140 réponses à ce sujet

[Moiaussi]

Arijharn wrote...

The point, wulf3n, I think they're trying to make is that because they can not independently verify the statements that Shephard has brought up, they can not assume he is telling you the truth (or it could be some distortion of it)

Example; if you couldn't verify my statement that harvester machinery had sapience and were plotting to kill everyone, would you assume that I'm telling you the truth? Throw in politics behind it, and then the question you have to ask yourself is if it would be in your interest of telling the populace that harvester machinery had sapience and were plotting to kill everyone, I mean... that could incite panic could it not?

If a harvester machine showed up at the county fair armed to the teeth and operating in ways above and beyond the capabilities of not just havester machines but modern fighting vehicles, there might be some reason to at least consider the possibility, don't you think?

[Lunatic LK47]

wulf3n wrote...


This is why i see ME2 as a missed oppurtunity. Your decisions through ME1 should have had an impact on how ME2 started. i.e.


Saved Council: Council are trying to stop reapers, believe collectors may have something to do with reapers, send you off to find out.
Council Die: New council don't believe in reapers, in their ignorance you are tempted by cerberus who do believe you, and send you off to stop the collectors.

Uh, I expected more of this:


Saved Council: Council are trying to stop reapers, believe
collectors may have something to do with reapers, send you off to find
out.

Council Die: New council aware of your being stonewalled with old Council, believe in the Reapers and send you off to find out.

[Nhani]

In Exile wrote...
For all the poor writing decisions in ME2, fixing an ME1 plothole is not one of them.

The Council believing you after the attack on the Citadel is 100% incoherent. The Council has no new evidence at that point compared to what they had before Ilos.

I actually thought all of this made somewhat sense if you take it in its own context - throughout Mass Effect 1, the Council has been rejecting Shepard's whole Reaper angle as delusions and then not only does something really big, menacing and nigh-invulnerable attack, but Shepard saves the day. At this point, I found it fairly believable that the Council might go "You know.. Shepard was right about the whole attack and the conduit and Ilos and everything, so maybe everything else is also true."

Then Shepard dies, two years passes and there hasn't been a single peep from anything remotely reaper-shaped. The Council has had time to think things over and once more concluded how absurd the entire Reaper concept is, and note that there's a million other issues they also have to deal with which at the time would seem much more important than some distant army of killer machines that may or may not merely exist in the mind of some.. "inspired" human Spectre.

So to the original track, no, I don't really find it all that overdone. If anything, it seemed a good way of portraying just how much revolutions loose momentum when the spearhead breaks. Oddly enough, the one character in Mass Effect 2 that really got across to me just how much an impact Shepard dying had was actually Conrad Verner. He sounds so hurt when he says (paraphrased) "You were a big hero. And then you died".

[Arijharn]

Moiaussi wrote...

Arijharn wrote...

The point, wulf3n, I think they're trying to make is that because they can not independently verify the statements that Shephard has brought up, they can not assume he is telling you the truth (or it could be some distortion of it)

Example; if you couldn't verify my statement that harvester machinery had sapience and were plotting to kill everyone, would you assume that I'm telling you the truth? Throw in politics behind it, and then the question you have to ask yourself is if it would be in your interest of telling the populace that harvester machinery had sapience and were plotting to kill everyone, I mean... that could incite panic could it not?

If a harvester machine showed up at the county fair armed to the teeth and operating in ways above and beyond the capabilities of not just havester machines but modern fighting vehicles, there might be some reason to at least consider the possibility, don't you think?

Consider what possibility though? That there is a harvester machine or a harvester machine with sapience? That's the issue. It doesn't require much of a leap of faith to see that there's a harvester machine (I mean, you can just look outside the window!), but it does require a leap of faith to assume that the harvester machine has sapience.

Same thing with Reapers. They look outside their window and they see a colossal dreadnought, they don't look outside their window and think 'Reapers.' Although... knowing the Turian Councillor, he probably wouldn't even believe it was a colossal dreadnought until it tries to sit on his face.

[jeweledleah]

Slayer299 wrote...

I understand what you're saying, I just find it very difficult to accept because the railroading is done so blatantly that you're not even given the illusion of having a choice. To have Shep blindly trust TIM is one of my biggest problems with ME2 and working with Cerb. Having the CC shoot you down because they know you are working with TIM isn't a problem, it gives that dilemma of either not doing anything at all but letting human colonies continue to be attacked or work with TIM and Cerby to stop them. The same goes for the CC or Anderson not wanting to trust you because of those ties, its the idiot ball that has the Turian Councillor saying "Ah yes....." and then talkinga bout how crazy Shep really is.

In ME1 havint the CC not believe you about Saren made total sense, no evidence but your so-called vision. The same goes *mostly* after Virmire, you had proof of Saren wanting to attack the Citadel even if they didn't want to send a fleet to Ilos (only Udina shuts you down).

In ME2 it *should* (in my opinion) have been "no, we can't talk to you because of Cerberus" not "Ahh, yes...." and "You're crazy". Anderson does what the CC should have done with this when he tells you virtually nothing about Ash/Kaiden and why. So why back to square one?

I know you can't answer the 'why' question, it just really bugs me is all.

who's saying your Shepard actualy trusts TIM? at least when I'm playing mine, I pick one of the options of expressing my mistrust every step of the way.  I'm thinking doing one of the playthroughs where my Shep sorta agrees with Cerberus's actions, you know the means justify the goals sort of thing, but the point and matter is for coucil even mentioning the cerberus means showing their cards.  if I don't want someone to know I'm on to them, I'm not going to say: "I don't trust you casue of this", becasue that gives me away, I'll say a variation of "I  have no idea what you're talking about"  Anderson has a closer relationship with you so I suppose he cannot manage to hold all the cards to him self..that or alliance investigation into Cerberus is something TIM is already aware (concidering how many cerberus projects you can destroy along the way in BOTH games.....) of so he's not geopardizing anything by admiting it very vaguely.

its been 2 years.  2 years is a pretty long time.  long time that you've been gone, presumed dead and now working with terrorist organization  (you might not trust them, but you were still railroaded into working with them starting with Miranda and attack on the Lazarus project and I'm still not entirely sure if it wasn't Miranda who started it all, just to create this must trust me or die situation) - it seems like a bad "choice", but it gives Shepard a way to get out into space and do something, I always felt like in some ways, Shep was humoring TIM, while biding his time and gathering resources)

I understand why its bugging you.  its precicely becasue we don't have all the answers, and all we have are speculations, but I'm willing to give it a benefit of the doubt and see how Bioware handles it in ME3. 

[Nightwriter]

lovgreno wrote...

To OP: Yeah it got a bit annoying at times, especialy considering how ME1 ended. But they needed a quick exuse to make Shepard choices limited to working for Cerberus. That's basicaly all there is to it I think.

Lame.

lovgreno wrote...

If I know BioWare right they will try a new concept in ME3 though. No reason to assume that they will stick to the ME2 way of telling a story.

Oh, no question. ME3's the conclusion.

[Slayer299]

jeweledleah wrote...
who's saying your Shepard actualy trusts TIM? at least when I'm playing mine, I pick one of the options of expressing my mistrust every step of the way.  I'm thinking doing one of the playthroughs where my Shep sorta agrees with Cerberus's actions, you know the means justify the goals sort of thing, but the point and matter is for coucil even mentioning the cerberus means showing their cards.  if I don't want someone to know I'm on to them, I'm not going to say: "I don't trust you casue of this", becasue that gives me away, I'll say a variation of "I  have no idea what you're talking about"  Anderson has a closer relationship with you so I suppose he cannot manage to hold all the cards to him self..that or alliance investigation into Cerberus is something TIM is already aware (concidering how many cerberus projects you can destroy along the way in BOTH games.....) of so he's not geopardizing anything by admiting it very vaguely.

its been 2 years.  2 years is a pretty long time.  long time that you've been gone, presumed dead and now working with terrorist organization  (you might not trust them, but you were still railroaded into working with them starting with Miranda and attack on the Lazarus project and I'm still not entirely sure if it wasn't Miranda who started it all, just to create this must trust me or die situation) - it seems like a bad "choice", but it gives Shepard a way to get out into space and do something, I always felt like in some ways, Shep was humoring TIM, while biding his time and gathering resources)

I understand why its bugging you.  its precicely becasue we don't have all the answers, and all we have are speculations, but I'm willing to give it a benefit of the doubt and see how Bioware handles it in ME3. 

You're right about TIM, I was probably unclear about trusting him since I meant about the Collector issue and not him personally and it has been 2 very long years and you're coming back from the dead of all things. But the railroading was just so blatant it hurt.

And you're right we'll have to wait for ME3 to get this straightened since we don't see everything that's going on beyond out speculations. I'll be waiting along with to see how BW handles it in ME3.

[Il Divo]

[quote]Moiaussi wrote...

And that isn't a plot hole in and of its self? [/quote]

Not necessarily.

[quote]
If you could build that brand new computer from spare parts in a couple hours in the middle of nowhere, and the lack of doing such a simple task to update your fleets targetting systems cost you a war, you would be a complete idiot, wouldn't you? The Geth didn't refit their ships even though  we know how insanely easy it would have been for them to do so. [/quote]

I don't recall the Council anywhere saying that it took them only a few hours to reverse engineer the Thanix Cannon. The only time table we really have is that two years later, they have them. Two years before, they didn't.

[quote]
If they had done so they almost certainly would have had enough firepower to beat both the Council fleet and Alliance reinforcements without needing Sovereign's help (other than the initial surprise).

The concept that Sovereign was a Geth ship therefore relies on the Geth being morons, which is hard to believe if they built sovereign. [/quote]

And it's certainly an unanswered question, but due to a lack of any other evidence, it's a more comfortable answer than 'Reapers'.

[quote]
In the case of the beacon on Eden, only Shepard was able to get the vision and even then it was questionable, since it was transmitted via the beacon's explosion.

Multiple people all having exactly the same vision provides evidence that it is something other than their own imaginations. [/quote]

But the Council never doubted that Shepard was having visions, even in Mass Effect. They doubted the significance. That was Saren's whole point - Shepard is the only one with access to these dreams, how could they have been significant? This is admittedly a plot hole from the very start since any Asari should be able to 'embrace eternity' and realize that these visions are out of this world.

[quote] 
Strange... people die of bullets they don't see coming all the time. People die of carbon monoxide poisoning, or other forms of poisoning without ever needing to see evidence before hand and without needing to believe such things exist. The world is not existential. [/quote]

....I don't think you understand what you're saying anymore. If someone is pointing a gun at my head, and I turn around, I do not assume that the man 'disappears'. If I turn back around, and the man is no longer there, Occam's Razor tells me that he ran away, not that invisible aliens that no one has ever encountered came down and abucted him in the time it took me to turn back around.

The world is built entirely on authority and the ability to verify what we believe to be true. If you show me a gun, shoot someone, and show me the bullet hole, then it's an explanation which is now verified by me having seen it. I now regard it as true. If leading scientific experts tell me that drinking a glass of red wine will help against heart cancer, I take it on their authority that it's true within their field of expertise. In our lives, we do not have time to verify every single belief so we take it on good faith that if I majored in biology/whatever and followed all the same steps these scientists did, I will come to the same conclusion.

Your arguments are a desperate attempt at saying that because we don't 'know everything' we must take all theories seriously which is not how scientific advancement (or human reasoning) works. It's like suggesting in order to prove that China exists, I must in person visit the country. The world (as a collective hole) believes that guns, China, space ships, exist which is reason enough to conclude that they exist. The galaxy as a whole believes that Rachni, the Protheans, biotics, exists. The galaxy has never believed in Reapers, the Citadel being a Mass Relay, cycles of extinction. Your 'truth' (Reapers) challenges many fundamental elements of existence. Guns and carbon monoxide do not.

[quote]
Her arguements are not sufficient evidence in and of themselves, but they are still evidence. Many scholars have been dismissed throughout history, only later to be proven right. People have been convinced others or wrong or suddenly started believing others are right, even on flimsy evidence. It happens all the time. In this case, the evidence is even genuine. [/quote]

But all these scholars to which you are referring had the ability to verify their ideas! Let's say the world insists that heavier objects fall faster than lighter objects. If a scholar says that they fall at the same rate, he can verify this idea. He can drop a boulder and a ping pong ball from the same height and with some disparity they will hit the ground at the same time. People can see this for themselves and do the same experiment. Liara's arguments are just arguments without anything to back them up. I may as well say that God came down and destroyed the Protheans for not believing in him. An argument that accounts for their disappearance is not always evidence.

To your bolded: It still doesn't matter that Reapers actually exist. Santa Clause example, again. If Santa Clause is actually real and someone has seen him in person, but neither you nor I have ever seen any evidence, how can we conclude he exists? 'Santa Clause actually exists' is not an argument for why people should believe it. 'Reapers actually exist, Shepard has seen them' is not an argument for why they should believe Reapers.

[quote]
You were saying it is implausable. The concept that Sovereign was an AI of a previously unencountered species is no more implausable than Space bugs nearly driving the Asari and Salarians to extinction. It isn't like the dancing frog because it is an event that they have already witnessed before, albiet with a different race (the Rachni). If there were known species of animal capable of spontaneous dancing, then the dancing frog wouldn't be so implausable either. [/quote]

You are operating under a fallacy, again. Potentiality does not equal actuality until it's proven. Space bugs were proven to exist. "Hey, our military is under assault, hey they're attacking human colonies, hey we have screen shots" all serve to support the conclusion that the Rachni existed, do exist, and are attacking our colonies.

What your argument is trying to say is that because the Council met one hostile alien race, it can meet another. And it's true, but requires proof. I can say that demons from an unknown planet exist, like the Rachni, with unprecedented abilities. But no one will take that seriously unless we have encountered the demons. In Shepard's case however, he's also trying to explain to the Council that this race he's describing has also manipulated us into using Mass Effect technology for their own ends, which adds an extra dimension of crazy to the picture.

[quote]
And actually in that cartoon, everyone the man presents the frog to initially takes him at his word and only rejects him when the frog doesn't dance. Your own example is actually a counter-example. [/quote]

Actually, if I recall, they listen when he offers to show them, like the Council did with Ilos. When the Frog does not come alive, they regard the man as crazy/wasting their time. This is what verification is. The Frog looks dead; until
proven otherwise, it is treated as dead.

[quote]
They discounted the dock worker on the grounds that humanity had obvious potential alterior motives for discrediting or blaming Saren. There were no such motives regarding Vigil. Furthermore on any proper debriefing, the squad members would be debriefed individually and would all have the same story. They could even check their memories via Asari methods. These are actual memories after all, not potential dreams. [/quote]

No, the dockworker was discounted on the grounds that he was 'traumatized'. The fact that he was on the edge of the Terminus Systems raises the question, why would he drop Saren's name, of all things? Smudboy accurately points this out. It's not presented as a common name and what reason would this guy have to lie? He could describe Saren for us as well having witnessed him kill Nihlus.

[quote]
Just like the Rachni. Obviously the veterans of the Rachni war were all insane. Said war never actually happened.... [/quote]

Your examples all fail. Rachni = history. There is history, records, documents, that the Rachni existed, that the Krogan wiped them out, and that the Turians unleashed the Genophage on the Krogan. What you are suggesting is the equivalent of saying that the Romans did not exist because we have no live Romans present. Notice the one thing that Romans and Rachni have in common within their respective universes: history. Turian Councilor's point comes in again : There is no evidence of Reapers, so why should we believe they exist?

[quote]
What the BLAZES would be the point of Vigil being set up like that? What point would a reaper hoax serve at that point? It wouldn't make anyone thing Saren should be allowed to succeed... [/quote]

Shepard accidentally tracking false leads would have been a good enough motive, which is what the Council thinks happened. Again: no access to the prothean beacon, Vigil, or the conversation with Sovereign. They have no reason to think that it's anything other than a trick by Saren.

[quote]
Your arguement is that not just shepard, but his entire crew are completely untrustworthy, even though Tali was considered trustworthy enough to present evidence, Garrus is Turian and still with C-Sec, with arguably a grudge against Saren but no plausable reason for giving Saren an excuse such as the Reapers for his actions.

If the entire crew are in some sort of great conspiracy to dupe the council, why are they not in custody? Why is Shepard still a spectre? [/quote]

Again, it's not a conspiracy. Asari Councilor's words in Mass Effect 2 come into play. They think Shepard/crew has been duped. But this is (yet again) verification. Rachni can be verified. They attacked multiple worlds, military teams, pictures, etc. Shepard + 2 squad mates think Reapers are real but can't prove it.

[quote]
It comes down to trust of agents in the field. You seem to be arguing that it is implausable for the Council to actually trust their agents while still letting them act as agents.
[/quote]

The Council never liked nor trusted Shepard implicity. Shepard's becoming a Spectre was political maneuvering due to him making the Council look foolish, nothing more. That's why the Council traditionally only chose aliens from their own races: they thought they would be more loyal.

Modifié par Il Divo, 18 janvier 2011 - 05:17 .

[Il Divo]

Moiaussi wrote...

Neither of which matters, really. All that really matters are Sovereign's capabilities and how they would be used. In the hands of a xenophobic races, be they Geth, Reaper, Killer Rabbit or whatever they are a threat.

It is a reasonable course of action to investigate such potential threats.

Unless they have good reason to assume that the threat dies with Sovereign/the Geth which they do. There is no evidence of this xenophobic race.

Which doesn't change the fact that they are assumed extinct rather than known to be. There may still be Protheans out there (other than the collectors). The migrant fleet (or the battlestar galactica, lol) are examples of how simply 'just keeping going' can result in survival.

But that's exactly why evidence is necessary. A superpowerful space ship does not in any way support your conclusion. If we're to take your point seriously, we can just as easily say that "We assume Plato is dead rather than known to be". In this case, what we think we know is all we know.

Why would Shepard have to tell them anything? The council can make such conclusions on their own and not only can, but should think independantly of their agents. There is a lot of room between complete acceptance and complete rejection.

Because he's the one trying to convince them that there is still a threat present! The Council knew about Saren, Sovereign, and the Geth/Krogan. They knew he was planning something with the Conduit. The evidence begins and ends there. Nothing was ever presented that they should think there would be a further threat beyond Saren, hence why them concluding a xenophobic race is non-sensical.

That is beside the point though. It isn't the only possibiltiy. Also, Shepard was right about everything else, which also was considered far fetched by the council.

Everything else had a basis that didn't require us to rethink all our beliefs. "Saren is a traitor", there was initially no proof of this, but it had a precedent. Spectres have gone rogue before. It's within the realms of possibility. The Protheans designed the Mass Relays, they having created one to the Citadel was within the realms of possibility, but unsubstantiated. Inexile's point comes in again. Trust has limits. A tax collector who tells me Jesus is going to handle my taxes for me is still crazy in my eyes, even if he's been right up until this point.

But Shepard doesn't have to be completely right for it to be a reasonable course of investigation. There is a potential threat out there. Over the course of two years, the Geth still not having any additional ships of sovereign's capabilities, despite their production facilities not being touched should be additional evidence.

Outside of the Geth fleet remnants, we do not know what the Geth were doing beyond the Veil.

If Sovereign was just a ship, why didn't the Geth reverse engineer it? Even if it was just a ship, where did it come from, conveniently in full working order and unmanned? Are there more out there? Is there a base it was found at with additional useful tech? Is there another enemy out there somewhere with additional such ships?

And these are good questions. But now point to how we get 'Reapers'. Again, in Mass Effect 2, they told Shepard to get them more evidence. Shepard dies, they have a falling out, he goes to do his own thing.

These are all useful questions completely independant of Shepard's raving. Letting Shepard's emotional outbreaks distract from rational analysis is poor leadership at best.

No, it's entirely logical because there is no rational analysis to conclude Reapers, or that there are more of them coming. Even if dating could prove it's extremely old, why should we ever believe that there are more waiting in Dark Space for us?  

[huntrrz]

tonnactus wrote...

It would be far better if the council believed that sovereign was the only reaper that was left/existed.Because there is really no evidence that more then one ever existed.

If Sovereign was the only Reaper, there would be no need for it to dock with the Citadel to open a portal from deep space.

[Nhani]

huntrrz wrote...

tonnactus wrote...
It would be far better if the council believed that sovereign was the only reaper that was left/existed.Because there is really no evidence that more then one ever existed.

If Sovereign was the only Reaper, there would be no need for it to dock with the Citadel to open a portal from deep space.

To be honest, this sounds like meta logic; if the functions of Citadel Station are largely unknown and the whole point with it is to obfuscate its function, the only reason anyone would have to believe the Citadel is a gigantic Mass Relay is because Vigil told Shepard it was so.

I might be wrong and it might've become common knowledge somehow, but from the impression I got, if we were to assume that the Council considers Shepard (or at least Saren/Vigil/Sovereign) an unreliable narrator, then it seems it'd be just as likely a conclusion that Citadel Station makes a special flavor of Strawberry Ice Cream that Sovereign suddenly had a craving for.

Well, okay, a bit of an absurd example, but nonetheless.

[huntrrz]

Fixed below.

Modifié par huntrrz, 18 janvier 2011 - 06:00 .

[huntrrz]

There are several pieces of evidence that defy the Council's rationalizations, which is why they have never been explored:

1. Saren used a previously unknown control panel in the Council chamber to disable the relay network.
2. There is no way the Geth could have been involved in the construction of that control panel. (They've only been around for 300 years.)
3. Saren COULD have learned of the panel from Prothean data he discovered himself, BUT:
4. Shepard followed Saren and overrode the lockdown. How did HE gain the knowledge to do so?
5. Shepard reports that the override code was provided by the VI on Ilos. This should lend credence to his report of what else the VI told him.
6. P.S. The existence of the Conduit and Shepard's explanation for it (which he learned from the VI) also supports his credibility.

I DO want the final game to address ignoring these discrepancies. I'm going with low-level indoctrination for the time being.

[Nhani]

huntrrz wrote...
*snip*

I'm not finding the point there that says "Citadel Station is a gigantic mass relay that goes to a place where things aren't supposed to be able to survive."

Sovereign definitely wanted to take control over Citadel Station, but my point is that there's a pretty large list of why taking over Citadel is a very sound tactical plan without having to resort to things like "It also magically summons reinforcements."

Meta-knowledge says it does just that, but I'm not seeing the in-universe reasoning where that's the sole logical conclusion as to why Sovereign attacked Citadel.

[In Exile]

huntrrz wrote...

There are several pieces of evidence that defy the Council's rationalizations, which is why they have never been explored:

1. Saren used a previously unknown control panel in the Council chamber to disable the relay network.
2. There is no way the Geth could have been involved in the construction of that control panel. (They've only been around for 300 years.)
3. Saren COULD have learned of the panel from Prothean data he discovered himself, BUT:
4. Shepard followed Saren and overrode the lockdown. How did HE gain the knowledge to do so?
5. Shepard reports that the override code was provided by the VI on Ilos. This should lend credence to his report of what else the VI told him.
6. P.S. The existence of the Conduit and Shepard's explanation for it (which he learned from the VI) also supports his credibility.

I DO want the final game to address ignoring these discrepancies. I'm going with low-level indoctrination for the time being.

Shepard also had access to the exact same Prothean data that Saren had. I mean, this is exactly how Shepard actually stopped Saren. Eden Prime, Feros, Virmire, Ilos - Shepard followed in Saren's footsteps perfectly re: what data he collected on the Protheans.

5-6 are basically "Shepard said so," but the Council went on record already to say that they think Shepard's mental state is fragile and Saren is basically playing mind-games with him. The VI was shut down, and there is no evidence Saren didn't get it from there.

There is, again, also the issue that Sovereign may well have been Prothean.

[huntrrz]

So, Saren left behind the Prothean artifact that allowed Shepard the knowledge to stop him, and instead of destroying it, programmed it to further the hoax he was perpetuating (for no known reason) even though he was under the time pressure of Shepard behind hard on his heels?



Mmmm 'kay?