janvier 2011 - 07:47 .

[Praetor Knight]

archurban wrote...

it's kind of funny all the time. people try to explain the nonsense of science in game for real. we won't ever get out to milky way even though technology will be highly advanced (I mean that really humans travel for long years without dying, then you could say hibernation. still ridiculous). I don't think that human can make light speed ship. it's faced with creation of durable materials, biology to keep people alive. mass relay? it will never happen. wake up, people. game is just game. imagination world. don't get into it too much.

well, this is the ME forums...

[Vicaris]

redzin, I don't know if this was written about before, but you invented a whole new field of study for space faring civilizations with faster than light travelling. Well, not a whole new field of study, but this idea of yours would be a complete turn for History.



Historians would work by estimating the date of an event they want to observe and traveling to the best possible distance to observe that event. Maybe they don't need to look at the Citadel from earth, but they could look at it from any other system that is at a better distance.



Not only historians would work in a completely different way, but there would also be people and even civilizations worried about sending messages to the future, like a time capsule.



It is a pretty cool idea, I wonder if it was explored in sci fi already.

[Vicaris]

Thinking about this, Liara shouldn't be wasting her time in Prothean digsites, she should be on a space station somewhere observing their activities.

[JrayM16]

Vicaris wrote...

Thinking about this, Liara shouldn't be wasting her time in Prothean digsites, she should be on a space station somewhere observing their activities.

Problem is, due to relativistic physics, any instant travel to that location would be travelling back to that point in time essentially, same with any mass relay travel.  Since time is relative to light, if we apply relativity then there shouldn't be a constant timeline. 

While it's cool to think about, introducing releativity to a conventional sci-fi setting like Mass Effect breaks everything.  You would have to design an entire new setting around relativity because everything changes.

[Dionkey]

I just shat brix. I did not think of this.

[desonnac00]

It has become very apparent by now(to a disturbing degree) that Bio has let ME let itself go... plotholes and all.
Otherwise- even IF we could see ANYTHING with anything(telescope or whatever) we wouldn't really be able to make anything out unless it's a SUN.
Consider it- 50,000 lightyears and light doesn't become distorted or absorbed by anything intersecting that straight line for 50,000 YEARS! No black holes, planets, ships... Nothing?

Verdict: not feasable or likely. Possible, mind you, just not very practical- Like putting a scope on a slingshot and trying to kill a whale with it... and the whale is at 5 km. depth

Modifié par desonnac00, 13 janvier 2011 - 10:17 .

[Vicaris]

JrayM16 wrote...

Vicaris wrote...

Thinking about this, Liara shouldn't be wasting her time in Prothean digsites, she should be on a space station somewhere observing their activities.

Problem is, due to relativistic physics, any instant travel to that location would be travelling back to that point in time essentially, same with any mass relay travel.  Since time is relative to light, if we apply relativity then there shouldn't be a constant timeline. 

While it's cool to think about, introducing releativity to a conventional sci-fi setting like Mass Effect breaks everything.  You would have to design an entire new setting around relativity because everything changes.

I might be wrong, but I don't think that would happen. I think the opposite would happen. Travelling at light speed or faster than light speed would mean time going slower for you, so in a way, you'd actually be travelling to the future.

[Zurcior]

OP is wrong. Even if the 50,000 timeline is true, the deadline to see the Prothean extinction from Earth had possibly already past. Remember the reason the events of ME1 took place? The Keeper signal failed. And it took Sovereign (or any other Reaper) another thousand years or so to find out how to fix it Rachni War, etc.). Point is, when humans on Earth had the chance to see the Prothean extinction, they didn't have the tech. Nor did they know that there was life beyond their world.

[AL JA]

Zurcior wrote...

OP is wrong. Even if the 50,000 timeline is true, the deadline to see the Prothean extinction from Earth had possibly already past. Remember the reason the events of ME1 took place? The Keeper signal failed. And it took Sovereign (or any other Reaper) another thousand years or so to find out how to fix it Rachni War, etc.). Point is, when humans on Earth had the chance to see the Prothean extinction, they didn't have the tech. Nor did they know that there was life beyond their world.

yea but as FTL exists you can travel to a place abit further from earth then look at the citadel and see the invasion. So if the invasion was actually 51250 years ago, you just travel 1250 light years away from earth and you can see the citadel invasion.

[adam_grif]

You can't see events from 50,000 years in the past with a telescope 50,000 light years away, because there will be nearly zero photons from there arriving. There's a reason why we can't directly observe planets 50,000 lightyears away, or even 50 light years away. Even when we observe stars, we see tiny dots, no real details and we have to use a whole bunch of inferential voodoo to get the information that we do (spectral analysis etc).

This isn't CSI, where you can just zoom into any picture and magically get details that were never part of the original image.



That's what Earth looks like from the edge of the solar system. The edge of the solar system is not even approaching 1 light-year away. Think people!

Modifié par adam_grif, 14 janvier 2011 - 02:09 .

[TheRealIncarnal]

Unless you had a super Sci-Fi telescope, then you won't be able to see anything clearly that far away.

[samurai crusade]

However, the further away you travel in light years, the less clarity you can get and detail you can see. Spotting a reaper or the citadel at that distance is near impossible with any kind of detail. Asuming you get any detail at all, at best you'll see reaper battle tactics. But we already know this. They do ariel bombardment, or planetary invasion like the ME3 teaser. So really, 50,000 years was a good timeframe for their invasions because it's really hard to see back that far in detail.

[redzin]

To sum up what has been posted so far:

1. The plot hole could simply be closed by assuming that they don't have the technology. This is too easy though, because it's fairly unrealistic to imagine that they'd still be struggling with the same astronomical issues 200 years in the future, and with the knowledge and theories of many other spciecies. They have FTL and many other advanced technologies so assuming they wouldn't have the technology to observe at least something from across 50k lightyears doesn't make sense.

2. The Prothean extinction likely didn't happen exactly 50,000 years ago, meaning that the time of possible observation on earth has passed, or hasn't occured yet. This is a much more likely reason why it couldn't be done; they could still put the observation equipment on a spaceship, but unless they knew exactly when the Prothean extinction happened, they wouldn't know where to go.


So the conclusion so far must be that it can't be done unless they know exactly when the Prothean extinction happened.

[xentar]

Vicaris wrote...
It is a pretty cool idea, I wonder if it was explored in sci fi already.

Peter F. Hamilton. Pandora's Star.

[AL JA]

adam_grif wrote...

You can't see events from 50,000 years in the past with a telescope 50,000 light years away, because there will be nearly zero photons from there arriving. There's a reason why we can't directly observe planets 50,000 lightyears away, or even 50 light years away. Even when we observe stars, we see tiny dots, no real details and we have to use a whole bunch of inferential voodoo to get the information that we do (spectral analysis etc).

This isn't CSI, where you can just zoom into any picture and magically get details that were never part of the original image.



That's what Earth looks like from the edge of the solar system. The edge of the solar system is not even approaching 1 light-year away. Think people!

That picture is from the voyager satellite designed to take close range photographs of planets and moons from orbit. it isnt a telescope. The only reason it took a picture of earth was to intentionally show how small we look in the universe. 

[adam_grif]

That picture is from the voyager satellite designed to take close range photographs of planets and moons from orbit. it isnt a telescope. The only reason it took a picture of earth was to intentionally show how small we look in the universe.

And yet, the point stands. The further you get from somewhere, the lower the resolution of the image you can take because there is only a limited amount of light being sent your way. The relationship is not Linear either, as linear distance increases, the size of the telescope necessary to get the same image as when you were closer increases quadratically.







Intensity = Intensity at source / 4 * pi * distance^2



The further you go away, the more distant all of the photons become, and thus the larger the dish you will need to collect them all. You can't even get good surface detail of Earth with telescopes pointed at Earth from Earth orbit. The most powerful orbital telescopes can't see that well on relatively close places like Mars, how are you supposed to notice things going on 50,000 light years away?



Do you have a dish to collect all the photons that is 4000 lightyears across or something?

[AL JA]

^^ is this not counter acted by exposure time to the photons? + you have to imagine the technological progression of 160 more years

[samurai crusade]

redzin wrote...

To sum up what has been posted so far:

1. The plot hole could simply be closed by assuming that they don't have the technology. This is too easy though, because it's fairly unrealistic to imagine that they'd still be struggling with the same astronomical issues 200 years in the future, and with the knowledge and theories of many other spciecies. They have FTL and many other advanced technologies so assuming they wouldn't have the technology to observe at least something from across 50k lightyears doesn't make sense.

2. The Prothean extinction likely didn't happen exactly 50,000 years ago, meaning that the time of possible observation on earth has passed, or hasn't occured yet. This is a much more likely reason why it couldn't be done; they could still put the observation equipment on a spaceship, but unless they knew exactly when the Prothean extinction happened, they wouldn't know where to go.


So the conclusion so far must be that it can't be done unless they know exactly when the Prothean extinction happened.

Accurate summary.    To comment on #1.   The ability to travel FTL and the ability to create a magnifying lense to see in detail 50,000 lightyears are two increadably different things. As in all areas of history, inventions progress at different rates.   As I posted on page 1, I believe that in the ME universe, once they discovered FTL and the relays.   Trying to create a telescope to see distant solar systems became irrelevant because astranomers could just travel to that solor system and look off the port-side view window so to speak.   I cought a lot of flack earlier for that comment but it still rings true.

[Zurcior]

AL JA wrote...

Zurcior wrote...

OP is wrong. Even if the 50,000 timeline is true, the deadline to see the Prothean extinction from Earth had possibly already past. Remember the reason the events of ME1 took place? The Keeper signal failed. And it took Sovereign (or any other Reaper) another thousand years or so to find out how to fix it Rachni War, etc.). Point is, when humans on Earth had the chance to see the Prothean extinction, they didn't have the tech. Nor did they know that there was life beyond their world.

yea but as FTL exists you can travel to a place abit further from earth then look at the citadel and see the invasion. So if the invasion was actually 51250 years ago, you just travel 1250 light years away from earth and you can see the citadel invasion.

 Not only would that be a waste of time, it would be far too difficult. Even if the knew the exact moment the invasion happened. The time it would take them to find the right angle, distance, and amount of light they need to see, there will be another Reaper invasion.

[archurban]

FTL, whatever. can we still make to Mars? because it will take more than year to get there. then travelers take pills to hibernate. how many percentage of people actually will even afford to take a trip to Mars? I guess 99% of people will die on Earth not even try to go Mars or Moon. game is game. argument is just nonsense.

[JrayM16]

Vicaris wrote...

JrayM16 wrote...

Vicaris wrote...

Thinking about this, Liara shouldn't be wasting her time in Prothean digsites, she should be on a space station somewhere observing their activities.

Problem is, due to relativistic physics, any instant travel to that location would be travelling back to that point in time essentially, same with any mass relay travel.  Since time is relative to light, if we apply relativity then there shouldn't be a constant timeline. 

While it's cool to think about, introducing releativity to a conventional sci-fi setting like Mass Effect breaks everything.  You would have to design an entire new setting around relativity because everything changes.

I might be wrong, but I don't think that would happen. I think the opposite would happen. Travelling at light speed or faster than light speed would mean time going slower for you, so in a way, you'd actually be travelling to the future.

Forgive me for not going into an indepth explanation, but no, you would go back in time.

[Spartas Husky]

Wait... AStronomy and Physics are way rusty. but doesn't speed of travel relative to the speed of light just slow donw time to those objects moving faster than others. I never heard of time actually moving backwards because of the object's speed.

[Chino 281]

 The Citadel is in a thick nebula. No civy would be able to see the event, but it is possible for rich scientists to see it with extremely good tech.

[RaduM]

The Original Poster makes a good point.



The Milky Way is roughly 100,000 light years in diameter. This means that a source of radiation from whichever spectrum, including visible light or radio transmissions, if it originates from one end of the galaxy, needs 100,000 years to reach the other end of the galaxy. That's two Reaper "cycles".



In other words, it would be perfectly plausible for the "echoes" of the last Reaper "cycle" to abound in the galaxy. Not just visible light showing the events themselves, but also radio transmissions of all kinds.



The galaxy should normally be filled with Prothean distress signals, military communications and chatter and everything else you would expect from a galaxy-wide extermination campaign that lasted a century or more centuries according to Vigil from ME1, all of these criss-crossing the galaxy as the Reapers visited every single outpost that belonged to a sentient race. Even if some of these transmissions would be garbled or encrypted, that's still a whole lot of chatter floating around.



So yes, because radio waves travel at the speed of light, the "ripples" of the Reaper invasion could be picked up.



Still, as big a plot hole as it may be, a slight retconning of the Reaper cycle from 50k years to, say 200k years, twice the Milky Way's diameter, would actually ensure that indeed, the Reaper "cycle" would leave no discernible "smoking gun".