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[ShadyKat]

Whatever666343431431654324 wrote...

Macgarnickle wrote...

I think my big problem is the time frame. It's seems like we've spread out everywhere with relatively large colonies in a very short period of time. I thought it would have been more realistic if ME had been set at least a century or so after the 1st Contact War.

Our colonies are pretty tiny. Compare something like Eden Prime to Illium.

Lore wise, you are right. But game wise, it appears that humans are every damn where in the galaxy. Humans seem to outnumber all of the other races as well, which I don't get. Go to the Citadel, and humans outnumber the other races like 3 to 1. For a race that has been on the galactic stage for around 40 years, humans should not be as wide spread as Asari and Turains, who have been around for thousands of years longer.

[Epic777]

Never understood that humans are "special" in ME. Especially when the "special " implies being turned into reaper paste by mecha cthulhu. Like receiving a dress as a gift from your aunt who forgets her younger sister has a boy.

[Ahriman]

Arcian wrote...
I tried to phrase that a little humorously and tongue-in-cheek. I never meant they had actual good intentions with it, just that they want humanity to think that they do so that they (humanity) will be easier to deal with.

But it's not normal. Politics should be smiling in humanity's face and set exorbitant trade dues and stringent fleet limitations in same time.

Modifié par Wizz, 03 avril 2011 - 06:41 .

[Inutaisho7996]

QwertyQwerty wrote...

Volus deserve to be in the Citadel Council more then humans, they run the Galaxies Bank's and Stock Exchange.

They're also a client race of the turians. The volus would just do what ever's in the best interest of the turians because it's in the best interest of the volus too; effectivly putting a second turian on the council.

[Randy1012]

I agree with the OP. Even though Mass Effect is a work of fiction, even fiction should have at least somewhat of an air of plausibility (within reason). Less than fifty years after just discovering mass effect technology, approximately 100 million humans have spread out across the galaxy, the Systems Alliance has become one of the dominant military powers (even though the numbers we've seen contradict that), and humanity has become a member of the Citadel Council.

That's not optimistic, that's absurd.

The First Contact War should have happened at least fifty years after humans discovered the Prothean data cache on Mars. It should have taken years just to translate the Prothean language, barring the convenient existence of some sort of Prothean Rosetta Stone. Then it should have taken a few more years for humanity to discover the Charon Relay and begin spreading out into the Local Cluster. Realistically, there probably should have been some kind of war between the various nation-states, leading into the formation of the Systems Alliance.

So, after all that, say a turian patrol encounters a human vessel attempting to access Relay 314. This happens in 2157 in the canon timeline, less than ten years after the Prothean data cache was discovered. Push this event back fifty years to 2198 or so, and the Alliance being able to put up a fight against the turians becomes at least somewhat plausible.

After that, there probably should have been another long gap in time to give the Alliance time to expand throughout the galaxy and have humanity establish itself in the galactic community. Just for the heck of it, let's put it at eighty-five years, putting the events of ME1 in 2283 instead of 2183. So then humanity would end up becoming a major economic and military power in almost a century, rather than in less than fifty years. It's still a little fast, but not to the point of absurdity.

[jamesp81]

Because the plot device I call "The Plucky Humans" is a very entertaining one.

It's fun that ~95% or so of the human population is still on Earth and most of our colonies are tiny compared to the other race's worlds, yet we are managing to bat well above our league. I always liked an underdog.

[aimlessgun]

AshiraShepard wrote...

So Bioware I herd u liek "Humans are Speshul!"



*ahem* Getting to the point in ME when this is reaching patently ludicrious levels. Roughly 40 (or so?) years since first joining the galactic community and Humans have become part of the citadel council when other races had to wait way longer just to have an embassy? Much more diverse genetics than all the species out there?

This shouldn't happen, the first point because not only is 40 years like blinking to Asari but how could any Humans have possibly learned all there is to know about the galaxy to the point were they can join the over-arching government power? Who's decisions have an impact on trillions of lives. The galaxy is massive, and they just handed over the tools of how it works over to what is essentially a toddler.

In ME humans just seem to have exploded over the galaxy in such a painfully short time. If the First Contact War had been a over a hundred years ago then it would be a little less like pulling a grenade out of crisp bag; where the hell did that come from?

The second point is just absurd, because obviously any species that ends up evolving into an intelligent people who achieve space flight and spread across the stars have the genetic diversity of cave moss. Unless you're a human; then you're goddamn amazing.

This is the "planet of hats" effect at work, where there's only a few (say two or three), most of the time just one, defining traits that you can apply to an entire species. And they leave it at that, without taking into account how diverse another intelligent, space faring people would be - just like us. They would have their own plethora of languages, their own myriad of cultures, mythology, their own different styles of food and clothing. They'd have various art forms, dance and stories. They'd have more than one religion, even if the other one is a cult. Hell we're still bickering with each other over religion.

So to boil down my frustration with the humans are SPESHUL trend - why exactly can writers not take the time to get creative with other species? Why aren't humans given the same treatment if you're just going to be lazy with the other species?

What would you do to make other species more diverse instead of just being a planet of hats?

I think Bioware actually did a pretty good job of avoiding the planet of hats thing. Almost every single alien character you get to speak to is unique and memorable. They did a great job of balancing shared characteristics with individual personality.

As for humans being around 40 years, yeah, it's pretty goddamn stupid. Don't remind me. I'm keeping up the fiction in my head that humans have been around for at least 200 years. Had to retcon some stuff, but it was worth it.

Modifié par aimlessgun, 03 avril 2011 - 09:03 .

[jamesp81]

Dragon XIX wrote...

leonia42 wrote...

I'm still trying to figure out how the humans managed to take the turians by surprise in the FCW and were basically winning before the Council stepped in.

The entry didn't say that the humans were winning, just that they pushed the Turians from Shanxi.

leonia42 wrote...

Their first encounter with a sentient race that had far superior techonology to their own and they somehow are able to overpower them? What is this, I don't even..

Who said that the Turians had superior tech?  The Reapers want everyone to be at the same level, so I think it's safe to say that the Humans had similar weapons at the time.

Also, I believe that they overpowered the Turians with numbers... mostly.

Every race in the game derives it's basic tech from the artifacts left by the Reapers.  The sophistication of a race's technology has more to do with build quality and how much they have managed to refine existing technologies.

As of the FCW, Humans and Turians both possessed pretty much the same technologies.  Turian tech was probably slightly better since they'd had more time to work with it, but by no stretch were Turian weapons a huge leap over human ones.

Mass Effect 2 confirms this if you read the description of the various firearms you use.  The Claymore is among the most powerful shotguns in existence.  Though it's intended to be used by Krogan, it is of human design.  The Viper SR, Mattock rifle, Eviscerator shotgun, Katana shotgun, Scimitar shotgun, and Phalanx pistol are all human weapons.

I know some people want humans to be the pipsqueaks of the galaxy, but that really does not appeal to many people.  fortunately, the writers at bioware know this.

[jamesp81]

Devbo22 wrote...

Whatever666343431431654324 wrote...

Macgarnickle wrote...

I think my big problem is the time frame. It's seems like we've spread out everywhere with relatively large colonies in a very short period of time. I thought it would have been more realistic if ME had been set at least a century or so after the 1st Contact War.

Our colonies are pretty tiny. Compare something like Eden Prime to Illium.

Exactly.  We haven't seen any thriving human worlds, they've all been small "makeshift" if you will, colonies.

The only economic powerhouse world all of humanity has besides Earth is Bekenstein.  That's it.  Everything else is a colony in development.  Which is fine, I kind of like the atmosphere it paints.

[jamesp81]

Clonedzero wrote...

Whatever666343431431654324 wrote...

Macgarnickle wrote...

I think my big problem is the time frame. It's seems like we've spread out everywhere with relatively large colonies in a very short period of time. I thought it would have been more realistic if ME had been set at least a century or so after the 1st Contact War.

Our colonies are pretty tiny. Compare something like Eden Prime to Illium.

yeah, read the descriptions on some planets. some might surprise you.

the giant shipgraveyard you recruit grunt at has a population of 3.8 BILLION people. and the entire planet is basically a massive shipgraveyard.

And very few of them are human.  Mostly Turians and Batarians.  It's NOT a human world.  The fact that it was colonized in 1781 kind of gives that away.

[jamesp81]

Macgarnickle wrote...

Whatever666343431431654324 wrote...

Macgarnickle wrote...

I think my big problem is the time frame. It's seems like we've spread out everywhere with relatively large colonies in a very short period of time. I thought it would have been more realistic if ME had been set at least a century or so after the 1st Contact War.

Our colonies are pretty tiny. Compare something like Eden Prime to Illium.

I understand that but I still think they're bigger than they should be given the time that has past, not only the size but number of them and how established some them seem.  Like Bekenstein it was colonized in 2158 ME2 takes place in 2183 this is 25 years and Bekenstein is considered a first wave planet according to it's entry.  It has about 5 million people not just that but it's apparently a well established human trade and manufacturing world.

It's not just the colonies it's all sorts of little things that to me made it seem like too much had happened in too short a period of time.  Other people may have different opinions that's fine I simply feel the game would have been more realistic set further after first contact it's not game breaking or anything just a little thing that always kind of bugged me.

One generation is plenty of time to build a large manufacturing base.  The population is in line for a 25 to 30 year old colony, IMO.  Most of the residents probably immigrated from Earth anyway.

[jamesp81]

GodWood wrote...

I thought it was dissapointing in ME1 when all the human manufacturers were on par and even superior compared to the alien manufacturers but ME2 really took 'hoomans r speshul' to an extreme.

The very best weapons and armor were Armax Arsenal in ME1, which was a Turian company.

[jamesp81]

Arcian wrote...

Wizz wrote...

Arcian wrote...
I tried to phrase that a little humorously and tongue-in-cheek. I never meant they had actual good intentions with it, just that they want humanity to think that they do so that they (humanity) will be easier to deal with.

But it's not normal. Politics should be smiling in humanity's face and set exorbitant trade dues and stringent fleet limitations in same time.

That's what I mean. Isn't that exactly what they've done pretty much since the start?

That's at least the impression I got.

The Alliance is party to a treaty they had to sign to be admitted to the citadel that lets the Turians have 5 dreadnoughts for every human dreadnought.  That's pretty damned stringent.

[jamesp81]

Saphra Deden wrote...

Arcian wrote...

Wow, that didn't contribute one bit to the discussion.

Remind me why you are here again?

Why don't you ask yourself that question?

On the contrary however, my post was perfectly relevant to the discussion. I was pointing out that fundamentally the Mass Effect universe is not a realistic one. So we shouldn't be surprised that humans are able to live out their fantasies in it.

You know, if the game's background story seems ridiculous to you, I'm sure there are other games you could play.

[jamesp81]

Saphra Deden wrote...

jamesp81 wrote...

The very best weapons and armor were Armax Arsenal in ME1, which was a Turian company.

Kassa Fabrication can claim to be the best too and they are human.

Ariake Technologies produces some good Omni-tools as well. They aren't as good as the asari, but close.

The Asari made omni-tools were way better than anyone else's.

[Corwyn]

aimlessgun wrote...


I think Bioware actually did a pretty good job of avoiding the planet of hats thing. Almost every single alien character you get to speak to is unique and memorable. They did a great job of balancing shared characteristics with individual personality.

As for humans being around 40 years, yeah, it's pretty goddamn stupid. Don't remind me. I'm keeping up the fiction in my head that humans have been around for at least 200 years. Had to retcon some stuff, but it was worth it.

The time frame bothers me but in the grand scheme of the game it's a little thing that I can kind of ignore.  What really gets to me is the fact that learn from Moridin that humans have more diversity of charactertics then the other races.  Don't get me wrong they present the aliens that form your party as individuals very well but it still bothered me that in two we learn that humanity is genetically special.

This has always kind of been a role playing staple going back to table top games were elves for example make the best wizards and not so great warriors, but humans can be anything they just don't get any bonuses.  In ME1 this didn't really bother me but 2 seems to be going a lot further with the whole humans are different.  Moridin says humans have a lot more outliers than the other races (you see some Krogan scientist but most are fighters) that coupled with the fact that the reapers seem to be after humans in particular because of our special genes just came off as unbelievable to me.