99 réponses à ce sujet

[Gabey5]

the scale is different. There is a big bad vast galaxy in this universe. Frightening things go down that threaten the stability of citadel space. Talk alone won't protect us, you need wetwork

[Taleroth]

Gabey5 wrote...

the scale is different. There is a big bad vast galaxy in this universe. Frightening things go down that threaten the stability of citadel space. Talk alone won't protect us, you need wetwork

Spectres themselves threaten the stability of citadel space.  It's the crappy oversight that created Saren and let him thrive.  It was only ridiculous serendipity that got him revoked from his position.

Modifié par Taleroth, 24 mars 2011 - 09:22 .

[Drake_Hound]

I think you people don´t understand it , Saren fall was cause he is a racist , he despised human (earthlings) , thats what drove him to such desperate act .
He didn´t think it is fair , that humanity got everything thrown to there feet , while the established races , had to work much harder for it .

That part nobody can blaim him , it same as work , you worked there 10 years and suddenly somebody working 1 year got promoted ?
Some people won´t take that well , and it is understandable .

If you judge spectres cause of saren , it is the same as judging shepard for being anti/pro universe.
I like mass effect cause it tells shepard tale (you can tell it the way you want)
But the other characters also have there reason for being like the way they are .
There motives and fall from grace is very well explained , including Liara mother and the volunteers that went with her .

[AGogley]

Nyoka wrote...

Almostfaceman, regardless of what we think should or should not had to be done, the thing is Shepard's actions are above the law. It doesn't matter if blowing up the complex and killing all those people is illegal or not--Shepard can do it anyway. Shepard is an agent of the government who can do illegal things, including killing people without a trial or anything. She is the law, the judge, and the executor. That's state terrorism.

 I don't consider that terrorism and I think your definition of terrorism muddies the water so that anything can be labeled as "terrorism."  Any crime you don't like, revolution, crime syndicate, mob, or splinter group under your broad interpretation would all be terrorists.  Sometimes criminal are just criminals.  A terrorist is somebody trying to accomplish a political goal through the use of terror.

I do agree that Shephard is an Agent of the government, above the law or outside the law.  People can have various opinions on whether that's a good idea or not.  Obviously, you think doing so is wrong.  Incidentally, many Americans thought it was wrong and that is why we banned the internal use of such Agents by the CIA.

[AGogley]

Saphra Deden wrote...

Saren was the Council's best Spectre. He is absolutely a standard with which to judge the others. We also have Tela Vasir and Nihlus. Both committed very questionable acts. Things that would get them arrested by a legitimate government.

Indeed.  Many actions, even ones considered to be sound and moral, could result in arrest by a legitimate government body.  That is why such Agents exist.  They operate outside the government, taking government funds and orders, but essentially working on their own.  This allows the Agent to do things that might be legal today and illegal tomorrow under the changing winds of politics but also gives the government plausible deniability of the Agent's actions.  The major con is that such an Agent wields vast power and can do many things that the government didn't intend or want.

[Bourne Endeavor]

Were Spectres to exist in our society they would have regulations. For instance, the complete massacre of innocence for the sole purpose of reining in a fugitive would result in their status stripped and possibly execution. They would have a standard to uphold and would be put down by their own should they fall astray. Where they might be useful is say we have a war criminal in the US. This individual is trafficking explosive material, weapons and what have you. He has ample connections and there is a strong probability he could escape imprisonment. This is when we would see a black ops group, which is essentially what the Spectres are, quietly and efficiently remove this may through execution leaving the cause completely ambiguous.

As with everything else there are pros and cons associated but the concept is not devoid of merit.

Modifié par Bourne Endeavor, 25 mars 2011 - 12:15 .

[knightnblu]

Governments do have people like the Spectres, they just call them black ops and wet work specialists. Folks that for all intents and purposes don't exist, but they operate outside the bounds of the law both nationally and internationally. Last I looked the black budget was sitting at just over 60 billion and there is virtually nobody who knows where it all goes. Do you really think all that money pays for is research? Naïveté is a beautiful thing until the veil is pulled back and one is forced to witness reality.

Such people keep you safe and it really doesn't matter if you approve or don't because that is just the way it is and it isn't going to change.

[Bluko]

Saphra Deden wrote...

To pose a question, I ask: how would you feel if you found out your government employed secret agents who had total immunity from the law? The only person they reported to would be the President (or Prime Minister or w/e). No other authority in the land could touch them. Would you feel safe? Would you feel threatened? How would you feel about your government?

Well the U.S. already does. It's called the C.I.A. and they have all sorts of agents operating not to different from Spectres. And before that we had the OSS You just don't hear about it. Most large governments employ spies, assassins,  and "secret agents". They just aren't ever publicly announced and to be honest they're kind of useless if everyone  knows about them. Even most Spectres are "unknown". Shepard was a special case in that they were the first Human spectre  so of course everyone heard about it. Most Spectres are however secret agents where their identity is unknown since there is no official listing of them. Only the Council knows who they are and what they do.

As for my thoughts on "secret agents"? Eh not a big deal. They have and will likely always exist in some fashion. I'm sure they do a lot of stuff I don't approve of, but if it means I can sleep safely at night that's okay with me. Unless you're a part of illegal activities or plotting rebellion you really shouldn't have too much to fear. Frankly for a government not to employ "secret agents" it's probably either very weak or inept, niether of which are real good IMO.

Modifié par Bluko, 25 mars 2011 - 03:02 .

[InvincibleHero]

Bluko wrote...

Saphra Deden wrote...

To pose a question, I ask: how would you feel if you found out your government employed secret agents who had total immunity from the law? The only person they reported to would be the President (or Prime Minister or w/e). No other authority in the land could touch them. Would you feel safe? Would you feel threatened? How would you feel about your government?

Well the U.S. already does. It's called the C.I.A. and they have all sorts of agents operating not to different from Spectres. And before that we had the OSS You just don't hear about it. Most large governments employ spies, assassins,  and "secret agents". They just aren't ever publicly announced and to be honest they're kind of useless if everyone  knows about them. Even most Spectres are "unknown". Shepard was a special case in that they were the first Human spectre  so of course everyone heard about it. Most Spectres are however secret agents where their identity is unknown since there is no official listing of them. Only the Council knows who they are and what they do.

As for my thoughts on "secret agents"? Eh not a big deal. They have and will likely always exist in some fashion. I'm sure they do a lot of stuff I don't approve of, but if it means I can sleep safely at night that's okay with me. Unless you're a part of illegal activities or plotting rebellion you really shouldn't have too much to fear. Frankly for a government not to employ "secret agents" it's probably either very weak or inept, niether of which are real good IMO.

I disagree. Saren was well-known. Being a spectre gives intimidation factor and the right to demand resources and even a whole ship if they wanted to from any Council member client or faction. If they were secret it would hamper their operations in some capacity.

It doesn't mean they are incapable of stealth missions or undercover work. After all knowing Saren the spectre is a deadly galactic ginsu doesn't mean you could recognize him on sight.

Spectres clean up the messes and are usually less than subtle.

Notice everyone on SR1 knew Nihilus was a spectre. If they wanted it secret then only Anderson would have known.

[Arokel]

The problem I can see is that the power of the Spectres seems out of proportion to that of the Council. The Council cannot force others to comply with its rulings. If all of the member races decided to ignore their decisions the Council is powerless. The reason that the member heed the will of the Council is because it is in everyone's best interest to do so.

But what about the Spectres? They can go anywhere, do anything, and force cooperation from local police and military. The Council cannot do these things, but the Spectres (their subordinates) can?

[InvincibleHero]

Arokel wrote...

The problem I can see is that the power of the Spectres seems out of proportion to that of the Council. The Council cannot force others to comply with its rulings. If all of the member races decided to ignore their decisions the Council is powerless. The reason that the member heed the will of the Council is because it is in everyone's best interest to do so.

But what about the Spectres? They can go anywhere, do anything, and force cooperation from local police and military. The Council cannot do these things, but the Spectres (their subordinates) can?

Spectres are direct manifestations of the will of the Council. They give them their task and expect them to use their own initiative to get the job done. Emphasis is getting it done and the council usually doesn't care how and why.

[Almostfaceman]

Arokel wrote...

The problem I can see is that the power of the Spectres seems out of proportion to that of the Council. The Council cannot force others to comply with its rulings. If all of the member races decided to ignore their decisions the Council is powerless. The reason that the member heed the will of the Council is because it is in everyone's best interest to do so.

But what about the Spectres? They can go anywhere, do anything, and force cooperation from local police and military. The Council cannot do these things, but the Spectres (their subordinates) can?

The problem with looking this hard at an artificial construct like a video game universe is that it falls apart under real-world scrutiny. 

Modifié par Almostfaceman, 25 mars 2011 - 05:27 .

[Arokel]

@Almost

Lol. So true.

[CulturalGeekGirl]

Arokel wrote...

The problem I can see is that the power of the Spectres seems out of proportion to that of the Council. The Council cannot force others to comply with its rulings. If all of the member races decided to ignore their decisions the Council is powerless. The reason that the member heed the will of the Council is because it is in everyone's best interest to do so.

But what about the Spectres? They can go anywhere, do anything, and force cooperation from local police and military. The Council cannot do these things, but the Spectres (their subordinates) can?

The council could immediately revoke someone's Spectre status and send all the other Spectres (and the military) after them. Also, it's not like Spectres are all-powerful - in LotSB you totally murder one, and nobody ever calls you on it. In the beginning of ME1, your Spectre pal dies on the mission, and the council is pretty much like "Easy come, easy go!"  I don't think most Spectres have the degree of power and influence that Saren did then and Shep does now. I think they were both extreme examples of the most a Spectre can possibly get away with. Saren was the longest-serving, most respected Turian Spectre, after all.

I think people are ascribing more power to  Spectres than they actually have. The council monitors Spectre activities, and I'm pretty sure they'd quickly shut down extreme abuses of power from a new Spectre. The longer and more distinguishe a Spectre's service, the less their actions are monitored.

The council also has more power than people here are ascribing to them. They can force cooperation from someone - that's what the military is for! Heck, the first contact war started because the Turians used their military to enforce one of the council's decisions... without bothering to tell humanity "by the way there's a council and you broke their rules. Please come see us to avoid us having to blow you up in the future."

Who here has seen True Grit? The way the U.S. Marshals/Texas Rangers operate in that movie is pretty much directly analgous to what the Spectres do. As a U.S. Marshall, Rooster Cogburn sometimes shoots people. A lot of people. Criminals usually, probably. Sometimes, he does it on US soil, as part of a normal investigation. If he kills people without provocation on US soil he could technically be punished, and has to attempt to prove he acted according to the law, but it's not really likely that he'll be permanently punished, if he can show a reasonable amount of evidence that the people he just shot had engaged in criminal activity recently. Once he gets outside of the bounds of conventional, settled areas and into the lawless west, he has even more leeway - can seize goods, snipe outlaws in the back just for being outlaws, intimidate people... basically be a Renegade Spectre.

The important thing about the Marshals, the Rangers, and the Spectres is that they can operate in areas outside of the official borders of their respective governments. This is a function that we don't have as much context for today - whenever you're outside of one country you're usually inside another. The Spectres fulfill a function that is only really neccessary when you have a frontier, when you have some areas that are not really a part of any recognized government. This is what makes Mass Effect's world very different from, say, Star Trek. In Star Trek, in most of the accesible parts of the galaxy, someone is firmly "in charge." You're either in Federation space, Kingon Space, Romulan Space, whatever. There is the Neutral zone, but instead of fighting bloodily over it and competing over the resources there, the governments of all the races just agree to stay the HELL out of there.

But what happens when you need to take care of something in the Neutral zone? In Star Trek, those people are usually just screwed. If you're the captain of a starship you can let them die or provoke an international incident. Ever hear of the Kobayashi Maru? That whole simulation is about how, in a world without Spectres, any neutral territory creates impossible situations with no possible way for anything to end well. To get back to True Grit, that's the same thing that happens when a criminal escapes into the Indian territories. Normal law enforcement doesn't have jursidiction there, so that's where criminals go to disappear. The Marshals, the Rangers, and the Spectres are the people who can go into the "neutral zone," the "indian territories," and do stuff. If the Federations had Spectres, the solution the Kobayashi Maru would be to send a Spectre in. If the Klingons kill the Spectre, the council isn't going to retaliate. At the same time, if the Spectre saves the people who are in trouble, it's not like the council took military action, and the Klingons can't declare war because of it.  It's a compromise.

It seems like the primary role of the Spectres is as a loophole, a way to take action against criminals who the council races can't officially tangle with for diplomatic reasons. They aren't above the law, not really... rather their actions are largely outside the law, dealing with situations where no law is in place, or doing stuff in systems where there is no offiical unified government, and thus it's unclear whose laws apply.  Space is the wild west - once you understand that, it's easy to see where the Spectres fit.

Modifié par CulturalGeekGirl, 25 mars 2011 - 06:23 .

[CulturalGeekGirl]

Saphra Deden wrote...

CulturalGeekGirl wrote...

It seems like the primary role of the Spectres is as a loophole, a way to take action against criminals who the council races can't officially tangle with for diplomatic reasons. They aren't above the law, not really...

They are above the law, quite plain. That also means the Council is above the law. The Spectres don't exist to keep the galaxy stable, they exist to keep the Council in power by any means necessary. They're enforcers. 

Hmm. I guess you have to define "the law" then. I mean, Air Marshals can carry a loaded weapon on an airplane. This is illegal for everyone else. They aren't above the law, though, they just have a lot of extra power under the law. Similarly, Privateers in pirate times had permits that allowed them to be pirates legally (as long as they didn't attack the ships of their home country), though anyone who wasn't a privateer would be hung for piracy. Privateers weren't above the law, they just operated in a special exception to it. Right now, on Native American land, gambling is allowed even if it is illegal in the state where the resrvation is. Does this mean Native Americans are above the law? No, it just means that there are special rules for them.

Are people who have diplomatic immunity above the law? That is a tricky question, a gray area. I think Spectres generally have LESS immunity from prosecution than diplomats with diplomatic immunity do.

I know that Renagade!Shep can literally say "I'm a Spectre, I'm above the law" to a guy she is interogating, but while that's probalby what it seems like to most common people, I don't think it's technically true. We have been explicitly told that there ARE laws and rules that relate to Spectres. Garrus is investigating Saren in the first game, and Saren would have been arrested and put on trial if Garrus had been able to prove anything. Investigating a Spectre is probably a lot like investigating a deep cover CIA opperative - their special privleges under the law make it very difficult to do so, because a lot of the related documents are classified, but it's not that there are no laws that apply to Spectres. The Spectres are likely goverened by a different set of rules, similar to Air Marshals, Privateers, and people whose activities would be classified as Top Secret. They likely posess a special status that grants them a lot of special privleges under the law, but if they weren't subject to ANY laws, C-Sec (a normal police force) wouldn't have been investigating a Spectre.

Modifié par CulturalGeekGirl, 25 mars 2011 - 11:20 .

[Almostfaceman]

CulturalGeekGirl wrote...

Saphra Deden wrote...

CulturalGeekGirl wrote...

It seems like the primary role of the Spectres is as a loophole, a way to take action against criminals who the council races can't officially tangle with for diplomatic reasons. They aren't above the law, not really...

They are above the law, quite plain. That also means the Council is above the law. The Spectres don't exist to keep the galaxy stable, they exist to keep the Council in power by any means necessary. They're enforcers. 

Hmm. I guess you have to define "the law" then. I mean, Air Marshals can carry a loaded weapon on an airplane. This is illegal for everyone else. They aren't above the law, though, they just have a lot of extra power under the law. Similarly, Privateers in pirate times had permits that allowed them to be pirates legally (as long as they didn't attack the ships of their home country), though anyone who wasn't a privateer would be hung for piracy. Privateers weren't above the law, they just operated in a special exception to it. Right now, on Native American land, gambling is allowed even if it is illegal in the state where the resrvation is. Does this mean Native Americans are above the law? No, it just means that there are special rules for them.

Are people who have diplomatic immunity above the law? That is a tricky question, a gray area. I think Spectres generally have LESS immunity from prosecution than diplomats with diplomatic immunity do.

I know that Renagade!Shep can literally say "I'm a Spectre, I'm above the law" to a guy she is interogating, but while that's probalby what it seems like to most common people, I don't think it's technically true. We have been explicitly told that there ARE laws and rules that relate to Spectres. Garrus is investigating Saren in the first game, and Saren would have been arrested and put on trial if Garrus had been able to prove anything. Investigating a Spectre is probably a lot like investigating a deep cover CIA opperative - their special privleges under the law make it very difficult to do so, because a lot of the related documents are classified, but it's not that there are no laws that apply to Spectres. The Spectres are likely goverened by a different set of rules, similar to Air Marshals, Privateers, and people whose activities would be classified as Top Secret. They likely posess a special status that grants them a lot of special privleges under the law, but if they weren't subject to ANY laws, C-Sec (a normal police force) wouldn't have been investigating a Spectre.

Well said.

[AGogley]

Arokel wrote...

The problem I can see is that the power of the Spectres seems out of proportion to that of the Council. The Council cannot force others to comply with its rulings. If all of the member races decided to ignore their decisions the Council is powerless. The reason that the member heed the will of the Council is because it is in everyone's best interest to do so.

But what about the Spectres? They can go anywhere, do anything, and force cooperation from local police and military. The Council cannot do these things, but the Spectres (their subordinates) can?

The council has huge amounts of power since they regulate trade with other species and at the citadel.  It would be very difficult to operate without recognizing their authority.

[CulturalGeekGirl]

Saphra Deden wrote...

CulturalGeekGirl wrote...

Hmm. I guess you have to define "the law" then.

The law is whatever is necessary to protect the Council's interests. Their entire system from the ground up is set-up in such a way as to keep them in power. For appearances sake and to keep Joe Public feeling happy about the Council they need Spectres. Special Tactics and Recon do the things that the Council would be unyhappy being directly connected too. Obviously some Spectre actions are highly public, but many more are private. If they weren't they wouldn't be classified.

Spectres are protected by the law because legally it can't be applied to them. That is why Garrus was locked out of Saren's files. As far as the Council was concerned C-Sec had no business getting into his business anyway. If you want my opinion the investigation was all for show anyway just to appease the Alliance.

We aren't talking about special rules, we are talking about no rules. Only the Councilors can have a Spectre's status revoked. That can be for any reason. It isn't rule of law, it is rule of power. It is dictatorship.

In that case, any country where it is possible for a leader to pardon someone for their crimes is a dictatorship.

I'm not saying the Spectre system isn't broken - it is. But they were having Garrus, pretty much a normal cop, investigate Saren. It turned out Saren was  really good at stymying investigations by manipulating his top secret classification. I assume there isn't an efficient countermeasure for that because it hasn't really been a problem before, or because they judge the tradeoff to be worth it.

I'm trying to avoid real world, present day analogues here, so I'm going to make up some hypotheticals.

Let's say a cop was investigating a CIA agent. He thinks the CIA agent was responsible for hiring a hit man to kill his wife. The cop requests the CIA agent's phone records... but the CIA agent claims that his phone records contain information that would endanger other CIA operatives. Thus his phone records are classified, the cop is stalled in his tracks, and the law doesn't work properly. That doesn't mean there's no law... it means the system has been exploited. This kind of system is really difficult to manage. If any cop could just get any CIA agent's records, it would be easy for a dirty cop to bring down massively important government operations. So the CIA agents need to have some degree of protection... but how do you prevent abuse? Possibly by having another CIA agent investigate, which is what the Council is doing when they send one Spectre after another.

It seems clear to me that the laws did apply to Saren, he was just manipulating the system so that it was difficult or impossible for normal law enforcement to effectively prosecute him. This is something that happens everywhere all the time, whether it's someone destroying evidence after a tip off from an agent, someone sailing a ship out into international waters to evade prosecution, or someone using a Cayman Islands bank account to launder their money. I'm sure there are real life spies who abuse their status, and I'm equally sure that there are real, legitimate threats to intelligence agents that require their movements and contacts be classified.

Here's an in-world example. Let's say a Spectre finds out that there's a Batarian terrorist planning on destroying a human colony. While investigating, the Spectre meets up with an informant who tells her both the location of the terrorist and that he's getting funding from an important Turian tech concern, who wants to resettle the planet once the colony is destroyed. Here's the problem: your informant is in great danger... his corp may end up hunting him down and killing him if they find out he talked to you. He needs an alibi and an escape route. Fortunately you have an asari biotic with consort training who you trust, but who can't be traced to you. You call her up and tell her to come help escort your informant somewhere safe, and you give your informant a bunch of creds... enough to leave and pay your asari. If his bosses are looking for someone acting suspiciously, this informant will just look like some dude blowing a lot of money on a consort, so his absence won't arouse suspicion until he's been safely relocated.

Now, you go off to stop the terrorist, requesting that all your credit transactions and messages in the past two weeks be classified. If anyone finds those records, they can trace not only your informant, but the asari you secretly work with, and a bunch of other things. If these documents weren't classified, the Turian's corp could just pay someone like Harkin a bunch of credits to start a "routine investigation" on you, and everyone who helped you would be screwed.

The only people chosen to be Spectres are people who the council trusts implicitly, to an almost ridiculous extent, (see: Anderson's disqualification on basically NO GROUNDS). This is their blind side... they default to trusting the Spectre over the non-Spectre in almost every situation. While this is certainly foolish, it's not lawless. If a non-Spectre can actually present convincing evidence against a Spectre, I'm sure that Spectre would be prosecuted - it's just that such a thing is difficult to do when you are working against Saren, who seems to be one of the most powerful and most paranoid Spectres. Since Spectres work independently, this is sort of like having the NSA investigate misconduct by a CIA agent. I would assume that any time accusations start to mount against a Spectre, they do this until they figure out what's going on.

The Spectre system has problems, but it doesn't make them above the law and it doesn't make the council a dictatorship. You can fire a Spectre just like you can burn a spy.