310 réponses à ce sujet

[Raisatihane]

idiots. But hey... dont worry if u like them they replaceable And after a year or 2 that new gang will act as old one.. no difference. by Jacobs words: Space it.

[jamesp81]

Saphra Deden wrote...

Wulfram wrote...

Only Dreadnought building is limited...

Those are what give a fleet its teeth. Without them your fleet isn't very impressive.

Thus, the Alliance's use of carriers, which are not treaty regulated.

[jamesp81]

Saphra Deden wrote...

Arijharn wrote...

Which is why Humanity revolutionized space combat tactics (again?) by shifting it's focus from Dreadnought's to Carrier battle fleets.

Yes, but even carriers are not a total fix. In fleet to fleet combat they are potent but they aren't as useful as a dreadnought when it comes to bombardment.

Also, I can see that a carrier would be difficult to employ in an opposed transit of a mass relay.  You would need some conventional capital ships to assault a fortified relay, at least initially.

[jamesp81]

Wulfram wrote...

jamesp81 wrote...

Wulfram wrote...
Humans have been treated great by the Council.  Hell, humanity would have probably been conquered by the Turians without council intervention.

The Elcor and Volus are doing fine too.

That's not known.  Everyone says the Council stepped in on the FCW because they saw the potential of humanity.  Is that really why they did it?  Maybe they stepped in because they were afraid the Alliance just might drive the Turians dicks into the dirt on a rather permanent basis.

At the time of the First Contact War, humanity had discovered Mass Effect physics only 9 years ago.  That they could withstand a serious attack by the turian hierarchy is far beyond credibility.

And at the time of the Battle of the Citadel, humanity had discovered Mass Effect physics only roughly 25 years ago.  Despite that, the Alliance fleet did a fine job blowing the ****** out of the Geth fleet; a feat the vaunted Turian fleet utterly failed to accomplish.  The Geth had been sentient for around 250 years by that time, and had been created by the Quarians who had an enormous head start on humanity.

Sorry, but game events do not bear this out.  My read is that once Prothean tech is discovered, most races simply adopt it as their own, and most innovation is just re-application of Prothean technologies.  The Alliance showed in the FCW and the Battle of the Citadel that they were, man for man and ship for ship, a match for most anyone.  If the Turians had waged all out war against the Alliance and won, it would've been because of superior numbers.

Modifié par jamesp81, 04 mars 2011 - 08:17 .

[jamesp81]

Saphra Deden wrote...

Dean_the_Young wrote...

Since the Thannix cannon is able to be placed on fighters, fighters now have cruiser-level firepower at range. Considering that most of the alliance forces are, in fact, not dreadnaughts, having swarms of cruiser-level firepower is a bit more.

Fighters are slower in the sense that a jet plane is slower than a ship with a railgun.

That difference is important though. Also the thanix can be mounted on frigates, not fighters, unless I'm mistaken.

The point is, I have a much better chance to shoot down a fighter than I do a projectile from a dreadnought.

That depends on the situation.  A projectile from a dreadnought doesn't evade, nor does it mount ECM.  If you see it coming, and have sufficient time, throwning an object in its path to stop it is fairly simple.  A projectile moving at ~1% of light speed impacting a piece of metal you put in its path would release enough energy to vaporize the projectile.

[PatT2]

James2912 wrote...


Both Pakistan and India are nuclear powers. One of the biggest threats in that region is that they will push their respective buttons and blow each other up. 

Actually, the biggest threat is that they don't have control over their government or their nukes (ie. most especially Pakistan) and someone else, such as a terrorist group or whatnot, will get a hold of their nukes. I think that the US and others feel reasonably (but not completely) confident that India and Pakistan won't nuke each other. (They almost did when Clinton was president and I guess he really pulled a rabit out of the hat to get them to back down)...

But if either of those governments, especially the weaker of them, were to fall.... then nukes in the hands of whom? Or like in the case of the guy who was one of the top Pakistani nuclear scientists, who went rogue and sold the technology to Iran. (Among others unknown?)

Those are the real threats.

Like someone else said, "I don't fear the person who wants ten nukes. I fear the person who only wants one."

I'm no kid. I remember duck and cover (silly, that), and you know...if we knew what our leaders knew, we wouldn't sleep at night. The truth is, I doubt they'd tell us what the real threats were, even if they were knocking on our door, because they're convinced everyone would panic. Give me some credit. Maybe some of us long for the afterlife and don't mind doing something heroic, even if it means we only get five more minutes in hell anyway. Shrug.

Most of our leaders, by the way, their biggest blind spot... is that they really, honestly think that all people are just average people. They believe we're stupid, uninformed and cowardly. Too bad they can't see us as a resource. Too bad they don't recognize that they have no list of the most intelligent, brave or knowledgeable. Their loss. And ours. Because they won't use us, won't trust us, and they've lost a vital resource.

Maybe the biggest threat of all is that once our leaders become leaders, they somehow believe they're the only, or the ascended and privileged, and that they are somehow deserving by right of their position; not realizing that there are others like them who choose not to stand on ivory pedestals for reasons of virtue, honor or just smarts. It's impossible to get much done when the spotlight is always on. As Mordin Solus.

In keeping with the original question, isn't the council just another type of goverment, who, when those individuals are "elevated" forget that the fall off those pedestals will hurt them just as much as anyone? They forget who they are. The believe they and the people they claim to represent are somehow there by divine right. And in doing so, they develop that huge blind spot... the one that shows them they are just like so many others who aren't there for a host of reasons, some of them voluntary. *shrug*

They get EGO. And it consumes them.

[PatT2]

As to military comparisons...one type of asset vs. another type of asset...there is far more to winning (or staying on top) than brute force.

There is deception. (false flag operations, feints and counterfients)
There is propaganda (flooding the airwaves with misleading information over and over until one believes it)
There are undercover operations and covert operations.
There is psy-ops (indoctrination comes to mind)
There is terrorism (terror as a weapon/tool.) Getting people to cower when they're in no danger at all.

Seems to me that arguing about conventions about dreadnoughts and carriers leaves quite a bit of the discussion on the table. There are special tasks groups.

Part of why Normandy invasion was so successful was because of the trickery that mislead German leaders to believe that the attack would come elsewhere, causing the enemy to divide his troops and attention.
There is sex and religion, both EXTREMELY powerful factors when dealing with sentient beings.
There is spycraft.

There is just so much more to winning a war than firepower.

[Wulfram]

jamesp81 wrote...

And at the time of the Battle of the Citadel, humanity had discovered Mass Effect physics only roughly 25 years ago.  Despite that, the Alliance fleet did a fine job blowing the ****** out of the Geth fleet; a feat the vaunted Turian fleet utterly failed to accomplish.  The Geth had been sentient for around 250 years by that time, and had been created by the Quarians who had an enormous head start on humanity.

In the years since 1st contact, humanity has had the opportunity to gain access to the technology and experiences of the other races.  It's not really the same thing

Sorry, but game events do not bear this out.  My read is that once Prothean tech is discovered, most races simply adopt it as their own, as most innovation is just re-application of Prothean technologies.

Mass Effect 2 seems to show that there's a fair amount of technological development going on.  Even if it is simply a case of applying Prothean technologies, 2000 years of experience is a big advantage over 9.

The Alliance showed in the FCW and the Battle of the Citadel that they were, man for man and ship for ship, a match for most anyone.  If the Turians had waged all out war against the Alliance and won, it would've been because of superior numbers.

Well, the Turians would surely have had overwhelmingly superior numbers, so matching them ship for ship wouldn't seem all that useful.

An actual occupation of earth would have been tremendously costly for them, undoubtedly, but they could certainly have slapped us back to the solar system.

[Sajuro]

jamesp81 wrote...

Wulfram wrote...

jamesp81 wrote...

Wulfram wrote...
Humans have been treated great by the Council.  Hell, humanity would have probably been conquered by the Turians without council intervention.

The Elcor and Volus are doing fine too.

That's not known.  Everyone says the Council stepped in on the FCW because they saw the potential of humanity.  Is that really why they did it?  Maybe they stepped in because they were afraid the Alliance just might drive the Turians dicks into the dirt on a rather permanent basis.

At the time of the First Contact War, humanity had discovered Mass Effect physics only 9 years ago.  That they could withstand a serious attack by the turian hierarchy is far beyond credibility.

And at the time of the Battle of the Citadel, humanity had discovered Mass Effect physics only roughly 25 years ago.  Despite that, the Alliance fleet did a fine job blowing the ****** out of the Geth fleet; a feat the vaunted Turian fleet utterly failed to accomplish.  The Geth had been sentient for around 250 years by that time, and had been created by the Quarians who had an enormous head start on humanity.

Sorry, but game events do not bear this out.  My read is that once Prothean tech is discovered, most races simply adopt it as their own, and most innovation is just re-application of Prothean technologies.  The Alliance showed in the FCW and the Battle of the Citadel that they were, man for man and ship for ship, a match for most anyone.  If the Turians had waged all out war against the Alliance and won, it would've been because of superior numbers.

and their doctrine of crushing the enemy completely and the backing of the citadel races, Shanxi wouldn't be an occupied colony, it would be glassed and that wouldn't be the only one getting hell rained down on it. I find it amazing that people can be so indignant towards the council for it saving our ass or at best a long and costly war which would probably result in some bio weapons being dropped courtesy of the Salarians.

[foolish replica]

SandTrout wrote...

People on these boards routinely give the finger to TIM and Cerberus, and with good reason, but not nearly enough take a good look at the Council without their rose-colored glasses.<br />
The Council is a restrictive organization that exists for the sole purpose of oppressing other species. Associate members gain no tangible benefits from membership other than access to trade with other members, and are occasionally threatened with, and very rarely protected by, the Citadel fleet. <br />
The Council has never used force against offenses within 'Citadel Space' unless one of the member species was also being threatened.<br />
Council Edicts seem to only be enforced at the Council's convenience. AI is illegal, so we wont come to the Quarians' aid, even though they didn't create it intentionally, and once they realized what had happened, did their best to contain the threat. Biological weapons are illegal, until the Krogan start expanding too quickly. Slavery is illegal, but the Batarians were a convenient blind spot until they started acting up in the Traverse.<br />
The Specters are the only reason that the Council still exists. They are the classic secret police, but instead of being under strict orders, they're under almost no orders at all, but instead are given very broad objectives to achieve and few restrictions on the means to do so.<br />
Hell, the only reason that the Asari stepped in to stop the Turians during the FCW was because the Alliance proved that it would bloody the Turians pretty good before being brought to heel, and that might have woken up other Associate members to rebel from council authority. <br />
The Turians only attacked the Human vessels because the Turians are too damned by the book about activating unmapped relays. Apparently, Council authority extends even to species that had never heard of it, so the Turians considered themselves justified in murdering human civilians.<br />
I'd let the Council collapse and not be rebuilt after the Reapers are dealt with. It's time that the species of the galaxy stand on their own two/four legs and see where the cards fall.

pretty much this. the council has outlived it's usefulness as a political/governing body, and should be disbanded
for all the above reasons, not to mention the coming "ah yes reapers" debacle. 

[Moiaussi]

DPSSOC wrote...

In a best case scenario yeah.  That's all they did with the Batarians after all but you'll note they were not so restrained with the Krogan.

They were losing against the Krogan when the Turians deployed the Genophage. Also the plan was to threaten first and at least try to use the genophage as a bargaining chip. The Turians broke ranks on that and simply deployed it. Irregardless, the genophage could have been designed with 100% lethality rather than to simply stabilize Krogan reproductive levels.

From the wiki

Citadel space is an unofficial term referring to any region of space controlled by a species that acknowledge the authority of the Citadel Council.

So yeah Citadel space is "that plus that of everyone the Council ever signs a treaty with."

The wiki is player maintained and most of it isn't canon. The wiki does include the codex though, which is canon. From the codex regarding the Batarians:

In protest, the batarians closed their Citadel embassy and severed official diplomatic relations with the Council, effectively becoming a rogue state. They instigated a proxy war in the Verge by funneling money and weapons to criminal organizations, urging them to strike at human colonies.
Hostilities peaked with the Skyllian Blitz of 2176, an attack on the human capital of Elysium by batarian-funded pirates and slavers. In 2178, the Alliance retaliated with a crushing assault on the moon of Torfan, long used as a staging base by batarian-backed criminals. In the aftermath, the batarians retreated into their own systems, and are now rarely seen in Citadel space.

Either the Batarians were never in Citadel space in the first place, or they somehow up and moved 'their systems' out. I also advise reading of the codex entries for Noveria and Vermire. It is really annoying though the degree to which the writers don't seem to read their own material. The council seems to have such high respect for the 'Terminus systems' that they engage in normal diplomatic relations with Vermire, and rather than threaten, back off essentially entirely, despite in ME2 us seeing nothing in the region other than relatively unorganized, underpowered mercenary bands, and nothing even remotely resembling fleets, yet show such little respect for the Alliance even if the Alliance saves their lives at the Citadel. That goes beyond even the possibility of indoctrination. It is simply absurd.

The veil has been retconned too, btw. In ME1, we are told by multiple sources that no ship has ever returned from the veil, yet in ME2 appearantly prospectors go in routinely and only one ship has actually been lost.

Yeah and if all we did was sign trade treaties that'd be relevant, but at least one of the treaties is a military treaty, restricting military production.  The Council is not a trade organization it's a galactic UN.

The nuclear non-proliferation treaty, which is completely analogous to the treaty in ME doesn't obligate anyone to intervene in any given war either, nor actually does the UN charter.

That's the thing though, the Council does claim the region as theirs, refuses to police it, and still demands jurisdiction (for their Spectres).

It is more like 'contested territory' than anything else. Do you know how many countries are claiming ownership of the northwest passage these days, since it was discovered there is probably oil up there? Russia in particular is trying to make the case that what has been considered Canadian pretty much since confederation is really 'theirs.' The Americans declared it 'international waters' rather than have to ask permission to send a ship through, even though such permission would have been automatic.

Welcome to the real world. Oh and per the Codex, Spectres don't have actual jurisdiction on Noveria. They are respected for diplomatic reasons. Likewise presumably on Illium. 

Why do you keep brining this down to single issues and treaties like it's simple?  This isn't just a trade agreement, or just a border agreement, we signed a mass of treaties when we joined up with the Council, all of them are binding, none of them negate the others.  Many of those treaties (3 I believe) are military treaties, and one of them strongly implies (can't say outright states based on the info we have) an obligation on the part of the Council to provide support.  The Council isn't just saying, "Ok you want to trade this is our accepted currency, these are our accepted business practices, here's a translator go nuts."  They demand military concessions, trade concessions, there are most likely fees being paid, etc. humanity's relationship with the Council is more complex than a single treaty.

And we know for a fact from the Batarians that if we ever decide we don't like them, we can walk away from the table, just like with any other diplomatic relations since someone thought up the bright idea that talking was occasionally better than fighting. The Batarians pulled their embassy in protest over council decisions and are no longer subject to council laws. They don't get the trade benefits or anything else that comes with diplomatic relations, but they aren't hunted down and shot by Council troops either (which is what you seem to think the consequences of walking away are).

I don't know the Council seems to do well with it. 

You seem to want them to give everything for nothing, to take on all the expenses themselves to the point where the restrictions become truely meaningless. If the Council are obligated to defend any region, simply because of trade and non-proliferation treaties, then how would that make everyone else any different than the Volus? Why have our own fleets if the Council fleets are obligated to defend us?

You honestly view giving up the ability to ever be able to adequately defend yourself for trade as a win?  Are you out of your flipping mind.

I think the Alliance's actions at the Citadel and the fact that the heretics are essentially routed prove the Alliance are at least 'adequately' able to defend themselves. We came to their rescue, despite not actually having been asked. It wasn't the other way around. But don't let the facts get in the way of your fine rhetoric.

I question you brining up the Collectors, they don't require trade, etc. to thrive.  As for the Batarians and the Quarians well we see how well they're doing don't we.  No society can prosper without playing the Council's game, they've seen to that, saying the Alliance could simply walk away is like telling an unhappy employee they could just quit when the same guy owns every shop in town.

Oh look at you, an expert on ME economics now. Yes we are better off with more trading partners, but so are they. As for the Quarians and Batarians, they made their choices. The Quarians have a fleet. They could choose a non-contested world or simply outrun the edges of Council space. The Batarians were the ones who walked away from the table, and while they are likely worse off, they are still surviving. You talk as if humanity was doomed to extinction due to lack of trade before meeting the Council.

The bottom line is this. Noone owes you the products you want to buy from them. Pay the price or leave the store, but don't stand around and complain about the prices. They aren't your goods. If the seller loses out on sales, that is their problem, and if they can't sell, maybe they will start to lower their prices. Regardless they don't owe you their goods.

[Moiaussi]

jamesp81 wrote...

And at the time of the Battle of the Citadel, humanity had discovered Mass Effect physics only roughly 25 years ago.  Despite that, the Alliance fleet did a fine job blowing the ****** out of the Geth fleet; a feat the vaunted Turian fleet utterly failed to accomplish.  The Geth had been sentient for around 250 years by that time, and had been created by the Quarians who had an enormous head start on humanity.

Sorry, but game events do not bear this out.  My read is that once Prothean tech is discovered, most races simply adopt it as their own, and most innovation is just re-application of Prothean technologies.  The Alliance showed in the FCW and the Battle of the Citadel that they were, man for man and ship for ship, a match for most anyone.  If the Turians had waged all out war against the Alliance and won, it would've been because of superior numbers.

The 'vaunted Council fleet' was caught off guard with their command already taken out by Saren when he took the Citadel. Any reinforcements were cut off by that operation too.

As for the first contact war, again, the Turians thought they had defeated the entire Alliance navy at Shanxi and were caught completely off guard when the main body of the Alliance navy arrived. They were using tactical manuals that were thousands of years out of date (literally) and were based on the doctrines of the fleets they were used to, not the Alliance who noone had fought before this.

And because they hadn't had an acutal war in 2000 years, they were all green troops and command, which would have greatly worsened the effects of suprise. They had nothing but textbooks and sims to guide them.

Space was newer to the Alliance, so they hadn't had a chance to become 'hidebound' yet, and were still experimenting and innovating.

[LordShrike]

Moiaussi still bringing his own kind of tomfoolery to the game i see...
I think that Council is held back by standard politics more than anything else, Turian councilor has no other choice than to do "teh airquotes", anything else would be political suicide in the current atmosphere. He can't actively show his support for Shepard, otherwise he himself faces "teh airquotes" from his political opponents. That does not mean the Council is not preparing for Reapers.
Bump for good measure. And for good thread.

[Moiaussi]

If it was a public session, I would agree with that assessment. In a private session though it seemed like something else....

[Arijharn]

Saphra Deden wrote...

Dean_the_Young wrote...

Since the Thannix cannon is able to be placed on fighters, fighters now have cruiser-level firepower at range. Considering that most of the alliance forces are, in fact, not dreadnaughts, having swarms of cruiser-level firepower is a bit more.

Fighters are slower in the sense that a jet plane is slower than a ship with a railgun.

That difference is important though. Also the thanix can be mounted on frigates, not fighters, unless I'm mistaken.

The point is, I have a much better chance to shoot down a fighter than I do a projectile from a dreadnought.

No, it's both, fighters and frigates. But what if frigates and fighters (fighters moreso) were able to swarm targets? The GARDIAN systems eventually burn out from overuse after-all, so what if the Alliance start making fighters with better ablative armour?

You will lose Fighters, I'm not going to argue that, but the fact is, fighters are much cheaper to produce than Dreadnoughts, and yet their combined tonnage now outclasses cruiser weight (because apparently each fighter or frigate now equals a cruiser) and to me, that seems like it must revolutionize space combat.

[Arijharn]

Why necessarily?

Obviously if you compare the strengths of a Dreadnought versus a Carrier utilizing only the strength of a Dreadnought the Dreadnought is going to win.

However, I don't think Dreadnoughts can just 'drop in, fire off a shot and then run away' because remember in ME1 when Joker comes over the radio on Virmire telling you to hurry up because Sovereign just 'executed a turn that could shear any one of our ships in half'? That implies to me that even in space limitations on say turning still exist -- just because it's weightless doesn't mean its immune to physics.

[Arijharn]

right, but even if the fighters force the dreadnought to flee, the fighters still win the engagement. Total destruction is not the only hallmark of a successful military engagement. Force was used (or in this case; threatened) and the aggressor was chased off.

So yes, even if the Dreadnought fires off a shot (while waiting for a 'firing solution') it's going to cause devastation (providing of course, the city it's firing at doesn't have one of those kick ass city-sized kinetic shields) but it's going to be less devastation than if it maintained it's orbit and continued shelling the surface.

[Arijharn]

It must also be said that in any engagement, you wouldn't be fielding just a carrier or just a dreadnought, and it also doesn't mean that the Alliance couldn't field both a carrier and a dreadnought either, because production of a carrier doesn't mean that you don't also still have dreadnought's in your employ.

[DPSSOC]

[quote]Moiaussi wrote...
[quote]DPSSOC wrote...
In a best case scenario yeah.  That's all they did with the Batarians after all but you'll note they were not so restrained with the Krogan.[/quote]

They were losing against the Krogan when the Turians deployed the Genophage. Also the plan was to threaten first and at least try to use the genophage as a bargaining chip. The Turians broke ranks on that and simply deployed it. Irregardless, the genophage could have been designed with 100% lethality rather than to simply stabilize Krogan reproductive levels.[/quote]

Was actually referring to the Turian quarantine of Tuchanka.  The Council was not content to stabilize Krogan reproduction and refuse trade, they are not allowed to develope any kind of fleet, with orbital bombardment being the response for trying.

[quote]Moiaussi wrote...
[quote]From the wiki

[quote]Citadel space is an unofficial term referring to any region of space controlled by a species that acknowledge the authority of the Citadel Council.[/quote]So yeah Citadel space is "that plus that of everyone the Council ever signs a treaty with."[/quote]

The wiki is player maintained and most of it isn't canon. The wiki does include the codex though, which is canon. From the codex regarding the Batarians:

[quote]
In protest, the batarians closed their Citadel embassy and severed official diplomatic relations with the Council, effectively becoming a rogue state. They instigated a proxy war in the Verge by funneling money and weapons to criminal organizations, urging them to strike at human colonies.
Hostilities peaked with the Skyllian Blitz of 2176, an attack on the human capital of Elysium by batarian-funded pirates and slavers. In 2178, the Alliance retaliated with a crushing assault on the moon of Torfan, long used as a staging base by batarian-backed criminals. In the aftermath, the batarians retreated into their own systems, and are now rarely seen in Citadel space. [/quote]

Either the Batarians were never in Citadel space in the first place, or they somehow up and moved 'their systems' out.[/quote]
 
Please read the bolded portion of your quote and then re-read mine (also from the Codex, enjoy).  The Batarians "moved" from Citadel Space when they refused to acknowledge the Council's authority anymore, so the Batarian systems were no longer considered part of Citadel space.

[quote]Moiaussi wrote...


[quote]Yeah and if all we did was sign trade treaties that'd be relevant, but at least one of the treaties is a military treaty, restricting military production.  The Council is not a trade organization it's a galactic UN.[/quote]

The nuclear non-proliferation treaty, which is completely analogous to the treaty in ME doesn't obligate anyone to intervene in any given war either, nor actually does the UN charter.[/quote]
 
And yet when one member nation is at war they can, and do, request assistance from the UN.  The UN is obligated to offer assistance either through use of it's peace-keeping forces or by imposing sanctions.  The Russia, Georgia incident comes to mind.

[quote]Moiaussi wrote...


[quote]That's the thing though, the Council does claim the region as theirs, refuses to police it, and still demands jurisdiction (for their Spectres).[/quote]It is more like 'contested territory' than anything else. Do you know how many countries are claiming ownership of the northwest passage these days, since it was discovered there is probably oil up there? Russia in particular is trying to make the case that what has been considered Canadian pretty much since confederation is really 'theirs.' The Americans declared it 'international waters' rather than have to ask permission to send a ship through, even though such permission would have been automatic.[/quote]

Except it's not contested, humanity needed the Council's permission to colonize in the Attican Traverse and the Skyllian Verge, they've openly declared those regions as belonging to them.

[quote]Moiaussi wrote...



[quote]I don't know the Council seems to do well with it. [/quote]You seem to want them to give everything for nothing,[/quote]
 
Far from it I want them to give something in return for the concessions we've made.  They've demanded we limit our military production and in return give us...what exactly?  Trade?  I'm sure we had to make trade concessions too, accepting racial monopolies on products and/or services (such a thing is brought up on Noveria I believe).  We've also given them border concessions (effectively allowing them to dictate where we can colonize), and all we seem to have to show for it is trade.  I'm not trying to say they should take on all our military demands and expense but the odd bit of assistance (say in response to an unprevoked attack by the Geth?) isn't unreasonable, or at least I don't think so.  Hell I'd be happy if they simply offered to act as mediators in brokering a Batarian/Human cease fire.  Non-military intervention into interspecies conflicts would suffice as adequate compensation for the military concessions we've made (they've limited our ability to address armed conflict in return they offer to mitigate and mediate said conflicts should they arise).

[quote]Moiaussi wrote...


[quote]You honestly view giving up the ability to ever be able to adequately defend yourself for trade as a win?  Are you out of your flipping mind.[/quote]I think the Alliance's actions at the Citadel and the fact that the heretics are essentially routed prove the Alliance are at least 'adequately' able to defend themselves. We came to their rescue, despite not actually having been asked. It wasn't the other way around. But don't let the facts get in the way of your fine rhetoric.[/quote]

The full force of the Citadel fleet was not present at the battle of the Citadel, nor was the bulk of the Geth forces.  The Geth had the advantage of surprise, just as humanity did when it arrived, and was able to press it.  Allow me to put it this way, at present the Turian Hierarchy has at least 5 DN's to every 1 the Systems Alliance has.  If they ever got it in their heads to go to war with us we would be crushed.  Even if the Asari or Salrians did it the result would be the same.  We have signed away our ability to adequately defend ourselves from a pack of genocidal lunatics.

[quote]Moiaussi wrote...


[quote]I question you brining up the Collectors, they don't require trade, etc. to thrive.  As for the Batarians and the Quarians well we see how well they're doing don't we.  No society can prosper without playing the Council's game, they've seen to that, saying the Alliance could simply walk away is like telling an unhappy employee they could just quit when the same guy owns every shop in town.[/quote]Oh look at you, an expert on ME economics now. Yes we are better off with more trading partners, but so are they. As for the Quarians and Batarians, they made their choices. The Quarians have a fleet. They could choose a non-contested world or simply outrun the edges of Council space. The Batarians were the ones who walked away from the table, and while they are likely worse off, they are still surviving. You talk as if humanity was doomed to extinction due to lack of trade before meeting the Council.[/quote]

Not extinction, poverty.  Without our agreements with the Council we wouldn't have been allowed to colonize many (if any) suitable planets, this would have limited our production, which limits expansion, and the whole thing snowballs from there.  The Batarians and Quarians demonstrate that without siding with the Council a species cannot grow, they've designed the system that way.  Now if we could find some partners who hadn't encountered the Council yet we might be able to achieve a measure of growth but unfortunately all roads lead to rome (or the Citadel in this case).

P.S. This is fun, I like you.

[Dean_the_Young]

DPSSOC wrote...


P.S. This is fun, I like you.

He has a way with words and wit and wisdom, doesn't he?

I mean, he was the first person on this board to recognize that I'm really a Reaper who wants to commit cycles of galactic genocide. And after all this time in which no one had noticed such a thing!

[Arijharn]

It's your avatar on the boards Dean, that must be it.