Completely missing the point. Smudboy wasn't arguing that there's some unwritten rule that says you can't do that. He was arguing that you don't do that if you want to tell a good story. As others have said, you don't encase Han Solo in carbonite at the beginning of The Empire Strike Back; it kills the suspense and drama. It's bad writing form.
Furthermore, his complaint stems from the fact that Shepard is immediately killed off at the beginning of the story only to be brought back less than 2 minutes of game-time later and have his death and resurrection never be explored again. What was the point? What did Shepard's death and resurrection add to the story? It would've played out the same if Shepard had survived the battle and was simply found floating in cryo-suspension after being declared MIA. The whole plot point was needless and wasted.
How can anyone say that bringing Shepard back to life is unbelievable when people in the Mass Effect universe can "magically" reduce the mass of objects and have biotic powers?
This is one of the most common arguments used in fiction debates, and the fact that the author uses it kind of unintentionally says a bit about him. Yes, Science Fiction is fiction and part of fiction means things that are impossible can be made possible. However, in Science Fiction, the science part also needs to be accounted for or else it just becomes futuristic fantasy.
Mass Effect fields and biotics are explained in the Mass Effect universe via the proerties of the fictional Element Zero, which has a defined set of rules and principles governing it. Therefor, everything that Element Zero allows for--like Mass Effect fields, FTL travel, biotics, etc--can be rationally explained away as a bi-product of this fictional element and it's defined properties. The Lazarus Project has no explaination in Element Zero. It's wholely independant of Element Zero and therefor needs it's own independant explaination, of which there is none. So the only recourse then is, a wizard did it. It's as unbelievable in the context of the Mass Effect universe as if Shepard spontaneously morphed into a giant fire-breathing dragon (which, again, there's no story rule that says that couldn't happen, but it wouldn't be good writing for him to do so).
Suspension of disbelieve is a two-way street. Readers/players need to be able to suspend their disblief in a fictional universe, but the writer also needs to give them a foundation of belief on which to suspend it. You can't just have impossible occurances with no explaination whatsoever and expect people to buy it, or else you have the aforementioned Shepard morphing into a fire-breathing dragon to save the day.
Maybe Shepard wasn't obliterated on impact because the core of the planet was hollow, maybe it's a different density, or the rotation was different, etc? There's way too many unknown variables to make any sort of judgement.
And maybe the Flying Spaghetti Monster stretched out His noodly appendage and caught Shepard?
There actually aren't that many unknown variables involved, and the variables that ARE known all add up to one thing: Shepard burning up and going SPLAT.
1) We know the properties of the planet Alchera, including it's atmosphere, mass and gravity.
2) We see Shepard's suit hemoraging oxygen.
3) We see Shepard beginning to burn up in Alchera's atmosphere.
4) We know Shepard's body was recovered from the surface of Alchera, so he most definitely made impact from orbit.
5) We know from Jacob that when Shepard was recovered he was "nothing but meat and tubes."
You're upset because Shepard's resurrection wasn't handled as a spiritual affair with God(s)/Angels, etc?
Again, he COMPLETELY misses the point. Smudboy wasn't complaining that Shepard's resurrection wasn't spiritual in nature. He was complaining that there was absolutely no metaphysical or spiritual exploration involved with Shepard having been brought back from the dead. This should've been a HUGE plot point. How often do people get brought back from the grave, after all? There should've been tons of soul-searching and metaphysical exploration involved dealing with what it means to be alive and whether Shepard is still himself (ie: whether a "clone" has a soul). As others have mentioned, Shepard experienced death and yet he doesn't have so much as a nightmare about dying in the cold vacuum of space? It's like it never even happened, which goes back to point #1 about not killing off the protagonist at the beginning of a story just to bring him back again 2 minutes later. In effect, what should've been a huge plot point was rendered totally pointless.
Bringing back Shepard rather than raising a whole army makes sense because history shows us that a single person can change the world.
Okay. Let's use the Hannibal comparison. Yes, Hannibal terrorized the Roman Empire (with the help of his formidable army, but moving on...) BUT if after Hannibal died the Carthaginians were oftered the choice of either bringing JUST Hannibal back or having an army of 50,000 soldiers at the ready, which do you think they'd choose? Keep in mind that Hannibal AND the army isn't an option. Quite simply, Hannibal on his own against the Roman Empire isn't going to accomplish anything without those 50,000 men behind him, whereas those 50,000 men without Hannibal are still a force to be reckoned with.
Cerberus is a secretive terrorist organization that wants to maintain a low profile and raising an army would draw too much attention.
First of all, Cerberus doesn't seem too concerned with keeping a low profile when they're slapping their LOGO on every ship and operative in their employ.
Secondly, how would raising an army without drawing attention be any more difficult than building a 120 billion credit warship in secret and stealing the body of the galaxy's most famous Spectre?
What use would an army be when the Illusive Man didn't know what target to strike?
What use was Shepard in determining that the Collectors were the real enemy? The Illusive Man sent Shepard, along with Jacob and Miranda, to Freedom's Progress where they basically stumbled on the answer. Whether or not Shepard had been there would've made no difference whatsoever. Miranda and Jacob and any other Cerberus operative would've been just as successful in uncovering the Collector's plot. In fact, not once does Shepard himself actually contribute to either the discovery of the Collector threat or to discovering the means to it's defeat. Every major discovery is made by the Illusive Man and his operatives, from Freedom's Progress and the discovery of the Collector threat (TIM) to the Seeker Swarm countermeasures (Mordin) to the true nature of the Collectors and the location of their homeworld (EDI) to the discovery of the Reaper IFF and the way through the Omega 4 Relay (TIM) to the means of destroying the Collectors/Base (Miranda/TIM). Shepard contributes NOTHING besides combat, which is something a group of 100 armed mercenaries could've accomplished just as well. There is literally no reason for the Illusive Man to waste all that time and money resurrecting Shepard.
It made sense to bring Shepard back because he was a figurehead who everyone could rally behind.
Fat lot of good being a figurehead did for him. After two years, the Council STILL disbelieves him and refuses to support him, the Alliance now considers him a TRAITOR, most of his old crew if now unavailable, he's lost all his old Spectre resources and most people in the galaxy believe him to be dead. If the Illusive Man was expecting people to rally behind Shepard he didn't do his homework, because Shepard still has to bust his ass getting people to fall in line. In fact, the only people who seem willing to aid him are mercenaries and Cerberus operatives; two groups that Cerberus could've easily attracted and used WITHOUT Shepard there to "rally" them.
If Cerberus had the technology to bring someone back from the dead, they were going to use it on someone anyway so why not Shepard? He'd make the perfect test subject.
First of all, that's pure conjecture. We're given nothing in the game that suggests that Cerberus began the
Lazarus Project prior to Shepard's demise regardless of how "likely" the author believes that to be, nor do we know how much of the 2 years that Shepard was dead wasn't spent developing the technology to do so.
Secondly, if you're only excuse is "Well, we've gotta test it on someone," wouldn't it make more sense NOT to use that technology on the individual who has personally slaughtered countless Cerberus operatives, dismantled numerous Cerberus operations, has likely had their past personally affected in a negative way by Cerberus and thus has cause to want it's destruction AND therefor is most likely to balk at working with you?
Wilson wouldn't be a "rockstar" because Cerberus isn't in the habit of broadcasting what they're doing to the whole galaxy.
First of all, again, Cerberus happily broadcast to the entire galaxy that Shepard was back and he was allied with their organization, so that entire point is rather moot.
Secondly, he again misunderstands. Wilson would be a "rockstar" internal to Cerberus. Do you think the lead researcher who undid death itself wouldn't be prized by the organization almost as much as Shepard himself? He'd be set for life. So it basically comes down to "Miranda was a b*tch so I'm gonna destroy the project I've devoted 2 years of my life to, blow up the station...and then what?" Did he think that the Illusive Man, with his nigh-unlimited funding and information network rivaling that of the Shadow Broker's, wouldn't be able to track him down and enact vengeance for his betrayal? Wilson must've been the stupidest genius in history.
It makes sense that Shepard can't choose whether or not to work with the Illusive Man because Shepard working with Cerberus is an integral plot point of the game, and there's plenty of conflict that arrises between the two characters.
Yes, we all understand that Shepard working with Cerberus is integral to the plot. It's a bad plot. That's Smudboy's point. The player should never have been forced--protests or not--to work with an organization that is so contrary to his nature. The fact that Shepard seems so impotent before the Illusive Man that the best he can muster in protest is an "OK, but I don't wanna!" and ocassionally mutter a few grumbling threats is just rubbing salt in the proverbial wound.
But the Council and Alliance weren't willing to help you, so what other option did Shepard have but to work with Cerberus?
The Alliance and, to a lesser extent, the Council only refused to aid Shepard because Shepard was working with Cerberus! If he wanted their support, all he had to do was leave Cerberus, but that option is never available to the player. In other words, it was completely contrived. Personally, I would've loved to tell the Illusive Man to sit on it and taken my shiny new Normandy SR-2 back to the Alliance, but I couldn't do that because "Reports are that you're working with Cerberus. What the hell are you doing out there, Shepard?" and my only option was to defend Cerberus and their methods. WTF!?
Let's be realistic. They HAD to railroad you just due to time and budget constraints. Giving you the option of working for Cerberus or not would've created too many branching paths to keep track of in ME3.
I agree. So throw the whole idea of working with Cerberus out and just make Shepard continue serving with the Alliance. That it would've been unrealistic to allow the player the option of joining multiple organizations does not excuse forcing the player to join the terrorist organization.
We needed a new villian for ME2 since all the old villians (Saren, Sovereign) were killed in ME1 and the Reapers are too far out in Dark Space to bother us yet so they needed an agent to affect their will upon the galaxy, hence the Collectors.
Umm... the geth? Just sayin'. They were the OG Reaper servants from the first game and there's still plenty of those guys wandering around. It also would've made having a geth on your crew all the more conflictive. Not that I really think the concept of the Collectors was bad, although I do think more could've been done with them.
His last point I somewhat agree with and somewhat disagree with. Overall, I'm not terribly impressed. For someone who pretends to be so rational and likens Smudboy's arguments to "a sea manatee trying to cross-country ski", almost every single one of his counter points are poorly constructed or not thought through at all and are easily countered themselves. For someone who also tries to claim the high ground in regards to being open minded and criticizes Smudboy for being arrogant, much of his own video comes off sounding condescending.
Hopefully Part 2 will be better.
Modifié par JKoopman, 08 mars 2011 - 08:49 .
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smudboy's premises were often completely out to lunch. I think he achieved that pretty well.
