163 réponses à ce sujet

[Vaenier]

Arijharn wrote...

Sajuro wrote...
If only I read CDN.
But a full fledged ship at FTL?

Think of it this way: The 'scientific' principle between stopping a shard of metal shaved of a metal block inside a gun and fired at relativistic speeds and stopped by your suits kinetic barrier is no different than stopping a large object travelling at relativistic speeds by a city's kinetic shield.

The principle is the same, its just that power required increases quite harshly. With that excess power comes excess cost, which is why city shields are apparently very expensive. It's the difference why the capital city on Palaven would have one whereas Taetrus didn't.

When you break it down (har, there's a pun in there somewhere) the spaceship travelling at relativistic speeds is the same as any other object travelling at relativistic speeds.

True, but the ship would have increased mass going at increased speeds. That is a hell of alot of more kinetic energy. Think of it like that gun that one shotten the reaper, but now larger.

[Dean_the_Young]

Unless, to get to increased speeds, the mass of the ship had to be greatly reduced by the Mass Effect of it's e-zero core. At which point it wouldn't be 'fifteen ton ship hitting at light speed,' it'd be 'however much mass remains at light speed.'

[Vaenier]

Dean_the_Young wrote...

Unless, to get to increased speeds, the mass of the ship had to be greatly reduced by the Mass Effect of it's e-zero core. At which point it wouldn't be 'fifteen ton ship hitting at light speed,' it'd be 'however much mass remains at light speed.'

How do ships go faster than light, do they obtain zero mass? If they have zero mass, they could go infinite speeds, why is ftl so limited then? if they have not reached zero mass, they cant achieve ftl with mass effect, you would still require infinite energy. This has always bugged me.

Why do guns have mass effect fields? Once the bullet leaves the field, its mass will revert to normal and its velocity would adjust for conservation of energy, so why are they there? Are they simply ignoring conservation of energy? Can this ignoring of conservation of energy be applied to ships?

[Dean_the_Young]

The answer to all of that is... whatever they want mass effect to do.



The Mass Effect has never been a rational, internally consistent technological concept. It's a plot device, and little else but.

[adam_grif]

When a ship activates the ME core and burns to increase it's velocity, does it maintain that velocity when the core deactivates? I'm speaking of sublight speeds, obviously it can't be going FTL if you suddenly drop out because lightspeed is back in effect when you turn it off.



If so, a Kodiak shuttle (3 million credits) could zip up to 99.999% C, then flip the core into reverse and increase its mass to 1000 tonnes, and smash into a planet, shattering it open. It would also mean that you were getting energy from nowhere.



However, if momentum is conserved, then simply by lowering your own mass you automatically increase your velocity (p=mv, lower m means higher v to maintain the plumbing), and it means that missiles could easily bypass any and all point defense by traveling at near-C, then shutting down their drive cores when they get within a kilometer of their target. They would be impossible to see coming and impossible to intercept until it was seconds from striking you. Also, fighters would be completely obsolete, because missiles could simply be launched from frigates and carriers directly, and they simply activate their high mass fields when they are about to strike the enemy vessels, instead of having them activated permanently and forcing them to be carried by fighters.



Either way is inconsistent with the universe. Sad panda.

[Barbarossa2010]

I think a reconciled Quarian and Geth relationship will be the game changer here. A quarian/Geth fleet would be no insignificant thing. Shep being the wise, gun-toting diplomat/soldier he is might have a "loyalty" mission to help bring about such a situation. The Admiralty Board can be made to love, or at least respect, him; and the orthodox Geth thought enough of him to track him down and, in the end, give him the final decision whether to rewrite or destroy the heretics, when they cannot find real consensus.

Legion was not introduce into the story as a side show. Tali and Legion's confrontation, dependent on how resolved, seems to me to be a rather obvious plot element going forward. Legion almost seems to speak of creator Tali with reverence, although they don't see eye to eye after hundreds of years of built up mistrust, but they understand one another and manage to find a workable solution between them, if encouraged.

Either way, regarding the Quarians, since the destruction of all organic life in the Galaxy is pretty much hanging in the balance, I think there is a place for nearly everyone to chip in, regardless of how significant/insignificant their role might be.

But hey, I don't claim to have all the answers in such a heavily subjective and speculative subject as science fiction plot predictions.

Modifié par Barbarossa2010, 14 janvier 2011 - 03:01 .

[Legbiter]

They need to either eradicate the geth and park their noncombatants on their old homeworld or make peace with the geth and offload the civilians on a new planet. And Shepard will probably have a say in which option is taken in ME 3 via a paragon/renegade decision.

[Dean_the_Young]

Barbarossa2010 wrote...

I think a reconciled Quarian and Geth relationship will be the game changer here. A quarian/Geth fleet would be no insignificant thing. Shep being the wise, gun-toting diplomat/soldier he is might have a "loyalty" mission to help bring about such a situation. The Admiralty Board can be made to love, or at least respect, him; and the orthodox Geth thought enough of him to track him down and, in the end, give him the final decision whether to rewrite or destroy the heretics, when they cannot find real consensus.

Legion was not introduce into the story as a side show. Tali and Legion's confrontation, dependent on how resolved, seems to me to be a rather obvious plot element going forward. Legion almost seems to speak of creator Tali with reverence, although they don't see eye to eye after hundreds of years of built up mistrust, but they understand one another and manage to find a workable solution between them, if encouraged.

Either way, regarding the Quarians, since the destruction of all organic life in the Galaxy is pretty much hanging in the balance, I think there is a place for nearly everyone to chip in, regardless of how significant/insignificant their role might be.

But hey, I don't claim to have all the answers in such a heavily subjective and speculative subject as science fiction plot predictions.

I agree that a joint Quarian-Geth fleet would be a game changer.

Hence why I will gladly support Admiral Xen's re-capture of the Geth under Quarian control.

[Vaenier]

Dean_the_Young wrote...

Barbarossa2010 wrote...

I think a reconciled Quarian and Geth relationship will be the game changer here. A quarian/Geth fleet would be no insignificant thing. Shep being the wise, gun-toting diplomat/soldier he is might have a "loyalty" mission to help bring about such a situation. The Admiralty Board can be made to love, or at least respect, him; and the orthodox Geth thought enough of him to track him down and, in the end, give him the final decision whether to rewrite or destroy the heretics, when they cannot find real consensus.

Legion was not introduce into the story as a side show. Tali and Legion's confrontation, dependent on how resolved, seems to me to be a rather obvious plot element going forward. Legion almost seems to speak of creator Tali with reverence, although they don't see eye to eye after hundreds of years of built up mistrust, but they understand one another and manage to find a workable solution between them, if encouraged.

Either way, regarding the Quarians, since the destruction of all organic life in the Galaxy is pretty much hanging in the balance, I think there is a place for nearly everyone to chip in, regardless of how significant/insignificant their role might be.

But hey, I don't claim to have all the answers in such a heavily subjective and speculative subject as science fiction plot predictions.

I agree that a joint Quarian-Geth fleet would be a game changer.

Hence why I will gladly support Admiral Xen's re-capture of the Geth under Quarian control.

That is the worst possible outcome though. That means both sides get massively destroyed in the war. You lose all the strength the two fleets could of had together by making them fight and kill each other as one side trys to win the pointless war. And even if you manage to upload the virus to the Geth, they will go into lockdown and then be busy fighting themselves rather than the Reapers.

And that is unlikely to even occur, because Geth are not morons. If the Quarians attack them suddenly, they will know they must have some new virus to use. They will enact containment protocols and use anti virus software to fight back. They wont just take it lieing down.

Geth have been hackable because they required a open wireless access point to maintain inteligance. But the good Geth beat that with Legion already. Not to mention ships would not require that anyway in the first place because they are large enough to house enough programs. And the Geth probably have one of the largest fleets in the galaxy at this point in preperation to fight the Reapers who they know are a threat and they know are coming. Its only logical.

Modifié par Vaenier, 14 janvier 2011 - 03:44 .

[Drowsy0106]

Besides, it's a delicate conflict with neither side being good or bad, at least thats how i interpret the events. A positive outcome would greatly help the struggle against the Reapers and would open up some interesting story options for the ME universe in games to come. The whole intergalactic evil robots is getting old. Sure there will be beef between the Geth and the Quarians centuries to come, but they won't have an entire galaxy viewing them as evil.

[Dean_the_Young]

Vaenier wrote...

That is the worst possible outcome though. That means both sides get massively destroyed in the war. You lose all the strength the two fleets could of had together by making them fight and kill each other as one side trys to win the pointless war. And even if you manage to upload the virus to the Geth, they will go into lockdown and then be busy fighting themselves rather than the Reapers.

And that is unlikely to even occur, because Geth are not morons. If the Quarians attack them suddenly, they will know they must have some new virus to use. They will enact containment protocols and use anti virus software to fight back. They wont just take it lieing down.

Geth have been hackable because they required a open wireless access point to maintain inteligance. But the good Geth beat that with Legion already. Not to mention ships would not require that anyway in the first place because they are large enough to house enough programs. And the Geth probably have one of the largest fleets in the galaxy at this point in preperation to fight the Reapers who they know are a threat and they know are coming. Its only logical.

Not if Xen's data weapon works, however. If it does, there's no reason to assume that there'd be a phyrric victory war. See Geth, hack it, and hacking works: this is a different avenue than the Heretic virus, which in and of itself was never 'blocked' as much as pre-empted, and as a work of fiction there's no innate reason why a working Xen weapon must not work. After all, the Xen weapon can simply be said to take into account the Geth attempts at protection into account. The same sort of reasons that the Heretic Virus would have worked can be applied to a working Xen hacking-weapon. Taking it lying down or being smart or morons has nothing to do with it. It just works.

(Not that the Geth themselves 't make much logical sense in a variety of respects as depicted in-game.)

There's nothing to say that Geth would fight eachother to great degree: a hacked geth becomes capable of hacking the geth it's fighting, after all.



Moreover, at this point we have no reason to believe that some sort of battle/showdown won't break out regardless of what we wish or intend. The whole 'I want an independent Geth and Quarian fleet' position just kinda assumes that, if Shepard advocated it, that they won't fight or have any sort of conflict. But from a gaming perspective, this is rather obviously bonkers: in ME3, there's going to have to be a Quarian/Geth mission for Shepard to do, regardless of what you said in ME2. Context and dialogue will change, but the whole setup of the game at this point ('go out and gather allies') is based on a premise that those Allies that Shepard needs to recruit have something preventing them from coming straight away.

Like, say, an outbreak in the Geth/Quarian fight that Shepard needs to resolve once and for all.


If there's a fight regardless, than the amount of fighting necessitated by the Xen option isn't necessarily any greater, or even equal to, the fighting that might go on even in the 'why can't we all get along' resolution Shepard will almost certainly be able to bring about.


And who knows, maybe Bioware won't allow that as a copout: Shepard can still be forced to outright choose, one faction or another, in which case the Xen option is the only plausible hope to have any asset of both, as opposed to one or the other.


(As an aside, there are no more good geth with that Shepard: she sold Legion because she didn't have enough reason to trust it, and so no disruption of the Heretic Geth virus.)

Modifié par Dean_the_Young, 14 janvier 2011 - 04:02 .

[Vaenier]

Short of magic or stupidity, the idea of just turning off your wireless access point is unhackable. There is no magic in Mass Effect. Its like biological weapons. Just wear a hazmat suit and you are fine. If some idiot sitting on a computer at home can figure it out, some highly advanced AI would figure it out instantly.

A fight regardless is a true possibility. They can make the racism just too strong in the Quarians, or they can pull the cliche all ai are evil card... But seeking peace is a better option than trying to start a costly war.

Modifié par Vaenier, 14 janvier 2011 - 04:07 .

[Dean_the_Young]

Vaenier wrote...

Short of magic or stupidity, the idea of just turning off your wireless access point is unhackable. There is no magic in Mass Effect. Its like biological weapons. Just wear a hazmat suit and you are fine. If some idiot sitting on a computer at home can figure it out, some highly advanced AI would figure it out instantly.

There is magic in Mass Effect. It's called the mass effect.

Geth without communications are effectively retards, incapable of cooperation or basic intelligence. Any fight in that respect is distinctly one-sided, at which point Quarians could march to the key geth servers, upload their hacking program/virus directly, and quite plausibly do a manual re-application of the Heretic Virus. If the Geth cut off all communications between platforms, they can't fight. If they don't, they lose faster.

A fight regardless is a true possibility. They can make the racism just too strong in the Quarians, or they can pull the cliche all ai are evil card... But seeking peace is a better option than trying to start a costly war.

Or they could have other factors trigger the powder keg. More divergant Geth (a carry-over from assimilating the Heretics), a Heretic-Geth intervention (if there are any less), or an act of individual Quarians as opposed to Fleet policy/intent.

As the war might already be started by the time Shepard goes there, quickly and decisively winning the war and grabbing the spoils, rather than questionably suing for peace, has it's own logic.

[Drowsy0106]

Dean_the_Young wrote...

Vaenier wrote...

That is the worst possible outcome though. That means both sides get massively destroyed in the war. You lose all the strength the two fleets could of had together by making them fight and kill each other as one side trys to win the pointless war. And even if you manage to upload the virus to the Geth, they will go into lockdown and then be busy fighting themselves rather than the Reapers.

And that is unlikely to even occur, because Geth are not morons. If the Quarians attack them suddenly, they will know they must have some new virus to use. They will enact containment protocols and use anti virus software to fight back. They wont just take it lieing down.

Geth have been hackable because they required a open wireless access point to maintain inteligance. But the good Geth beat that with Legion already. Not to mention ships would not require that anyway in the first place because they are large enough to house enough programs. And the Geth probably have one of the largest fleets in the galaxy at this point in preperation to fight the Reapers who they know are a threat and they know are coming. Its only logical.

Not if Xen's data weapon works, however. If it does, there's no reason to assume that there'd be a phyrric victory war. See Geth, hack it, and hacking works: this is a different avenue than the Heretic virus, which in and of itself was never 'blocked' as much as pre-empted, and as a work of fiction there's no innate reason why a working Xen weapon must not work. After all, the Xen weapon can simply be said to take into account the Geth attempts at protection into account. The same sort of reasons that the Heretic Virus would have worked can be applied to a working Xen hacking-weapon. Taking it lying down or being smart or morons has nothing to do with it. It just works.

(Not that the Geth themselves 't make much logical sense in a variety of respects as depicted in-game.)

There's nothing to say that Geth would fight eachother to great degree: a hacked geth becomes capable of hacking the geth it's fighting, after all.



Moreover, at this point we have no reason to believe that some sort of battle/showdown won't break out regardless of what we wish or intend. The whole 'I want an independent Geth and Quarian fleet' position just kinda assumes that, if Shepard advocated it, that they won't fight or have any sort of conflict. But from a gaming perspective, this is rather obviously bonkers: in ME3, there's going to have to be a Quarian/Geth mission for Shepard to do, regardless of what you said in ME2. Context and dialogue will change, but the whole setup of the game at this point ('go out and gather allies') is based on a premise that those Allies that Shepard needs to recruit have something preventing them from coming straight away.

Like, say, an outbreak in the Geth/Quarian fight that Shepard needs to resolve once and for all.


If there's a fight regardless, than the amount of fighting necessitated by the Xen option isn't necessarily any greater, or even equal to, the fighting that might go on even in the 'why can't we all get along' resolution Shepard will almost certainly be able to bring about.


And who knows, maybe Bioware won't allow that as a copout: Shepard can still be forced to outright choose, one faction or another, in which case the Xen option is the only plausible hope to have any asset of both, as opposed to one or the other.


(As an aside, there are no more good geth with that Shepard: she sold Legion because she didn't have enough reason to trust it, and so no disruption of the Heretic Geth virus.)

Argh, in this case i hate it if your theories are correct. Having to choose between the Quarians or the Geth would be most difficult. Story wise it would be awesome specially with no silly obvious renegade/paragon options that basicly make the choice for you. Morally it wouldn't be to great, can imagen a lot of people got attached to Legion and a peaceful outcome to the conflict. Would make for one awesome mission though. 

[Vaenier]

Dean_the_Young wrote...

Vaenier wrote...

Short of magic or stupidity, the idea of just turning off your wireless access point is unhackable. There is no magic in Mass Effect. Its like biological weapons. Just wear a hazmat suit and you are fine. If some idiot sitting on a computer at home can figure it out, some highly advanced AI would figure it out instantly.

There is magic in Mass Effect. It's called the mass effect.

Geth without communications are effectively retards, incapable of cooperation or basic intelligence. Any fight in that respect is distinctly one-sided, at which point Quarians could march to the key geth servers, upload their hacking program/virus directly, and quite plausibly do a manual re-application of the Heretic Virus. If the Geth cut off all communications between platforms, they can't fight. If they don't, they lose faster.

Come on, dont make me repeat myself. That is boring and doesnt bring the conversation anywhere. I already explained how good Geth beat the mobile platform isolation problem, and how ships already are big enough to have enough programs to be intelligent. The can isolate and be exactly the same. I dont really want to have to explain every little detail about how they can just beat the virus through simple isolation, I know you can figure all that out yourself.

A fight regardless is a true possibility. They can make the racism just too strong in the Quarians, or they can pull the cliche all ai are evil card... But seeking peace is a better option than trying to start a costly war.

Or they could have other factors trigger the powder keg. More divergant Geth (a carry-over from assimilating the Heretics), a Heretic-Geth intervention (if there are any less), or an act of individual Quarians as opposed to Fleet policy/intent.

As the war might already be started by the time Shepard goes there, quickly and decisively winning the war and grabbing the spoils, rather than questionably suing for peace, has it's own logic.

Well, thats an easy one. Side with whoever seeks peace, kill the agressors. And dont forget the invading force does not equal the Quarians race, just a large part of them. There are many Quarians who would rather just live in peace elseware. You only need a few hundred people to have viable genetic diversity. Those who dont try to commit genocide are free to continue on with their existance.

Modifié par Vaenier, 14 janvier 2011 - 04:28 .

[Dean_the_Young]

Yeah, well, those people can suck their thumbs and write fanfiction. Sometimes two people you like just hate each other, and there's nothing you can do about it.



As for the delimma, I'd side with the Quarians. Besides irrelevant doubts as to the nature of alleged Geth sentience as opposed to a complex turing program, Xen offers an avenue towards the next-best: Quarian ships and Geth military might, as opposed to one or the other.

[Googlesaurus]

On one hand, I find a power-hungry woman kinda sexy. On the other hand, the quarians aren't exactly high-concept thinkers when it comes to decisions affecting their entire race. A new synthetic army might just be used to bully the Council races for their dismissive actions.

[Dean_the_Young]

Vaenier wrote...

Dean_the_Young wrote...

Vaenier wrote...

Short of magic or stupidity, the idea of just turning off your wireless access point is unhackable. There is no magic in Mass Effect. Its like biological weapons. Just wear a hazmat suit and you are fine. If some idiot sitting on a computer at home can figure it out, some highly advanced AI would figure it out instantly.

There is magic in Mass Effect. It's called the mass effect.

Geth without communications are effectively retards, incapable of cooperation or basic intelligence. Any fight in that respect is distinctly one-sided, at which point Quarians could march to the key geth servers, upload their hacking program/virus directly, and quite plausibly do a manual re-application of the Heretic Virus. If the Geth cut off all communications between platforms, they can't fight. If they don't, they lose faster.

Come on, dont make me repeat myself. That is boring and doesnt bring the conversation anywhere. I already explained how good Geth beat the mobile platform isolation problem, and how ships already are big enough to have enough programs to be intelligent. The can isolate and be exactly the same. I dont really want to have to explain every little detail about how they can just beat the virus through simple isolation, I know you can figure all that out yourself.

You know I love making you repeat yourself in more frustrated ways.

But seriously, it's a game medium and it doesn't make sense already.

Trying to make sense of a non-sensical setup is like trying to argue the logic of giant robots fighting giant robots when giant robots don't make sense in the first place.

We have freaking bipedal AI war platforms here, people. That's just stupid squared already. And their entire tank platform requires an entire re-direction in order to track targets moving more than thirty degrees laterally! And with only four (pathetically designed) legs!


And why do the geth have heads in the first place?  Or only two (three fingered) hands? Why do they still look like Quarians? 

They're robots. They don't have to incorporate evolutionary restraints. College kids can design better military platforms than these supposedly genius AI.

Well, thats an easy one. Side with whoever seeks peace, kill the agressors. And dont forget the invading force does not equal the Quarians race, just a large part of them. There are many Quarians who would rather just live in peace elseware. You only need a few hundred people to have viable genetic diversity. Those who dont try to commit genocide are free to continue on with their existance.

Well, by Mass Effect lore standards, that's not quite right. You can enforcegenetic diversity through genetic randomization therapies... except when the game doesn't want that to work.

[Dean_the_Young]

Googlesaurus wrote...

On one hand, I find a power-hungry woman kinda sexy. On the other hand, the quarians aren't exactly high-concept thinkers when it comes to decisions affecting their entire race. A new synthetic army might just be used to bully the Council races for their dismissive actions.

...and that's bad how? 

[Vaenier]

Dean_the_Young wrote...

Vaenier wrote...

Dean_the_Young wrote...

Vaenier wrote...

Short of magic or stupidity, the idea of just turning off your wireless access point is unhackable. There is no magic in Mass Effect. Its like biological weapons. Just wear a hazmat suit and you are fine. If some idiot sitting on a computer at home can figure it out, some highly advanced AI would figure it out instantly.

There is magic in Mass Effect. It's called the mass effect.

Geth without communications are effectively retards, incapable of cooperation or basic intelligence. Any fight in that respect is distinctly one-sided, at which point Quarians could march to the key geth servers, upload their hacking program/virus directly, and quite plausibly do a manual re-application of the Heretic Virus. If the Geth cut off all communications between platforms, they can't fight. If they don't, they lose faster.

Come on, dont make me repeat myself. That is boring and doesnt bring the conversation anywhere. I already explained how good Geth beat the mobile platform isolation problem, and how ships already are big enough to have enough programs to be intelligent. The can isolate and be exactly the same. I dont really want to have to explain every little detail about how they can just beat the virus through simple isolation, I know you can figure all that out yourself.

You know I love making you repeat yourself in more frustrated ways.

But seriously, it's a game medium and it doesn't make sense already.

Trying to make sense of a non-sensical setup is like trying to argue the logic of giant robots fighting giant robots when giant robots don't make sense in the first place.

We have freaking bipedal AI war platforms here, people. That's just stupid squared already. And their entire tank platform requires an entire re-direction in order to track targets moving more than thirty degrees laterally! And with only four (pathetically designed) legs!


And why do the geth have heads in the first place?  Or only two (three fingered) hands? Why do they still look like Quarians? 

They're robots. They don't have to incorporate evolutionary restraints. College kids can design better military platforms than these supposedly genius AI.

Well, thats an easy one. Side with whoever seeks peace, kill the agressors. And dont forget the invading force does not equal the Quarians race, just a large part of them. There are many Quarians who would rather just live in peace elseware. You only need a few hundred people to have viable genetic diversity. Those who dont try to commit genocide are free to continue on with their existance.

Well, by Mass Effect lore standards, that's not quite right. You can enforcegenetic diversity through genetic randomization therapies... except when the game doesn't want that to work.

So the game is just dumb and makes crap up as it goes along. I think I am done here then, as you said, its dumb to argue about stupid stuff when we both know it is crap.

[Googlesaurus]

Dean_the_Young wrote...

...and that's bad how? 

Just utilizing the largest synthetic army in the galaxy for petty revenge isn't exactly the best use of that resource, anymore than just using FTL drives for suicide missions. I imagine that galactic society will sustain considerable damage to its infrastructure after this attack; the last thing it needs is a suddenly empowered faction with no real direction concerning its new fighting force and a lot of grudges.

Modifié par Googlesaurus, 14 janvier 2011 - 04:54 .

[Dean_the_Young]

Vaenier wrote...

So the game is just dumb and makes crap up as it goes along. I think I am done here then, as you said, its dumb to argue about stupid stuff when we both know it is crap.

Ah, but it's enjoyable crap. As long as it gives the versimilitude of consistency and logic, it's still fun.

I love giant robots. Love em a bit too much, truth be told. But it's the Big Lie, as one anime producer put it: when you sit down to enjoy one you've already accepted that they're bending physics and logic for a story, and you shouldn't worry too much about it.


I mean, we could go on and on about how there are umpteen hypothetical counters for anti-virus programs and even communication blackouts: pre-emption, masking, a whole shindig of options. You can make counter-measures, and you can counter the counter-measures. Defense and offense have been struggling forever. Or you can just accept the dramatic generalizations: that when the story says something works, it works despite and over the counters you are convinced should work.

[Vaenier]

Dean_the_Young wrote...

Vaenier wrote...

So the game is just dumb and makes crap up as it goes along. I think I am done here then, as you said, its dumb to argue about stupid stuff when we both know it is crap.

Ah, but it's enjoyable crap. As long as it gives the versimilitude of consistency and logic, it's still fun.

I love giant robots. Love em a bit too much, truth be told. But it's the Big Lie, as one anime producer put it: when you sit down to enjoy one you've already accepted that they're bending physics and logic for a story, and you shouldn't worry too much about it.


I mean, we could go on and on about how there are umpteen hypothetical counters for anti-virus programs and even communication blackouts: pre-emption, masking, a whole shindig of options. You can make counter-measures, and you can counter the counter-measures. Defense and offense have been struggling forever. Or you can just accept the dramatic generalizations: that when the story says something works, it works despite and over the counters you are convinced should work.

I use simple common sense. It is uncounterable. If there is a virus on the internet, and you dont want your computer to get it, just isolate your computer. It cant just get inside your computer. It is uncounterable outside magic and a level of stupidity the even Bioware does not posess thankfully. [then again, many people enjoy the idea of putting c4 in their computer consoles and having remote control drones end up killing their controller...] I could say they have symantec anti virus 3001 edition and it could just stop the virus, but that can be beaten, that is not reliable. I like to go for absolutes for my counters.

It is only logical to prepare for the eventuallity that someone will develop a virus that will beat your backup copies. In the interest of the preservation of your race, you would obviously develop a protocol to deal with such an event.

So, do you want the plot exist solely because of multiple stupid acts by its characters, or do you want it to be a logial chain of events that are reasonable and understnadable?

And yes it is fun, that is why I am here. To argue and debate random stuff to pass the time. It is mildly effective.

[Dean_the_Young]

Your common sense is flawed, which while common is not exactly an endorsement. You're confusing temporary, preparatory defenses for guaranteed effectiveness.

There are ways to infiltrate your computer, though, even when you do take precautions. The STUXNET worm, for example, was able to be infiltrate the entirely separate Iranian nuclear intranet, even though that network was and is completely isolated from the wider internet. The worm did significant damage to the Iranian nuclear program, outright breaking a good number of centrifuges, before it was even noticed, and it could have gone on much longer had outright destruction not been it's goal.

Did this mean that the Iranians were idiots? That they didn't have security safeguards in place, back-ups to try and defend? No. It simply means their defenses were circumvented, and that their defenses to their defenses were circumvented, and the defenses to those were circumvented as well.

There is no absolute defense in the cyber world. There is no 'well, I'll just prepare for the general contingency, that will work.' There is no 'I know exactly how they will attack me before they do, and will lie in waiting.' Cyber defense is as much reaction as it is pre-emption, and reaction has little value when the effect of an attack is that you can't respond.

In short, you can have as many protocols as you'd like. It doesn't mean they will work. It never has.

The Geth can't, and won't, stay purely isolated at all times forever. They don't want to be. One case of uncaught infiltration is all the Quarians need.



I believe that the plot exists solely because of generalizations by the conceptual thinkers. Sometimes these are stupid. Sometimes these are brilliant. But just because some person on the internet says 'this can't work' on only the most general knowledge of something doesn't mean that it can't or won't, and so should be ignored.

Modifié par Dean_the_Young, 14 janvier 2011 - 05:29 .

[Vaenier]

Dean_the_Young wrote...

Your common sense is flawed, which while common is not exactly an endorsement. You're confusing temporary, preparatory defenses for guaranteed effectiveness.

There are ways to infiltrate your computer, though, even when you do take precautions. The STUXNET worm, for example, was able to be infiltrate the entirely separate Iranian nuclear intranet, even though that network was and is completely isolated from the wider internet. The worm did significant damage to the Iranian nuclear program, outright breaking a good number of centrifuges, before it was even noticed, and it could have gone on much longer had outright destruction not been it's goal.

Did this mean that the Iranians were idiots? That they didn't have security safeguards in place, back-ups to try and defend? No. It simply means their defenses were circumvented, and that their defenses to their defenses were circumvented, and the defenses to those were circumvented as well.

There is no absolute defense in the cyber world. There is no 'well, I'll just prepare for the general contingency, that will work.' There is no 'I know exactly how they will attack me before they do, and will lie in waiting.' Cyber defense is as much reaction as it is pre-emption, and reaction has little value when the effect of an attack is that you can't respond.

In short, you can have as many protocols as you'd like. It doesn't mean they will work. It never has.

The Geth can't, and won't, stay purely isolated at all times forever. They don't want to be. One case of uncaught infiltration is all the Quarians need.

You missed the point about isolation. That example you showed was still a network, it was just a closed netowrk. It was beaten by a single floppy or something with the virus on it. Complete isolation for the Geth would mean no netowrk. no single floppy screwing an entire race. they do not require constant active network access to function. their military ship platforms are fully capable of existing as stand alone isolated beings, capable of shooting and killing Quarians without the netowrk and immune to the virus. They are in a state of war. They know the galaxy hates them, their ex friends just made everyone hate them more, the quarians still seek to try and defeat them with a virus after 300 years, and the humans even jumped on the boat with an orgaic ai thing. Stupid would not be enough to describe the lack of isolation protcol to beat a viral attack.

If we were in a state of war and there have been several biological attacks on us, we would always have our gas masks with us, we wouldnt just ignore it.

I believe that the plot exists solely because of generalizations by the conceptual thinkers. Sometimes these are stupid. Sometimes these are brilliant. But just because some person on the internet says 'this can't work' on only the most general knowledge of something doesn't mean that it can't or won't, and so should be ignored.

well, when an idiot such as myself can come up with a basic idea to beat it, it kinda says something about how good the original idea was. Maybe you could make magical nano bot bullets that you could shoot them with and hack them... ya, lets just pull more dues ex machina out of our asses, great way to save this joke...

You are not really fun to argue with here. You just want war and death and genocide, you actively seek it out. All you argue is to keep the plot a series of stupid actions.