864 réponses à ce sujet

[CulturalGeekGirl]

[quote]Arijharn wrote...

[quote]CulturalGeekGirl wrote...
1. Cerberus has people everywhere in government and the military. I believe that warping or indoctrinating Cerberus risks more than just Cerberus.
[/quote]
Imo, this can't be true do to the distributed nature of Cerberus. It's stated that no Cerberus operative can recognize another if they're from different cells due to the fact that if one cell is arrested, they can't point the finger at others.

I guess then that you're argument could be that it's TIM himself who's the one indoctrinated, but in that sort of argument Shephard could be as well given that our hero has much more regular contact with those devices and that TIM was only exposed once for a very short period of time.

It's also incredibly unlikely that the Command of Cerberus would become indoctrinated since why would the command structure of Cerberus personally visit the Collector Base?[/quote]

Here's a leap you may be unwilling to take: I think it may be possible to export things from the CB that will indoctrinate someone. Like, mail them a piece of "deactivated collector tech for study" and, when they open it, it releases nanospores that build a worm in your brain that works you like a puppet.

Unless you are planning on never letting anyone who visits the CB have any contact with anyone else - not mail anything to them, not send them messages, nothing, then there's a chance that, if not indoctrinated themselves,  people in places of power will be taking advice from indoctrinated people, or at least acting on their intelligence. And if the only people you have on the project are people who've agreed to never leave, never go back to their old jobs, never go on shore leave with their families... then how high quality are these scientists?

I basically don't trust Cerberus not to bring one of their top scientists in for a 24 hour consult and then let him go home.

[quote][quote]CulturalGeekGirl wrote...
3. I believe that we have stuff we can use or do against the Reapers. A lot of base keepers believe we have nothing that will work that we can possibly get ready, the base is our only real hope. This is just a fundamentally different assessment of our tech levels and strategy. We'll see who is right, I guess.
[/quote]

I don't think the base is our only hope, I think it's just prudent to hedge your bets and try to scheme as many factors as possible in order to net the result we need.[/quote][/quote]

I respect this opinion. It's just not what people were arguing on the last few pages - they are arguing that there is literally no other profitable avenue to explore. Which I disagree with.

Once you've acknowledged that there may be something else we can do, it comes back to the central imponderable: "Is the base more likely to help than hurt?" Which is the one area where I don't expect to sway anyone, any longer.

Modifié par CulturalGeekGirl, 17 avril 2011 - 01:19 .

[Dave of Canada]

A Novel explains that they've been studying the Collector Base technology for a while, nobody's been indoctrinated and it was never mentioned that anybody was acting weird. They also started studying indoctrination itself in one of their labs and was going well until Anderson and the Turians involved themselves.

Oh wait, the novels never happened.

[CulturalGeekGirl]

Saphra Deden wrote...

CulturalGeekGirl wrote...

If Mordin were running this thing, I might (might) be able to concede that we can do this safely. But my best scientist spacebro isn't running this shebang, an organization with a history of not taking sufficient precautions and ignoring the bounds of ethics is. So Shepard has no control over how safe it is or how it is used.

Yeah, because Mordin did such a great job with his last big project, right? You know, the one where Maelon was able to run off and nearly start another Krogan Rebellion?

Why you'd care about ethics when faced with total extinction is beyond me. Your brain is just wired wrong.

In my mind, that isn't what's on the line. What's on the line is whether we need to do something awful or not. If it's not definitely necessary, should we do it?

If the only way to prevent extinction is to dump 10 billion humans into goo vats, leaving 1.5 billion alive, do you do it? What if you feel that you have every reason to believe this is the only way to survive, do you do it? 

Let's say you do.

Ok... now what if that wasn't the only way to survive? What if someone lied to you, and told you that it was, but in reality you could have lived without killing those 10 billion humans.

That's the ethical question I'm considering, here. Better to not feed anyone to the goo vats unless we have to, and it's pretty clear to me that we don't have to. You see things differently, thus for you the scenario you are considering is different.

Modifié par CulturalGeekGirl, 17 avril 2011 - 01:32 .

[CulturalGeekGirl]

Dave of Canada wrote...

A Novel explains that they've been studying the Collector Base technology for a while, nobody's been indoctrinated and it was never mentioned that anybody was acting weird. They also started studying indoctrination itself in one of their labs and was going well until Anderson and the Turians involved themselves.

Oh wait, the novels never happened.

I'm not saying they didn't happen. I'm saying Shepard didn't read them and doesn't posess the knowledge therein when making the decision whether or not to blow the base.

 I'm arguing about Shepard's decision to blow the base being rational, not the player's. 

(Also, bear in mind my conclusion is that both are rational given different unconfirmable assumptions, not that blowing the base is smarter. I just feel the need to make that clear again, in case anyone has forgotten and thinks I am arguing that blowing the base is inherently better. I am not.) 

Modifié par CulturalGeekGirl, 17 avril 2011 - 01:32 .

[Dave of Canada]

CulturalGeekGirl wrote...

I'm not saying they didn't happen. I'm saying Shepard didn't read them.

Did your Shepard read the GI article and comic? Because we were arguing about those at the time.

Edit: Also you were saying it didn't happen to you because it was a male soldier Shepard, which was untrue.

Modifié par Dave of Canada, 17 avril 2011 - 01:34 .

[jellobell]

CulturalGeekGirl wrote...

Here's a leap you may be unwilling to take: I think it may be possible to export things from the CB that will indoctrinate someone. Like, mail them a piece of "deactivated collector tech for study" and, when they open it, it releases nanospores that build a worm in your brain that works you like a puppet.

I'm almost positive this has happened before. One of the missions in ME2 has you trying to recover a bit of reaper tech that a bunch of  scavengers have stumbled upon. They all got indoctrinated and killed anyone who got close. It doesn't take a whole ship, apparently, to indoctrinate people, and nobody even knows which bits will try to brainwash you. The whole Collector Ship is an accident waiting to happen.

CulturalGeekGirl wrote...

I'm not saying they didn't happen. I'm saying Shepard didn't read them. 

Unless you believe Shepard read them, and can use what was in them to make decisions. In which case, where do you buy them in game?

In Omega IIRC. My Shepard's got one sitting on her desk right now. 

Modifié par jellobell, 17 avril 2011 - 01:36 .

[CulturalGeekGirl]

Dave of Canada wrote...

CulturalGeekGirl wrote...

I'm not saying they didn't happen. I'm saying Shepard didn't read them.

Did your Shepard read the GI article and comic? Because we were arguing about those at the time.

I take back anything I said about the novels having a certain protagonist or anything like that. Like I said, I don't know anything about them. It was wrong of me to try to assume what they are like, I just wanted ot make it clear that I have not read them and do not think the information in them is available to Shepard in game.

I didn't say that Shepard should have known X because it was in the GI article, or that people should have been considering X when they made that decision in game, six months or a year before the article came out. My premise is this: you can't assume Shepard had access to any information other than that which is presented in game at the time that the decision comes up.

I thought that was the premise of this discussion: how would Shepard have logically reached his conclusion in those 20 seconds? What data did he have available at the time? What guesses could he make. I'm trying to illustrate how both decisions can make sense from the point of view of Shepard at that particular moment in time. Basically, I think it was possible for a rational person to choose to keep the base, and it was possible for a rational person to decide to destroy it, given the information available at the time.

Now, I haven't done anything but read these boards and play the game. My copy of GI isn't here yet. But the entire premise of this thread is that the GI article hints that keeping the base may be bad. So I'm trying to present reasons why both keeping it and destroying it could have seemed like good ideas at the time, and those who chose to keep it weren't necessarily metagaming or being illogical. This is using the GI article as context, not evidence. Does that make sense?

Modifié par CulturalGeekGirl, 17 avril 2011 - 01:47 .

[didymos1120]

Saphra Deden wrote...

Yeah, because Mordin did such a great job with his last big project, right? You know, the one where Maelon was able to run off and nearly start another Krogan Rebellion?

Aside from the whole base thing:

Mordin wasn't in command of that operation and had nothing to do with Maelon being able to access the data after the fact.  He'd been retired for a good long while before that happened, and the operation itself was finished (including the follow-up work after the deployment to make sure it was doing what it was supposed to). The STG was in charge.  Always had been.

[CulturalGeekGirl]

Saphra Deden wrote...

CulturalGeekGirl wrote...

In my mind, that isn't what's on the line.

Well where did you get your confidence from? Mind sharing some with me? Please, tell me, without meta-gaming, how you became so sure you'd vanquish the Reapers

I'm not sure we can vanquish the Reapers, with or without the base. I just don't think the base raises our chances as much as you think it does. I haven't seen any evidence of Collector tech being useful against Reapers. I've seen evidence of asteroids being useful against them. So if I have 80 trillion spacebucks to invest, I'll invest 'em in the asteroids.

Saphra Deden wrote...
I don't see any reason right now to feed people in any large numbers to goo-vats and I don't know why it is that you do.

The goo vats are a metaphor. (I mean yes, they are also literal goo vats. They're both.)

I think using collector tech may lead to us becoming monstrous enough to use the goo vats, somewhere down the line. Maybe it'll be tomorrow, Maybe it'll be a hundred years from now, when we decide to march the entire galaxy into the vats and start up a new fleet of Reapers. Either way, we'll be extinct.

I'd also like to specify once again that I'm not saying I'm sure, I'm not saying my Shepard was sure, and I'm not saying that there is or was one "correct" choice. I just think that Bioware deliberately writes these choices so that they all make sense logically, if you look at them from different perspectives.

Modifié par CulturalGeekGirl, 17 avril 2011 - 02:04 .

[Almostfaceman]

CulturalGeekGirl wrote...

I think using collector tech may lead to us becoming monstrous enough to use the goo vats, somewhere down the line. Maybe it'll be tomorrow, Maybe it'll be a hundred years from now, when we decide to march the entire galaxy into the vats and start up a new fleet of Reapers. Either way, we'll be extinct.

(Again - possibly. Both conclusions are valid.) 

Indeed.

Be careful when you fight the monsters, lest you become one.
When you stare into the abyss the abyss stares back at you.
-Nietzsche

A quote at the beginning of a Baldur's Gate game by the way. 

[CulturalGeekGirl]

Saphra Deden wrote...
Tell me, how much do I think the base raises our chances?

>0%
 
If I've guessed wrong, I apologize.

Modifié par CulturalGeekGirl, 17 avril 2011 - 02:14 .

[Arijharn]

CulturalGeekGirl wrote...
Here's a leap you may be unwilling to take: I think it may be possible to export things from the CB that will indoctrinate someone. Like, mail them a piece of "deactivated collector tech for study" and, when they open it, it releases nanospores that build a worm in your brain that works you like a puppet.

Maybe, I find it unlikely though. Things are kept segregated for a reason. Given the task and the sense of urgency about it, I should imagine that Cerberus would practically give the project director of the CB a blank cheque but with the expression that he treats the base and it's contents very seriously etc,etc.

Not to completely dismiss your fear though, but I can't think of any sort of precedence for that sort of thing, but I can't imagine a single good reason why 'independent' people can't verify things that are entering/leaving a controlled group section.

For example; The Collector Base as it is stands as usual, but there's a collection of spacecraft near it that have been converted into some sort of scientific staging ground. The crew depends on shuttles on moving to and fro the base, and things like scientific equipment and food is shuttled to the hodge-podge spacecraft 'space station.' Where able, things are studied on the spacecraft composite, in vacuum conditions (because Indoctrination is primarily though infrasonics etc). Command and control imports are purposely kept separate to regular staff. In this case for example, the Project Director will not be either security or scientific staff (although may have backgrounds in it) and will basically fulfill only the administration type roll. Camera's and psychologists will be regularly used, and enforced periods of activity and rest imposed independent from their studies. The idea is to rotate staff through the project and controlling it as extensively as possible, yet also maintaining operational secrecy. You couldn't afford on letting the Terminus Systems get wind of the fact that the CB exists which may invite piracy of all things.

What sort of things would be 'allowed' to leave? If the Project Director (which hell, could be a VI agent or even an AI) is the one with the power but is independent from the scientific method, then there is no good excuse that a potential Indoctrinated can give the artifact to the director and say: "here have a look" because they're kept purposely apart. 

CulturalGeekGirl wrote...
Unless you are planning on never letting anyone who visits the CB have any contact with anyone else - not mail anything to them, not send them messages, nothing, then there's a chance that, if not indoctrinated themselves,  people in places of power will be taking advice from indoctrinated people, or at least acting on their intelligence. And if the only people you have on the project are people who've agreed to never leave, never go back to their old jobs, never go on shore leave with their families... then how high quality are these scientists?

Yes I would plan something close to that. Basic 'operating procedure' really for a black ops organisation really. I'd make sure they'd have a high level of comfort for their temporary new home (and how 'temporary' it would be would  depend on necessity) but no they wouldn't have free access to the real world, because allowing that would be kinda counter-intuitive would it not?

I find it pretty unlikely that a regular Cerberus operative would have free access to 'important' people anyway.

[Arijharn]

Almostfaceman wrote...

Be careful when you fight the monsters, lest you become one.
When you stare into the abyss the abyss stares back at you.
-Nietzsche

A quote at the beginning of a Baldur's Gate game by the way. 

Nietzsche also wasn't in the unfortunate position of not just defending their own species, but galactic civilisation from complete and utter extermination.

Let me leave you with an even better quote:
"Game over man, game over!" -- From that Corporal guy in Aliens.

[didymos1120]

Nyoka wrote...
 So I say there's nothing valuable in it. If anything, we might learn how to make a reaper. But we don't want to make reapers, we want to kill reapers.

OK, I'm actually not a "Keep the base" person myself, but you really don't see how having knowledge of how Reapers are put together would be useful to people wanting to break them?  An anatomy textbook may not be a cadaver, but it can still teach you a hell of a lot.

Modifié par didymos1120, 17 avril 2011 - 03:16 .

[lovgreno]

Saphra Deden wrote...

What are the alternatives? The Collector base gives you something very tangible to explore and study. It is a Reaper construction factory. Every secret you might have ever wanted to know about the Reapers is in there. There is absolutely no good reason to blow it up without studying it, most especially when the study of Reaper tech in the past has been so valuable and crucial.

You really don't have a logical leg to stand on, GeekGirl, nor do the rest of you base destroyers.

No, you don't know if there is actualy anything at all in there that can be usefull in the coming conflict. The study of reaper tech has usualy not given anything at all except indoctrination in the past. Yes, the study of reaper tech have the potential of being usefull. It also have the potential of making everything fubar. Your opinion is that the gains are probably bigger than the risks. Your opinion may be right, but that remains to be seen.

So what you have is not logic but a opinion. And as much you want your opinion to be the truth in the ME3 story that still doesn't influence what the writer decides to be the logical way to finish the story. The opinion of the writers are all that realy matters in this case.

Also GeekGirl has never said that she is pro destroying the base and neither has most of us that gives you arguments for base blowing here on these forums. What we are saying is that there are reasons for both keeping and destroying it and that both decisions may just as well doom us all. Untill we know how it ends this is not a black and white matter.

Frankly the base keepers often seem rather desperate to be a hundred percent right all the time. This seems rather strange to me as ME is not a black VS white story with easy truths and sollutions to problems. In fact one of the main themes of this story is that choices are never easy.

[Almostfaceman]

lovgreno wrote...

In fact one of the main themes of this story is that choices are never easy.

I agree, and now in ME3 we get to see what helps us and what bites us in the arse.

[Ieldra]

lovgreno wrote...
Frankly the base keepers often seem rather desperate to be a hundred percent right all the time. This seems rather strange to me as ME is not a black VS white story with easy truths and sollutions to problems. In fact one of the main themes of this story is that choices are never easy.

And the base destroyers often seem so desperate to prove their point that they pull extremely unlikely random events out of the hat to counter the weight of the pro-base keeping arguments.

No, we are NOT 100% sure. Were I 100% certain, I'd make a mathematical proof and call everyone an idiot who ignored that 1+1=2. I - and others who keep the base - argue that the weight of the arguments presented is so much heavier on the side of keeping the base that destroying it appears to be an irrational decision. 

As I have explained in my risk calculation on earlier threads about this topic, the only contingency that deserves serious consideration is the possibility that keeping the base may somehow help the Reapers to win, when destroying it would not have. Nothing else has enough weight to counter the argument "the base may help save us from total extincion". So our arguments are now centered on the probability of that happening.

What we are also saying is that the risks of studying the base depend less on the properties of the technology itself - as I said in a previous post, Reaper tech is no evil mojo that can't be defended against - but on the competence of the research team. The only reason the pro-destruction argument has weight at all is that Cerberus is presented as farcically incompetent at times. That all people in contact with certain elements of Reaper tech (which apparently don't include the things that went into EDI or the Thanix) have been indoctrinated is believable as long as they didn't know what they were dealing with. But Dr. Chandana was an idiot to set up camp in a derelict reaper and let his people run around in it without protection. That TIM's people are going to be that careless again is something I cannot imagine. Not without making his whole organisation a farce.

Modifié par Ieldra2, 17 avril 2011 - 07:25 .

[omgmahbrain]

Nietzsche also wasn't in the unfortunate position of not just defending their own species, but galactic civilisation from complete and utter extermination.

What's ironic is that Nietzsche was a moral nihilist. For some reason I don't think a lot of Paragons would be comfortable with that.

The study of reaper tech has usualy not given anything at all except indoctrination in the past.

That's a fairly gross misrepresentation of the study of Reaper tech. Study of Reaper tech has provided vital weapons and information in our war against the Reapers: EDI, the Thanix Cannon, Reaper IFF, Object Rho (if it was never studied it'd be game over right now), and it's pretty obvious that post-resurrection Shepard is part Reaper tech.