803 réponses à ce sujet

[Dean_the_Young]

Moiaussi wrote...
 
Even if it is happening simultaneously with the Reapers arrival, meaning that the Turian and Asari fleets are again in turmoil, and the STG's are effectively reporting to noone? Not to mention the Reapers having more than half their indoctrination work done for them.

Again, why would you rely on Cerberus do it at the worst time and the worst way?

Ignore whether Cerberus even could master Indoctrination- why is the argument based upon Cerberus, the one organization to recognize the Reapers and take steps to prepare against them, to actively sabatoge efforts that would be used against them when no one is sure if we can survive at all?

Why can't they? They now have the only IFF's,

Shepard and the Normandy.

and only they even know what is there and its importance. They are in the same situation as the Collectors were in that
regard. Arguably better because they don't have a derelect ship floating
about with the key to the lock handily inside.

They only have a top of the line stealth ship filled with AI, aliens, anti-Cerberus idealists, and people who's personal loyalty does not lay with Cerberus.

Umm... I am pretty sure that grinding people up into some sort of smoothie removes any traces of their personalities.

Personalities are debatable, giving the vague nature of the gestalt AI, but there is a collective intelligence of sorts.

Illium because it is there, relatively poorly defended and has a high population. And you wouldn't start with it. It is just a much better finisher than Earth is, unless you have a human DNA fetish.

With the way Harbinger outright disqualified some of the team as impossible to build a Reaper from, 'fetish' may well be 'possibility'.


And, again, why pick a fight with the Asari? The Asari are a cornerstone of the galaxy everyone likes: everyone knows if you're going to do mass abductions, you go to the underclass and hated people who no one will look too hard for. Like, say, Batarians.

Just because the Reapers spout rhetoric about ascending the race doesn't mean that the new reaper is any more 'ascended' than any given Goa'uld host. Telling the soon-to-be-deceased that their death will mean great things in the afterlife is as old as religion. Why fight back if there is a better life awaiting in heaven? or in this case, as some small fraction of a Reaper's spleen?

Do you think that that's all the Reapers were trying to do? Try and convince us of a heaven they've never seen, to drop our resistance? Even when, as our first hearing of 'prepare this humans for Ascension' was, when the only people present were in no position to resist?

You seem to be assuming he would definately wait until after, rather than convince himself that building reapers is the only way to stop them, or that the other major races have to be taken out of the picture for now so they don't interfere with his anti-reaper plans.

Convincing himself to build Reapers now would be an epic stupid that he has not demonstrated. Building a Reaper out of a super-power race would be stupider.

In the renegade ending, TIM's reaction to the base is 'this will ensure Human dominance against the Reapers and beyond." He doesn't say 'this will ensure our ability to defeat the Reapers, and Human dominance beyond." His priority is Human dominance, not stopping the Reapers first to ensure there are Humans left at all.

Yeah, and your wording is a bit more wordy and awkward in the context of the moment.

Human dominance beyond the Reapers does require surviving against them, however, and is utterly impossible without beating them. What you quoted really doesn't support that Cerberus would actively sabatoge the races before the Reapers arrive, when even that isn't necessary (and, in many respects, plausible to the degree suggested).

[Dean_the_Young]

jeweledleah wrote...

Zulu - destroying collectors will not stop the reapers from coming, but it sure slows them down and sometimes time is really all you need. its the same with Cerberus. why should I make it easier on them?

How does destroying Cerberus slow the Reapers down?

[Zulu_DFA]

Wulfram wrote...

Zulu_DFA wrote...

Once more:

Kabooming the Base can't stop Cerberus. They will continue doing their stuff. They'll find some other ways to "invest" human lives into "advancing the Human race", only a lot less fruitful as far as the preparation to face the Reapers goes.

The other ways are unlikely to rely quite so directly on gooifying people, though.

Knowing TIM, he's just as likely to order gooifying people to build a Reaper, as he is likely to order gooifying people to learn how to build a Reaper. Therefore, blowing up the Base results in more gooified people.

However, if TIM gets the Base, he might actually review the Reaper blueprints and come to conclusion that people may be repalced with something more efficient as raw material.

Wulfram wrote...

Plus, if they get usable tech, they'll likely use it to expand their operations.

To stop the Reapers first.

 And we all are supposed to want that before thinking of the "beyond". Even if that automatically meant Human dominance, it'd still be "no-choice" choice.

Modifié par Zulu_DFA, 07 mars 2011 - 11:33 .

[jeweledleah]

you have a very strange definition of doing the right thing, incredibly strange one. you don't have to be a **** or overly ruthless to do the right thing and you don't have to be ruthless either. you know what they say about getting more bees with honey then vinegar - it works the same with people.

you have changed nothing = we're still coming. I already knew that. but I also know that we've been slowing them down since the first game. citadel as a backdoor is closed to them now. using collectors is now no longer available and with base destroyed, they cannot even attempt to take it back - since there's nothing to take back. we bought the galaxy a bit more time here. we know it.

Cerberus being good guys, you have got to be kidding me. in your skewed world maybe, but they are so far removed from being good guys, its not even funny. good guys don't kill indiscriminately, they don't experiment on nonconcenting sentient beings and they do not torture them, they don't view everyone and everything as expendable, they don't betray their own people.

Universal principle of justice is punishing the guilty and rewarding the righteous. you seem to forget the second part and you seem to think that punishing the guilty can only be done one way - your ruthless way.

being nice, lets see. polite is nice. finding a compromise is nice. building good will with various quarians so that later you can have their assistance - that's pretty nice. getting a discount by offering endorsement instead of trying to intimidate and embarrass the seller - that's' also nice. Being nice, in ME universe is feeling empathy for the people you're dealing with, its rewarding them for the assistance instead of intimidating them into giving it.

edited to add - we're not slowing down reapers by blowing up the base, though it might be a side effect if we assume that they might try to get it back.  we're slowing down cerbersu advancement.

and zulu, did you just say that blowing up the base results in MORE gooified people, even though we just destryed the technology that can do that.  what is this, I don't even...

Modifié par jeweledleah, 07 mars 2011 - 11:36 .

[Dean_the_Young]

jeweledleah wrote...

you have a very strange definition of doing the right thing, incredibly strange one. you don't have to be a **** or overly ruthless to do the right thing and you don't have to be ruthless either. you know what they say about getting more bees with honey then vinegar - it works the same with people.

you have changed nothing = we're still coming. I already knew that. but I also know that we've been slowing them down since the first game. citadel as a backdoor is closed to them now. using collectors is now no longer available and with base destroyed, they cannot even attempt to take it back - since there's nothing to take back. we bought the galaxy a bit more time here. we know it.

Technically, destroying the Collector Base actually sped up their return. As long as the Collectors were a viable, non-destroyed strategy, the Reapers were content to wait in Dark Space. Once the Collectors were gone, they lit up and moved in. The longer we put off destroying the base, the longer we could have delayed the Reapers (until they got fed up and moved in anyway).

The base, however, is largely irrelevant in the Reaper War itself, even if the Reapers did somehow re-capture it. In order to use it, they would already have to have conquered harvested, and been able to transport enough humans off of Earth... all to build one Reaper. If they can do that, they've largely already won the war.

Cerberus being good guys, you have got to be kidding me. in your skewed world maybe, but they are so far removed from being good guys, its not even funny. good guys don't kill indiscriminately, they don't experiment on nonconcenting sentient beings and they do not torture them, they don't view everyone and everything as expendable, they don't betray their own people.

So... the Allies were the bad guys as well?

'The good guys' is a relative term of 'against the worse guys.' On balance, all lives weighed equal, Cerberus has saved many magnitudes more people than it's damned, which by most measures makes them 'good.'

[jeweledleah]

What did alliance do that comes anywhere near the scope of Cerberus's experiments and whose lives did Cerberus save exactly? every experiment we come across is not about treating diseases or anything of that nature. its about gaining control/building an army.

I don't even know what to say about your theory about the base. for all we know, based on ME1 is that reapers started moving out of dark space the moment citadel became unavailable, but they needed the collector base for harvesting the species. now - they have to start THAT project from scratch.

[Zulu_DFA]

jeweledleah wrote...

you have a very strange definition of doing the right thing, incredibly strange one. you don't have to be a **** or overly ruthless to do the right thing and you don't have to be ruthless either. you know what they say about getting more bees with honey then vinegar - it works the same with people.

And you have very strange analogies. But I'm not going to criticise them... I'll just ask, why don't you want to be sweet to TIM? Maybe he just needs hugs?

jeweledleah wrote...

you have changed nothing = we're still coming. I already knew that. but I also know that we've been slowing them down since the first game.

Not confirmed. In fact... Oh, what Dean said.

jeweledleah wrote...

Cerberus being good guys, you have got to be kidding me.

Not at all. They are against the bad guys (the Reapers). That makes Cerberus good guys.

As much as I hate the Batarians (no need to pull the racist card here either), I'll still call them good guys, when they come to help stop the Reapers in ME3. Good slaver guys. Can you imagine that?

Universal principle of justice is punishing the guilty and rewarding the righteous. you seem to forget the second part and you seem to think that punishing the guilty can only be done one way - your ruthless way.

Actually, I was having in mind exactly the latter part. When it comes to rewarding the righteous, you have to reward more the more righteous. The less righteous have to deal with being rewarded less, or sometimes not rewarded at all, if the reward funds are too scarce.

being nice, lets see. polite is nice. finding a compromise is nice. building good will with various quarians so that later you can have their assistance - that's pretty nice. getting a discount by offering endorsement instead of trying to intimidate and embarrass the seller - that's' also nice. Being nice, in ME universe is feeling empathy for the people you're dealing with, its rewarding them for the assistance instead of intimidating them into giving it.

Is it nice to blow up the thing that may potentially be (meta-gaming aside) the only chance to save all those Quarians and shopkeepers from mass extinction?

edited to add - we're not slowing down reapers by blowing up the base, though it might be a side effect if we assume that they might try to get it back.  we're slowing down cerbersu advancement.

And that's just... I don't even...

and zulu, did you just say that blowing up the base results in MORE gooified people, even though we just destryed the technology that can do that.  what is this, I don't even...

Yes, that's exactly what I'm saying. Because if you think that TIM may want to "build his own Reaper", you ought to also think that he may want to build his own Collector Base. Because it's logical, and TIM doesn't come across as a guy who gives up easily.

Anyway, let's poll!

Modifié par Zulu_DFA, 08 mars 2011 - 12:10 .

[Zulu_DFA]

jeweledleah wrote...

What did alliance do that comes anywhere near the scope of Cerberus's experiments

Akuze?

[Doctor Solus]

 

[Almostfaceman]

Doctor Solus wrote...

 

Dumb, comparing TiM to a man who won't set himself up as a criminals executioner.  Just dumb. 

[jeweledleah]

Zulu_DFA wrote...

jeweledleah wrote...

What did alliance do that comes anywhere near the scope of Cerberus's experiments

Akuze?

Akuze was Cerberus >_>  its how we first learn about the organization.  you're killing me Zulu, killing me

you can beleive what you will about TIM, you can Idolize him as much as you want, you can conveninetly ignore or justify his misdeeds, its your choice.  it doesn't make it the only choice or the best choice.  your reasoning is flawed.  I've pointed out why, other people have pointed out why, but you refuse to see it.  oh well

edited to add.  a man who puts my life and that of the people I care about into unnecessary danger is not a person I will treat nicely.  yes unnecessary.  witholding critical intel just because he thinks I can handle it, forcing the issue of shepard "letting go" of old friends by setting them up?  really? if he needs hugs (which he doesn't if you bother to talk to him as anything other then willing supplicant) - he's going about it very wrongly.

Modifié par jeweledleah, 08 mars 2011 - 12:28 .

[Almostfaceman]

Technically, destroying the Collector Base actually sped up their return. As long as the Collectors were a viable, non-destroyed strategy, the Reapers were content to wait in Dark Space. Once the Collectors were gone, they lit up and moved in. The longer we put off destroying the base, the longer we could have delayed the Reapers (until they got fed up and moved in anyway).

The base, however, is largely irrelevant in the Reaper War itself, even if the Reapers did somehow re-capture it. In order to use it, they would already have to have conquered harvested, and been able to transport enough humans off of Earth... all to build one Reaper. If they can do that, they've largely already won the war.

This makes a whooole lot of assumptions.  The truth is we have no idea what the total worth of the Collector Base is or is not to the Reapers and their plans.  We barely scratch the surface of what they're doing there and that's why if I didn't have to hand the base over to TiM I would sure as hell handed it over to the Alliance.

Not to mention the fact you have no idea when the Reapers started moving from Dark Space.  Everything that occured with Shepard could occur with the Reapes advancing and it wouldn't contradict a single thing shown to us in the game.

So... the Allies were the bad guys as well?

'The good guys' is a relative term of 'against the worse guys.' On balance, all lives weighed equal, Cerberus has saved many magnitudes more people than it's damned, which by most measures makes them 'good.'

This is totally made up.  You have no idea of what the totality of anything negative Cerberus has done has resulted in and will result in versus anything good they have done.   There simply isn't the kind of data necessary to measure that.

[Zulu_DFA]

jeweledleah wrote...

Zulu_DFA wrote...

jeweledleah wrote...

What did alliance do that comes anywhere near the scope of Cerberus's experiments

Akuze?

Akuze was Cerberus >_>  its how we first learn about the organization.  you're killing me Zulu, killing me

The truth is killing you.

The first how we learn about the Akuze is from Admiral Hackett, who calls in a top secret Alliance project.

jeweledleah wrote...

edited to add.  a man who puts my life and that of the people I care about into unnecessary danger is not a person I will treat nicely.

How do you know it was unnecessary danger? And how do you know TIM's heart wasn't bursting all the time you spent on Horizon, Collector Ship and Collector Base.

BTW, chain-smoking often indicates that there is a lot on one's nerves.

jeweledleah wrote...

yes unnecessary.  witholding critical intel just because he think I can handled it,

He (reasonably) thought you'd be in more danger if he told you all the stuff.

jeweledleah wrote...

forcing the issue of shepard "letting go" of old friends by setting them up?  really? if he needs hugs (which he doesn't if you bother to talk to him as anything other then willing supplicant) - he's going about it very wrongly.

That only means you need to be more persuasive about letting you hug him, and about explaining why he needs it.

Modifié par Zulu_DFA, 08 mars 2011 - 12:41 .

[AdmiralCheez]

Undertone wrote...

Oh hey, 'sup, dude?  Haven't talked to you in a while.

(even the site hates Renegades, ****ed up my formatting had to fix)

Why would anyone hate renegades?  They're badass.  And funny.

You and I have done this before but if everyone's doing it why not. Progress and knowledge are the most
important factors in the galaxy and pretty much in general in life. Lookat what the Prothean cache on Jupiter or whatever planet it was gave us - it gaves us the means to become a solar-faring race and the ability to expand beyond our mere solar system. As your favourite mentor puts it - "it jumped our technologies 200 years forward" or something of that sort.

Yes, but it didn't try to indoctrinate us, nor did some psychopath get to it first.

Now aside Shepard's agenda (human dominance or galactic co-operation) there's no way for you to know if we have sufficient resources to defeat the Reapers. We have virtually seen only 1 (actually 2) and have no idea about their numbers, their tech (with few exceptions) and if it there's difference between individual Reapers as ME2 seem to suggest.

We do know their weaknesses, though--they seem to have issues when their avatars die, and getting inside them and destroying their eezo cores is pretty much a death blow.  We have also replicated their technology and are beginning to understand indoctrination.  So we don't know their exact numbers, so what?  We can still safely assume that there's enough of them to wipe out a galaxy-wide empire, which means that we won't be able to beat them with traditional warfare.  Besides, it's not like the CB is going to have a Reaper census laid out for you.

With that in mind I am not going to argue about how human dominance is better then galactic
co-operation (simpler system easier to guide and control then more complex since more variables) (sorry I actually did  ) but about resources - the Council is one, Cerberus is one, SB is one etc.

Personally, I'd rather have powerful friends than a bunch of weaker enemies, but hey.  Also, yes, resources are good--problem is whether or not they're actually useful and who currently has their hands on them.

Saving the base doesn't necessarily means you are handling it to Cerberus -
the base is your physical proof of the Reapers existance. This is your answer to convincing the stupid Council before the Reapers actually arrive. EDI has the IFF and as evidenced by Cerberus it can be mass produced. So you can bring your happy team of turians, salarians, asari to the base to do research on it.

Problem: TIM will not want to share the base with aliens.  He wants humans alone to have the technological edge, and he is not going to let the STG anywhere near his new baby.  Now, unless we have the option to destroy Cerberus and seize their goodies, the base is going to be no help in gaining the Council's favor.

And yes, you are handing the base to Cerberus--check out that ending cutscene one more time.  He's already got IFFs installed on his ships and is beginning to salvage it, literally right after you've finished talking to him.

And like many people said before - better to have it and not need it rather then need it but not have it. That is why regardless of ideology, I will always save the base. Whether I was playing a human dominance Shep or a
co-operation one. It just adds another resource with the potential of the Prothetian cache.

And I nearly always blow it, because keeping it is bound to end badly.  The game is foreshadowing the beejeezus out of it--look at TIM's creepy behavior!  Look at what your crew says about it!  Warning signs flashing all over the place.  Call it metagaming, if you will, but I can't help but smell a hint of what ME3's cooking up for us.

You make very valid points, but fiction does not follow logic.  What happens in the real world won't necessarily fly here.  You're better off picking up the little hints and clues the authors leave for you.

As for TIM, that's purely speculation on your part. Otherwise it has been said - info is on the need to know basis. It happens everywhere in the military. Your favourite mentor (Anderson) does it himself. Also Horizon verifiies if the Reapers are actually specifically interested in Shepard. TIM might be ambitious, but is also logical and calculating. Even if you are right about him and he wants tobe the Emperor of the Galaxy, we still need to defeat the Reapers. Something he has committed and acted upon so far.

This entire thread is speculation.  But you cannot deny that TIM is dirty.

Yes, TIM is very smart and very committed, but he is toying with things he ought not to toy with.  What if it's an entire species he uses as bait next time?  What if it's a planet with a population of billions?  What if one of his gambles doesn't play out?  "Lol, oops?"

He was willing to sacrifice an entire colony just to find out if the Collectors had a thing for Shepard.  Makes you wonder what he'll do for a Klondike bar.

Meanwhile, Anderson has never withheld information that will put you in harm's way and always tells you everything he knows before you go rushing in to do something stupid.  He, for example, would have told you ahead of time that the disabled Collector Ship was a f*cking trap.

As your favourite turian (Garrus) says it - It's important to look at the bigger picture. Cerberus is very small part of that bigger picture. Against such odds you need all the resources you can get. Especially such a big resource as the CB.

Big picture: Commit all resources to stopping Reapers.

Problem: TIM's shenanigans will hinder efforts against Reapers by discouraging interspecies cooperation, taking massive risks, and needlessly sacrificing too many lives for too little gain.

Solution: Remove TIM from power.

The base is an acceptable loss when there is abundant Reaper technology available for study elsewhere.  Like, you know, the goddamn Citadel.  Additionally, we can still salvage the wreckage--Reaper goodies tend to be less dangerous in small pieces.

Your reasons for wanting to keep the base are perfectly valid and by no means do I expect you to blow it up.  However, despite all the logical arguments in favor of your position, blowing the base most certainly does not doom the galaxy, and due to bad things frequently happening when you put Cerberus and Reaper tech in a room together (EDI is the exception to the rule), it may in fact prove to be the wiser choice.

@Fiery Phoenix a million pages back: Zulu and I are glad you have enjoyed our silliness and will be happy to provide you with more entertainment.  Well, at least I will.  Can't speak for him.

[Pwener2313]

Doctor Solus wrote...

 

+1

[Almostfaceman]

Zulu_DFA wrote...

The truth is killing you.

The first how we learn about the Akuze is from Admiral Hackett, who calls in a top secret Alliance Project.

Of course then this truth will kill you deader than a doornail - we find out through Toombs Cerberus has been working through Alliance scientists and made Akuze happen. 

[jeweledleah]

Cerberus used to be part of alliance...that went rogue. you know rogue? as in, not following the alliance rules? remember Toombs and the scientists? cerberus scientists that he's been murdering?

I'm floored by your justification of withholding intel, INTEL that could have helped in making operation cleaner. floored. withholding intel was unnecessary, because lack of intel is the leading cause of operations going wrong.

and I'm sorry, I used to be ambivalent about TIM, he was someone I couldn't trust, but he wasn't someone I actively hated. you're making me hate him now, good job, you're also doing the exact opposite when it comes to convincing me that keeping the base is a good idea. I actually used to think that there's validity to it. the more I talk to you, the more I realize just how bad of an idea it is to let that thing stand and leave it to TIM's tender mercies

[Zulu_DFA]

Almostfaceman wrote...

Zulu_DFA wrote...

The truth is killing you.

The first how we learn about the Akuze is from Admiral Hackett, who calls in a top secret Alliance Project.

Of course then this truth will kill you deader than a doornail - we find out through Toombs Cerberus has been working through Alliance scientists and made Akuze happen.

So... The Alliance is a part of Cerberus then?

jeweledleah wrote...

Cerberus used to be part of alliance...that went rogue. you know rogue?

Ah, yes, "ROGUE"...

jeweledleah wrote...

I'm floored by your justification of withholding intel, INTEL that could have helped in making operation cleaner. floored. withholding intel was unnecessary, because lack of intel is the leading cause of operations going wrong.

There was no lack of intel. There was plenty of intel, which was distributed to the elements involved in the operation on the need-to-know basis.

jeweledleah wrote...

and I'm sorry, I used to be ambivalent about TIM, he was someone I couldn't trust, but he wasn't someone I
actively hated. you're making me hate him now, good job, you're also doing the exact opposite when it comes to convincing me that keeping the base is a good idea. I actually used to think that there's validity to it. the more I talk to you, the more I realize just how bad of an idea it is to let that thing stand and leave it to TIM's tender mercies

Mmmm... Maybe it's my turn now to play psychologist, and tell you, why you are really feeling that way?..

Modifié par Zulu_DFA, 08 mars 2011 - 01:09 .

[Pwener2313]

Keeping the base, in simpler ways, is trump card. That Cerberus can produce weaponry or any kind of technology from it is 30% at best. The other 70% is the whole place backfiring horribly. But compared to the previous races that have been "reaped" before us, a 30% is a God send. All others before us didn't even have a chance to find out what was happening until their galaxy was in a state of mass chaos.

Keeping the base is actually a sound idea. What's the worse that could happen? Husks? Indoctrination of Cerberus personnel that people hate? Destruction? Isn't all that stuff still coming anyway....

Yes, it is. TIM helps the galaxy destroy the Reapers and then tries to use the base to take over the galaxy. At least we would have a galaxy to defend against an incredibly lesser foe compared to the Reapers. It's not like TIM alone with the base is more dangerous then the Reapers. Otherwise he would use the base to singlehandedly take out the Reaper threat.

Sacrifice a potential resource and throw the fate of the galaxy to further chance, or keep it and have a potential weapon to stop the Reapers with. Either way, it is actually worth the risk. You would destroy the base because you don't trust TIM/Cerberus? That is a very naive thing to do. If any of the previous races that were anihilated by the Reapers were here now, they would tell you to keep it. If Vigil were still active, he would tell you it's worth it. All of them would.

You have no idea what's coming and still would potentially doom the galaxy to extinction, ensuring that the Reapers continue their horrible cycle of destruction, dooming incalculable souls to death, and even worse, Reaperfication, because you hate Cerberus? i am sorry, but wathever may come out of that base that could be bad, would never compare to what the Reapers have done for who knows how long.

Really, you prefer a nuke dropped on your home then a dictatorship? If you do, you need to revaluate yourself.

Modifié par Pwener2313, 08 mars 2011 - 02:15 .

[jeweledleah]

Zulu, dear, I dare you to try. so far everything that you said against destroying the base is your assumptions and everything that you said about keeping the base being the only correct solution? also your assumptions. you have a lot of conspiracy theories and like a stopped clock that's right twice a day, some of them might even be correct, since you cannot possibly get everything wrong. or can you?

and your love for Cerberus and their methods, the fact that you don't think that the away team, none of the away team needed to know what they were getting into? I'm all out of words.

I'm trying very very hard right now not to slam you personally, because that would be counterproductive, but your values, your believes, based on your analysis of what's the right thing to do? no, not going there.

[Pwener2313]

I agree, Zulu has become a borderline troll. Please, stop it, you are making us Pro-Cerberus forumites get a bad rep.

A week ago you were fine. A couple of days ago however you have changed into a real borderline troll, even being abkle to be compared to Inception. Go back to the onld days, I miss that smart and convincing Zulu.

[Moiaussi]

Dean_the_Young wrote...

Again, why would you rely on Cerberus do it at the worst time and the worst way?

Ignore whether Cerberus even could master Indoctrination- why is the argument based upon Cerberus, the one organization to recognize the Reapers and take steps to prepare against them, to actively sabatoge efforts that would be used against them when no one is sure if we can survive at all?

Risk assessment isn't about certainties or 'relying.' It is about possibilities, probabilities, and risk. We know for a fact that TIM is already undermining the other powers by virtue of conceiling key intel, and undermining Shepard's credibility. Given that, despite what is coming, why do you assume they would act differently if given additional power?

Shepard and the Normandy.

Only if Shepard isn't onside with his plans, and only if he doesn't have a failsafe 'blow up the Normandy' switch.

They only have a top of the line stealth ship filled with AI, aliens, anti-Cerberus idealists, and people who's personal loyalty does not lay with Cerberus.

Which flys Cerberus colours and has Cerberus idealists on board (or at least did as of the last intel of the Council's), and who have no evidence of anything other than a data-pad of 'dismissable fiction.' TIM can change the IFF designation before starting. Heck, just place a minefield with a separate IFF in the entry area. Any scout or probe sent through blows up and the Council says 'And you wanted us to send a fleet into that deathtrap?"

TIM has done everything he can to make sure that Shepard isn't believable to anyone else, even to the extent of risking the galaxy on his opinion that Cerberus can stop the Reapers alone.

Personalities are debatable, giving the vague nature of the gestalt AI, but there is a collective intelligence of sorts.

Source reference? Or just making that up?

With the way Harbinger outright disqualified some of the team as impossible to build a Reaper from, 'fetish' may well be 'possibility'.

Pretty sure it was dismissing them as unworthy, not saying anything like what you are saying. We didn't know about the proto-reaper yet.

And, again, why pick a fight with the Asari? The Asari are a cornerstone of the galaxy everyone likes: everyone knows if you're going to do mass abductions, you go to the underclass and hated people who no one will look too hard for. Like, say, Batarians.

Because the Batarians still have an organized fleet, whereas Illium is isolated in the 'forbidden zone' of Terminus. The Collectors were allegedly going to hit Earth, which would have been a lot better defended than Illium. Done right, TIM might even be able to make it look like the Terminus systems were behind it, since the Council rejected concepts of any outside threats.

Do you think that that's all the Reapers were trying to do? Try and convince us of a heaven they've never seen, to drop our resistance? Even when, as our first hearing of 'prepare this humans for Ascension' was, when the only people present were in no position to resist?

How is that any different than the line fed to Saren? It is completely compatable with their infiltrate and destroy strategy. They may even believe it. That doesn't make it so.

Convincing himself to build Reapers now would be an epic stupid that he has not demonstrated. Building a Reaper out of a super-power race would be stupider.

Really? You think reapers would be ineffective as weapons against Reapers? He was willing to sacrifice Horizon already, why not Illium? Or at least other worlds?

Yeah, and your wording is a bit more wordy and awkward in the context of the moment.

Human dominance beyond the Reapers does require surviving against them, however, and is utterly impossible without beating them. What you quoted really doesn't support that Cerberus would actively sabatoge the races before the Reapers arrive, when even that isn't necessary (and, in many respects, plausible to the degree suggested).

You are assuming he isn't taking defeating the Reapers as a given. He is way too sure of himself in that regard, or he would want the other races prepared too. No, the quote isn't proof. He didn't outright tell us his master plan. But that doesn't make you right either. He might not even believe they are coming, and might think he is just playing Shepard to gain tech like the Collector base.

[Moiaussi]

Dean_the_Young wrote...

Technically, destroying the Collector Base actually sped up their return. As long as the Collectors were a viable, non-destroyed strategy, the Reapers were content to wait in Dark Space. Once the Collectors were gone, they lit up and moved in. The longer we put off destroying the base, the longer we could have delayed the Reapers (until they got fed up and moved in anyway).

Why wouldn't they be on the move anyway? We saw the same image of their fleet coming at the end of ME1.

The base, however, is largely irrelevant in the Reaper War itself, even if the Reapers did somehow re-capture it. In order to use it, they would already have to have conquered harvested, and been able to transport enough humans off of Earth... all to build one Reaper. If they can do that, they've largely already won the war.

That assumes they are limited to humans, or to a full sized Reaper, or that the base has no other stategic value.

So... the Allies were the bad guys as well?

'The good guys' is a relative term of 'against the worse guys.' On balance, all lives weighed equal, Cerberus has saved many magnitudes more people than it's damned, which by most measures makes them 'good.'

Who did the allies experiment on and/or torture? In some operations (the bombing of Dresden comes to mind) the Allies were arguably crossing the line. That doesn't make the other side 'good' or either side's actions all 'neccessary.' The bombing of Dresden was arguably the result of Allied command breaking morale over German attacks on civillian targets. You aren't seriously defending Germany's actions here, are you? That is waaaaay crossing any lines of rationality.

[Zulu_DFA]

jeweledleah wrote...

Zulu, dear, I dare you to try.

In short: You hate the idea that TIM may be right.

jeweledleah wrote...

so far everything that you said against destroying the base is your assumptions and everything that you said about keeping the base being the only correct solution?

The only thing I really say against destroying the Base is that it makes no sense, since keeping the Base is better and it's damn obvious. That's pretty much it, although I can add, that I regard destroyiing the Base by some players an act of metagaming, or a knee-jerk reaction to TIM's ruthlessness, which they erroneously thought to be bad in and of itself, or TIM's ineptitude, which is highly quetionable, since he's managed to remain in business despite all the Idiot Balls the writers gave him any time they needed to advance the plot (not so numerous as you'd like to think, though).

jeweledleah wrote...

also your assumptions. you have a lot of conspiracy theories and like a stopped clock that's right twice a day, some of them might even be correct, since you cannot possibly get everything wrong. or can you?

And what does it have to do with this discussion?

jeweledleah wrote...

and your love for Cerberus and their methods, the fact that you don't think that the away team, none of the away team needed to know what they were getting into? I'm all out of words.

I'm trying very very hard right now not to slam you personally, because that would be counterproductive, but your values, your believes, based on your analysis of what's the right thing to do? no, not going there.

Can't see how my belief that you should give TIM a hug instead of the finger can be something not worth going there.

Modifié par Zulu_DFA, 08 mars 2011 - 02:10 .