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[samurai crusade]

iakus wrote...

marshalleck wrote...
I get that Collectors are culturally dead, having no art or whatever. But why would you expect art and decoration on a militarized scientific research vessel? And would Shepard or Mordin even be able to interpret Collector aesthetic sensibility, having almost no knowledge of the species whatsoever? The Collector ship could, for all they know, be the pinnacle of Collector ship design qualities. 

Actually Shepard, with the Cipher, may have the ability to interpret Prothean aesthetics, if not Collector.

Imagine, moving through the Collector Ship, or the Collector Base, Shepard gets a nagging sense of familiarity that he can't quite place.  Until it hits him that this stuff is all Prothean!  the ship is a heavily modified Prothean Cruiser!  The base of a heavily a repurposed Prothean design!  He tells EDI and Mordin to run some scans, and presto!  Prothean-Collector connection!

I think it would have been more interesting to visit an actual Collector world, not just the ship and the base. Allow the player to piece the information together themselves, without EDI explaining every step in a deadpan voice using small words as though Shepard has the intellect of a child. Show me a world of Prothean ruins, with strange outcroppings of hive-like structures 'growing' out of them. Show me a total lack of any sort of recreational or casual facilities. Show me a world barren of any sign of cultural development, a world wracked by industrialization with no regard to environmental degradation or healthy biodiversity. A world comprised of nothing but biolabs with corpses of vivisected and augmented species, including Collectors. Show me the bitter tragedy of this once noble and accomplished species, who following their hopes and dreams reached out to the stars only to find that they were alone in the galaxy. Show me how they had been broken by the Reapers. Show me the indignity of repurposing an entire civilization to carrying out horrific genetic experimentation. 

Indeed, the Cipher (see above) could have been put to even better use there.  Where perhaps Shepard could stumble across the debris of a pre-Collector civilization admidst the wreckage of this souless hive.

Mordin makes the claim that the Collectors are culturally dead not because the Collector ship was void of art. It's because the Collectors are clones! Each Collector is a clone of a highly modified/specialized Prothean from the Styx Theta colonies.  The fact that they are clones and all of their nervous systems, bowel systems, higher processing functions are all tech... indicates that they are incapable of free thought and social interaction. Without a wider gene pool they have no chance of diversity and thus no chance to open their world to the arts. Their culture died. They serve one purpose.. the will to serve the Collector General.   The General is the only unique individual who most likely is also just a clone although more specialized.

There is no collector home world.   The Galactic center is too inhospitable for planets... it's full of exploding stars and black holes.   The Collector base is their homeworld... it is an artificial construction created by the Reapers to ensure that no outsiders could venture in.     And the Reapers know better than to put their collectors on the Prothean homeworld or on another planet because somebody could find them and oops.... secrets out we have Collectors... no longer the enigmatic race they used to be.

[samurai crusade]

Also... the Cipher wouldn't mean much to Shepard in relation to the Collectors... because whatever Prothean they had in them... died a long time ago.

[Pro_Consul]

samurai crusade wrote...

Also... the Cipher wouldn't mean much to Shepard in relation to the Collectors... because whatever Prothean they had in them... died a long time ago.

That doesn't mean there couldn't be similarities, e.g. in appearance, in architecture, etc.

I imagine a scene in which Shep, by means of the Cipher, actually understands a short snippet of speech from a dying Collector in which it says something that will later, in hindsight after the origins reveal, indicate its tragic circumstances. Perhaps it thanks Shep for freeing it from Reaper control (by killing it), or it passes on a fragment of warning about the Reapers' cruelty or something. Whatever it might be that it said, Shep would not immediately understand the meaning of it, nor would he realize that he understood it because of the Cipher. This would only become truly clear once the Collectors' origins were revealed. Something like this would go a long way toward changing the Collectors from annoying organic security bots into truly tragic figures, and inspire real compassion for them while still leaving it a virtuous act to blow them away on sight.

Modifié par Pro_Consul, 06 février 2011 - 02:58 .

[samurai crusade]

Pro_Consul wrote...
That doesn't mean there couldn't be similarities, e.g. in appearance, in architecture, etc.

I imagine a scene in which Shep, by means of the Cipher, actually understands a short snippet of speech from a dying Collector in which it says something that will later, in hindsight after the origins reveal, indicate its tragic circumstances. Perhaps it thanks Shep for freeing it from Reaper control (by killing it), or it passes on a fragment of warning about the Reapers' cruelty or something. Whatever it might be that it said, Shep would not immediately understand the meaning of it, nor would he realize that he understood it because of the Cipher. This would only become truly clear once the Collectors' origins were revealed. Something like this would go a long way toward changing the Collectors from annoying organic security bots into truly tragic figures, and inspire real compassion for them while still leaving it a virtuous act to blow them away on sight.

Except that there is nothing left of the Protheans except for a quad-strand DNA. The Collectors are incapable of independent thought or action... they behave as a hive. So the odds of one of them saying something to Shep that reveals anything other than their intentions is nill. The tragedy of  the Collectors is that not only was their race hunted to extinction... but that the remaining survivors were changed into something new and then cloned.    Saren thought we would be saved if we joined the Reapers and proved usefull.  The Collectors prove that the only usefullness an organic is to the Reapers is that they can do whatever they want to us.

[Iakus]

samurai crusade wrote...

Mordin makes the claim that the Collectors are culturally dead not because the Collector ship was void of art. It's because the Collectors are clones! Each Collector is a clone of a highly modified/specialized Prothean from the Styx Theta colonies.  The fact that they are clones and all of their nervous systems, bowel systems, higher processing functions are all tech... indicates that they are incapable of free thought and social interaction. Without a wider gene pool they have no chance of diversity and thus no chance to open their world to the arts. Their culture died. They serve one purpose.. the will to serve the Collector General.   The General is the only unique individual who most likely is also just a clone although more specialized.

There is no collector home world.   The Galactic center is too inhospitable for planets... it's full of exploding stars and black holes.   The Collector base is their homeworld... it is an artificial construction created by the Reapers to ensure that no outsiders could venture in.     And the Reapers know better than to put their collectors on the Prothean homeworld or on another planet because somebody could find them and oops.... secrets out we have Collectors... no longer the enigmatic race they used to be.

Actually, the one Collector that EDI scanned was decended from a Prothean from the Styx Theta system.  Who knows if they're all copies of the same one or not.

But the point is, the reveal could have been more chilling if done in a different enviroment.  If the Collectors had been shown busilly going about their business amidst the faded remnants of the Protheans..  No longer capable of appreciating or even remembering what they once were.  But Shepard , though not even Prothean, can.  With the Cipher, he is more "Prothean" than the Collectors, and can best appreciate the magnitude of what has happened.   Alas,  Shepard seems to do his best thinking with firearms.

[Pro_Consul]

samurai crusade wrote...

Except that there is nothing left of the Protheans except for a quad-strand DNA. The Collectors are incapable of independent thought or action... they behave as a hive.

We don't really know that, since they invested almost nothing in characterizing the Collectors for us. I mean you basically sum it up yourself, we don't ANYTHING except about that quad-strand DNA. We have no idea how much, if any, of the original Prothean mental type remains in there, because we have never seen a Collector who was NOT under Reaper control. But not seeing one does not mean one could not happen. In any case I was talking about a rewrite in the first place, so if a small tweak must also be done to the Collectors themselves in order to achieve the desired effect then so be it. It would still have been a great improvement over the non-characterization they left us with.

[samurai crusade]

Mordin says they are clones... more husk than living being I believe his words were. And Edi says the collector derived from Styx Theta... I'm asuming that the Collectors did more than one test on humans and Collectors... hence all the dead bodies and pods. That is what leads me to believe EDI gathered enough intel to make that statement.

It is impossible for a Collector to exist outside of Reaper influence.... because they were "created" by the Reapers. No different than the Keepers.... they serve one purpose. And apparently because of all the Reaper tech.. EDI cannot block Harbinger's control over them. So there is no changing their signal like the Keepers. Collectors are mindless drones plain and simple. You guys are beating a dead bush. Your questions to the Protheans will not be answered by a "free Collector" it just wont happen.. the Reapers foresaw this inevitability. The only insight we gain is from whatever we can find inside the Collector base (but the Collectors are purged either way).

[Iwillbeback]

[quote]mangeo wrote...

[quote]Iwillbeback wrote...

I would like to make a complaint.
The Op has made a joke of his writing ability and then complains about someone misspelling "yours".
 
OH MY GOD!
What are you guys talking about?
My "writing ability"?
My writing ability is just fine.The problem with this thread are trolls like you who make a crack at the OP instead of adding something to the conversation![/quote]

Really!
The only thing i could add is that they're not as boring as this thread.

[Vociferation]

I don't find them all that boring..no more so than the Geth...think of this...either race, mechanical or not, are veritable zombies doing the Reaper's bidding..can't see them keeping up with fashion or interior design when they have no creative instinct left to speak of.

[marshalleck]

samurai crusade wrote...

Mordin says they are clones... more husk than living being I believe his words were. And Edi says the collector derived from Styx Theta... I'm asuming that the Collectors did more than one test on humans and Collectors... hence all the dead bodies and pods. That is what leads me to believe EDI gathered enough intel to make that statement.
It is impossible for a Collector to exist outside of Reaper influence.... because they were "created" by the Reapers. No different than the Keepers.... they serve one purpose. And apparently because of all the Reaper tech.. EDI cannot block Harbinger's control over them. So there is no changing their signal like the Keepers. Collectors are mindless drones plain and simple. You guys are beating a dead bush. Your questions to the Protheans will not be answered by a "free Collector" it just wont happen.. the Reapers foresaw this inevitability. The only insight we gain is from whatever we can find inside the Collector base (but the Collectors are purged either way).

I think you're still not getting it. I'm saying the Collectors would have been much more interesting had they been presented differently--I understand all the information in the game about the Collectors as it exists now. I'm not a moron.

Modifié par marshalleck, 07 février 2011 - 01:50 .

[Pro_Consul]

marshalleck wrote...

I think you're still not getting it. I'm saying the Collectors would have been much more interesting had they been presented differently--I understand all the information in the game about the Collectors as it exists now. I'm not a moron.

This was  my point, too. You summed it up well. I was positing ways that I wish the story had been developed differently, and then someone comes along essentially saying, "That won't work cuz it would be...different." Ah well, such things will tend to happen.

[marshalleck]

Heh, indeed. It's just the nature of communication on the internet. I quite liked your ideas about integrating the Cipher, that would have been perfect. Bring Shepard and the player into the revelation personally--good call.

[Nightwriter]

Well yes, they're boring, but certainly not due to their superficial design.

[TRISTAN WERBE]

bugs with guns sounds like district 9 oh ****

[Pro_Consul]

mangeo wrote...

I seem to always make this mistake in my threads....
Hold on i am going to edit the description a bit.:-)

Yer brain get moving a bit faster than yer fingers? Happens to me pretty much every post.