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[feliciano2040]

Ieldra2 wrote...

But an ugly two-eyed alien (Garrus) is OK? Then consider the Prothean, who might look like anything between that Cthulhu-esque tentacle head in Donovan Hock's vault and a Collector? No, ugliness is not a sufficient reason to not have a batarian team member.

Yeah sure, but you gotta put up with those guys ! No matter what you do.

It's different with a DLC squad-member, he has to be able to catch your attention because he is adittional content you may or may not want to buy. Consider Zaeed and Kasumi, the first is the prototype "badass mercenary with a big scar and lots of guns", while the second one is "sleek, humorous, stealthy pseudo-anime girl", those two are way more sellable than an ugly slaver with four eyes  !

Ieldra2 wrote...

Hmm...I wonder what Miranda thinks of batarians. I very much doubt she'd condemn them collectively as a species, even while thinking "distrust unless proven otherwise" is a reasonable attitude based on experience.

I have no qualms about giving Miranda a hard time, but I agree, I don't think she would be quick enough to judge anyone on her racial traits ! She complains about xenophobes joining Cerberus, and she even praises the asari for what they've done with Illium.

I find it ironic that she, the CERBERUS OPERATIVE, is less of a racist than Ashley !

[CrutchCricket]

Batarians remind me of Doom 3 imps. That was my first thought when I first saw them: why are there Doom imps on Omega?

[Ieldra]

DRACO1130 wrote...
Things we Know that are not as yet listed

Miranda is Sterile because of her genetic mods and has made at least some effort to reverse this.

(1) We do not know whether the benign tumor that caused her infertility is genetic in origin.
(2) If you have come across efforts she made to reverse this, I would very much like to see the evidence. 

[feliciano2040]

CrutchCricket wrote...

Batarians remind me of Doom 3 imps. That was my first thought when I first saw them: why are there Doom imps on Omega?

Shouldn't it had been: "why are Doom Imps trying to launch an asteroid into a human colony  ?"

[Ieldra]

feliciano2040 wrote...
I have no qualms about giving Miranda a hard time, but I agree, I don't think she would be quick enough to judge anyone on her racial traits ! She complains about xenophobes joining Cerberus, and she even praises the asari for what they've done with Illium.

I find it ironic that she, the CERBERUS OPERATIVE, is less of a racist than Ashley !

Ashley isn't either. The confusion comes because the species in the ME universe are unified nations. Ashley is somewhat nationalist. Whether being suspicious of letting foreign nationals on humanity's most advanced warship qualifies her as an acceptable target for criticism I'll leave her thread to discuss.

I think you might be getting somewhere saying that Ashley is less culturally open-minded than Miranda. While not actively hostile to non-human cultures, I don't see her praising asari achievements any time soon. Miranda's more ready to take the useful from non-human cultures and integrate it into human society.

Which brings me to an interesting question: if you work for human advancement like Miranda, what exactly *is* "human"? What defines humanity, as opposed to some other species? This is a problem because anything that doesn't refer back to biology also applies to some non-human species, while on the other hand, if you go and define humanity by genetic traits you might be justified in rejecting certain kinds of genetic modification because they make you "non-human". If you and identify a human as an individual who can trace his genetic ancestry to Earth (let's keep the spectre of uplifted species out for now) you're on the way to difficulties with Miranda and her partly-artificial genome. Species identity is a thorny problem in a universe where so many species are psychologically indistinguisable from humans.    

[feliciano2040]

Ieldra2 wrote...

Ashley isn't either. The confusion comes because the species in the ME universe are unified nations. Ashley is somewhat nationalist. Whether being suspicious of letting foreign nationals on humanity's most advanced warship qualifies her as an acceptable target for criticism I'll leave her thread to discuss.

I can........sort of agree, the "I can't tell the aliens from the animals" line always freaks me out 

I just think that Ashley is subtle about it, maybe "reserved" would be a better word.

Even though, quite frankly, when the name "Ashley Williams" comes to my mind, I can only think of the word "inmaturity". 

Ieldra2 wrote...

Which brings me to an interesting question: if you work for human advancement like Miranda, what exactly *is* "human"? What defines humanity, as opposed to some other species? This is a problem because anything that doesn't refer back to biology also applies to some non-human species, while on the other hand, if you go and define humanity by genetic traits you might be justified in rejecting certain kinds of genetic modification because they make you "non-human". If you and identify a human as an individual who can trace his genetic ancestry to Earth (let's keep the spectre of uplifted species out for now) you're on the way to difficulties with Miranda and her partly-artificial genome. Species identity is a thorny problem in a universe where so many species are psychologically indistinguisable from humans.

I think it's more simple than that, she fights for humanity simply because she found meaning and purpose in working for Cerberus, I don't see Miranda as someone who would rationalize or dig too deep into the intellectual reasons of her cause, it's just a reason she found worthy of fighting for after her sister was guaranteed to be safe.

Even the analogies she makes, of Cerberus as the Asari Commandos or the STG, she just sees herself as working for an agency that is willing to whatever is necessary, which is precisely what she did to protect her life as well as her sister's, in short words, it's more about the semantics rather than the pre-conceptions.

I bet that, if asked directly, if she thinks humanity is superior to every other species, she would say: "Hell no, why would I think that ? I live in a frikkin' asari colony for crying out loud".

Modifié par feliciano2040, 13 décembre 2011 - 03:15 .

[jtav]

I don't think there's anything inhuman about Miranda's traits. She ages more slowly. but beyond that she's "merely" in the 99th percentile of what can already be found within humans. If I could whip up a kid as smart as Stephen Hawking who looked like a supermodel, the kid wouldn't be less human. If she had salarian or drell memory or asari meld abilities, I'd start wondering if she's a chimera. She doesn't, and is clearly sexually compatible with humans.

So genes works for me.

[flemm]

Ieldra2 wrote...
Which brings me to an interesting question: if you work for human advancement like Miranda, what exactly *is* "human"?

This is largely why I'm not too hung up on "human advancement" per se being Miranda's goal. She's not xenophobic, she has no problem admiring the achievements of other cultures, I could easily see her working for the advancement of galactic civilisation as a whole, at least in a scenario where she felt she could legitimately do that without compromising humanity's interests. 
 

Ieldra2 wrote...
Species identity is a thorny problem in a universe where so many species are psychologically indistinguisable from humans.    

Well, it's a problem in all sci-fi fantasy. All the races are too similar to humans. In Star Trek at one point there was an episode where it was revealed that all the races had a common ancestor, as a way of "explaining" the similarities. But it's probably better to just recognize it as a practical necessity in order for stories in this type of universe to function. All the races are some sort of caricature of humans, or stylized humans, or "humans with a twist" or whatever.

You can also do some other things, of course, on the fringes, or in small doses, but the smart aliens, the warlike aliens, the conniving aliens, the all-female aliens, etc.... these are always going to crop up.

Modifié par flemm, 13 décembre 2011 - 03:22 .

[Ieldra]

jtav wrote...
I don't think there's anything inhuman about Miranda's traits. She ages more slowly. but beyond that she's "merely" in the 99th percentile of what can already be found within humans. If I could whip up a kid as smart as Stephen Hawking who looked like a supermodel, the kid wouldn't be less human. If she had salarian or drell memory or asari meld abilities, I'd start wondering if she's a chimera. She doesn't, and is clearly sexually compatible with humans.

Neither do I think there's anything inhuman about Miranda's traits. It's more about the potential - for instance, would a human genetically engineered to be a natural biotic still count as human, even if she's sexually compatible with normal humans? If that natural biotic would, what would make her human? You can take sexual compatibility as a measuring yard, then go and make genetic adapations to marginal environments in order to open more worlds to colonization, and within a few centuries it's possible the descendants aren't sexually compatible with humans any more. 

I think that Cerberus would support these kinds of genetic enhancements. Which makes species identity a potential problem.

[feliciano2040]

flemm wrote...

Well, it's a problem in all sci-fi fantasy. All the races are too similar to humans. In Star Trek at one point there was an episode where it was revealed that all the races had a common ancestor, as a way of "explaining" the similarities. But it's probably just better to just recognize it as a practical necessity for stories in this type of universe to function. All the races are some sort of caricature of humans, or stylized humans, or "humans with a twist" or whatever.

Well, all Science-Fiction is, as well as "Tolkkienish" fantasy, a way of commenting on humans.

But I've never found it too crazy that other species in fiction behave "like humans", maybe the important thing to point out is how they are sentient, instead of how similar they are to us, I think it's pretty agreeable that all living beings share similarities in how emotional they are, how violent, reasonable, lovable, intellectual they all are, I know I haven't met anything other than a human in my life, but I wouldn't go out of my way and say those characteristics are exclusive to humans only.

Modifié par feliciano2040, 13 décembre 2011 - 03:24 .

[jtav]

Biotics is a gray area, but I think it still counts. I'd use sexual compatibility as a rule of thumb. Over time, different subspecies will likely be created. They'd be human in the sense humans are primates.

[flemm]

Point of information: do we know if Miranda's biotics are implants or genetic? I can't recall this being referenced specifically in-game.

[feliciano2040]

flemm wrote...

Point of information: do we know if Miranda's biotics are implants or genetic? I can't recall this being referenced specifically in-game.

Implants are a given, all humans need implants to create decent biotics.

As to how she got them in the first place ? Maybe eezo exposure while in the incubator.

[jtav]

I am really glad you asked that flemm. The source of her botics is never mentioned, but she would have been seven or eight when the eezo link was discovered. It's probably a timeline screwup, but there exists the possibility to be perfectly canon-compliant. There's a krogan procedure that can create biotics by implanting nodules. If Mr. Lawson adapted that, 35-yr-old artificially grown Miranda could be a biotic. It's my pet fanon and the basis of Portrait.

[flemm]

feliciano2040 wrote...
Well, all Science-Fiction is, as well as "Tolkkienish" fantasy, a way of commenting on humans.

Agreed. As long as we understand it as a story-telling device, it's not a problem. If we start to look at it from a more practical point of view, it becomes problematic, but that's true of countless things in a fictional universe like ME.

You can make a "parellel evolution" case for certain things. For example, I believe "eyes" in various forms have evolved more than once on earth (independently). So, we can imagine that aliens would have eyes in some form because being sensitive to ambiant radiation is so useful and beneficial. I'm also willing to believe that intelligence itself is such a "good trick" that natural selection might eventually produce it in a lot of different situations. For psychological stuff, it's much harder to say.

I'm pretty confident you wouldn't get anything even remotely as familiar looking and acting as, say, the Asari or the Krogan, but I guess there might be some broad similarities. Sentience, "eyes" in some form, and "hands" in some form, i.e. something that allows the environment to be manipulated.

jtav wrote...

I am really glad you asked that flemm. The source of her botics is never mentioned, but she would have been seven or eight when the eezo link was discovered. It's probably a timeline screwup, but there exists the possibility to be perfectly canon-compliant. There's a krogan procedure that can create biotics by implanting nodules. If Mr. Lawson adapted that, 35-yr-old artificially grown Miranda could be a biotic. It's my pet fanon and the basis of Portrait.

It seems likely that Mr. Lawson would be on the cutting edge in this area, but I don't know the lore well enough to say what that would mean exactly

Modifié par flemm, 13 décembre 2011 - 04:13 .

[feliciano2040]

flemm wrote...

I'm pretty confident you wouldn't get anything even remotely as familiar looking and acting as, say, the Asari or the Krogan, but I guess there might be some broad similarities. Sentience, "eyes" in some form, and "hands" in some form, i.e. something that allows the environment to be manipulated.

Pretty much, even still, you have to admire Bioware for trying to break the mold in terms of the behavior of some of it's aliens, take for instance the hanar or the rachni, the first communicate by bio-luminescence for crying out loud, call me naive but I actually thought Hanar talked, unless that was retconned. As for the rachni, who would've ever thought creepy, stereotypical alien bugs that shoot acid, would comunicate by melody and musical patterns ?! Astonishing in my opinion.

jtav wrote...

It seems likely that Mr. Lawson would be on the cutting edge in this area, but I don't know the lore well enough to say what that would mean exactly

Whatever Jtav was suggesting as the possible explanation (which I had no idea of) seems very valid to me, something that could perfectly be in the range in someone as rich as Mr. Lawson apparently is.

Even then, can you imagine that conversation ?

Shepard: So love, how did you got your biotics ?

Miranda: Krogan science.

Shepard:......................wut ?

[CrutchCricket]

Oh boy. This is a discussion I've had several times over the years and it never gets old. Unfortunately I don't have the time right now to get into it as much as I'd like. In a nutshell though, we can only imagine alien life based on what we see on Earth and sentient life based on the only species we know- us. Therefore every alien conceived of will necessarily be analogous to some Earth life-form physically and to humans in terms of behavior.

Modifié par CrutchCricket, 13 décembre 2011 - 04:35 .

[jtav]

Well, humanity had to be told by the Citadel races about the eezo link. Even then, it's still a crap shoot. You could get biotics, nothing, or cancer. So, I can't see him exposing her before the link was known. It has the added benefit of giving a concrete example of his disregard for her life.

[Ieldra]

flemm wrote...
Point of information: do we know if Miranda's biotics are implants or genetic? I can't recall this being referenced specifically in-game.

There are two common kinds of biotics:
(1) Natural biotics like the asari
(2) Accidental biotics like human biotics

Miranda can be neither, since
(a) She was born in 2150 and 2151 was the first eezo accident. Also the effects of eezo exposure were unknown then, so had it been an accidental exposure earlier than the known incident, Mr: Lawson would have discarded her.
( She cannot have been engineered for biotics because biotic were unknown when she was born.

Which brings me to the third, less common kind:

(3) Artificial biotics got their biotics through implantation of those eezo nodules which usually coalesce naturally on exposure or grow naturally in natural biotics.

Formerly restricted to the krogan, Miranda may have survived this procedure because of her enhanced healing abilities.

Any other theory presupposes that the effects of eezo exposure were known by someone back in 2149, which goes against the established timeline.

[Ieldra]

jtav wrote...
Biotics is a gray area, but I think it still counts. I'd use sexual compatibility as a rule of thumb. Over time, different subspecies will likely be created. They'd be human in the sense humans are primates.

I agree that's a good rule of thumb. Though...*cough*...if you take the ME universe at face value, that would make asari human. *runs away*

[Ieldra]

On the subject of parallel evolution:

It is possible that the evolution of the morphology of hypersocial species an Earthlike worlds has an attractor. Which means, morphology tends to gravitate to certain patterns, such as walking upright, limbs and sensory organs come in pairs, Sensory organs are located far up and near the brain, etc.. i.e. a general humanoid shape. I think it's unlikely, but as long as we have only one world as a sample it remains a possibility.

Anything more than similarities in general morphology, however, is astronomically implausible. Sexual attraction triggers in particular would be highly species-specific, since they become such triggers only by the co-evolution of the males and females of a species.

Modifié par Ieldra2, 13 décembre 2011 - 05:08 .

[MisterJB]

Ieldra2 wrote...
Al-Jilani: Commander Shepard, do you have time for another interview?
Miranda (to Shepard): Is this the one?
Shepard (to Miranda): Yes.

I can't imagine Miranda wouldn't have watched the 2183 interview.

[jtav]

I agree it's ridiculous, but I don't care that much about overly-human aliens. Especially since my poor fShep would be celibate otherwise.

[Ieldra]

jtav wrote...
I agree it's ridiculous, but I don't care that much about overly-human aliens. Especially since my poor fShep would be celibate otherwise.

No Kaidan for your femShep? I thought there was something.....

[flemm]

Ieldra2 wrote...
There are two common kinds of biotics:
(1) Natural biotics like the asari
(2) Accidental biotics like human biotics

Miranda can be neither, since
(a) She was born in 2150 and 2151 was the first eezo accident. Also the effects of eezo exposure were unknown then, so had it been an accidental exposure earlier than the known incident, Mr: Lawson would have discarded her.
( She cannot have been engineered for biotics because biotic were unknown when she was born.

Which brings me to the third, less common kind:

(3) Artificial biotics got their biotics through implantation of those eezo nodules which usually coalesce naturally on exposure or grow naturally in natural biotics.

Formerly restricted to the krogan, Miranda may have survived this procedure because of her enhanced healing abilities.

Any other theory presupposes that the effects of eezo exposure were known by someone back in 2149, which goes against the established timeline.

Well, sounds like a timeline hiccup, basically, but I do like the explanation you're providing.