69153 réponses à ce sujet

[Vazgen]

Tali doing what she does best

[Quarian Master Race]

Double edit: Another thing, completely unrelated to the mod, came to mind just this moment: I'm curious how satisfied you Tali fans are with the content the Citadel DLC delivered?

I liked it. Her friend activity is hilarious, especially if you tease her about Fleet and Flotilla, as is her behavior and interactions in both parties. Some fantastic lines too. I particularly like the "do you remember when you used to rescue me in the wards?" that you get if she is your preferred squaddie/ LI.  . Nevermind getting to pair her up with Wrex for the combat sections and thus re-live my favourite ME1 squad's (complete with their adorable bantering dynamic) glory days. Overall I thought that the DLC helped to make up for some of her more OOC moments and relative (to some other squadmates) lack of content in the main game, so it was a nice addition.

[Stronglav]

So how can you love someone if you never seen even her face?

[Vazgen]

So how can you love someone if you never seen even her face?

Interesting question. You do know that Shepard has seen her face, don't you?

[Damdil]

I liked it. Her friend activity is hilarious, especially if you tease her about Fleet and Flotilla, as is her behavior and interactions in both parties. Some fantastic lines too. I particularly like the "do you remember when you used to rescue me in the wards?" that you get if she is your preferred squaddie/ LI.  . Nevermind getting to pair her up with Wrex for the combat sections and thus re-live my favourite ME1 squad's (complete with their adorable bantering dynamic) glory days. Overall I thought that the DLC helped to make up for some of her more OOC moments and relative (to some other squadmates) lack of content in the main game, so it was a nice addition.

I also liked the stuff the DLC gave us, especially her visit in Shepard's apartment. What happened was really unexpected, it nearly reminded me of the "Elven Song of Mourning" Leliana sings in DA: Origins. That also brought to my mind how similar Tali and Leliana are in certain ways. Wished for some more "normal" cinematical dialogue with her though, as the main game also contents only a small amount of these dialogues.

 

So how can you love someone if you never seen even her face?

 

Good question, although I think the word "love" is a little too strong here as far as the player is concerned. "Like" is better, I think. As I pointed out in my post before, Tali isn't so much about looks like for example Miranda or Liara. Tali scores with an adorable and cute personality, which a lot of the other female characters don't share. Miranda plays the ice queen, Ashley has this "strong woman" attitude, Samara feels a little distant and Jack... is Jack, to name some examples. Maybe what gets the player to like Tali are also the same things which make Shepard fall for her. And Shepard gets to see her face, as Vazgen said before.

 

The reasons why we players don't get to see her ingame (apart from the picture she gives Shepard) are really discussable in my opinion. They could range from technical problems, not enough development time to the possibility that Bioware didn't gave Tali a face, fearing their idea of her would ****** her fanboys of. We've probably all seen the huge s***storm still waging on in the Inquistion forums about "ugly" romance choices etc etc.

[Quarian Master Race]

I'm still jealous of her relative lack of content though.

 

Rannoch is a great questline. And while the wait for meeting up with Tali is long, it fits the war atmosphere. You go through the game feeling like Bailey or some people on the Citadel who are separated from people they care about. I feel the same way with Jack, but it doesn't last as long. And with Tali, you still get a big payoff after the wait.

 

As much as I like Wrex, I'd rather relive ME2 squad combos. Not ME1. That DLC group has a "team hammerhead", and there's no hammerhead. Cortez doesn't count. Sorry.

Oh I wouldn't for a second claim that fans of the character are not extremely fortunate that she was popular enough among certain members of the writing staff to merit a larger role than the original arc she was slated for initially. Merely comparing what she gets to every ME3 squadmate that isn't the VS, who gets similarly shafted by a single convo and their Presidium activity then endless "good to see you" as their content before Citadel. Garrus was nearly as expendable but he gets more dialouge than practically anyone, for example.

I agree thematically that her romance arc fits the war atmosphere much better than pretty much anyone but Jack's as a result, though. She and Shep both have had their own things going on in the previous 6 months, their own responsibilities to attend to that go beyond themselves. Lots of oppourtunites for that to play into roleplaying a Talimancing Shepard for the first 1/3-1/2 of the game. At least with the VS you are seeing them occasionally, after all.

I don't know why they couldn't have included a few more of the ME2 chars in the combat section, since they went to the trouble of modeling and coding them for combat in Armax as is. Mabye the logistics of including all 7 of the other potentially surviving ME2ers was just difficult, and they didn't want to include just a few and potentially alienate fans of the ones who weren't? It's very clear that Grunt, Miranda and Jack are all quite popular though, so if I had to pick just a few those would be it. Guess I'm just lucky that Wrex and Tali were my Shep's favourite shotgun toting badass battle buddies.

also, gratuitous Tali image


 

[Quarian Master Race]

I think bottom line is that it was just difficult. I remember pre-release that Mac Walters said how much of a headache it was to account for ME2.

 

And I remember a dev (I think Preston Watamaniuk) saying in a panel that the Citadel party alone had more parameters than Kotor. Or something along those lines. 

 

But I still think they could've done a little better for the main game.

That's basically what I'd figured. There has to be thousands of different possible permutations, and introducing even a single new parameter multiplies that exponentially. Citadel party is a good example, doing every possible different combination of guests would probably take longer than playing through the entire trilogy

No doubt, but that goes for a lot of things. As you know they had some good ideas that intergrated some of the ME2 squad more extensively that were unfortunately shelved due to what I can assume was time constraints. As much as I loved the SM, it obviously caused problems with imports and what content to emphasize.

 

Ditto. Maybe not the paternal thing for me though. I tried that once in the loyalty mission and pissed her off.

Really, you thought that choice parental? I guess it could be seen that way from a human perspective if the only other option you have is letting her get herself exiled on purpose, but otherwise it's more an ideological decision with the geth/quarian conflict than anything. I've only ever picked the option to hand over the evidence once to see her reactions and how it affects the relationship with Shepard and the political balance on the Admiralty Board. Beyond the personal aspects, it seems tactless because of the tenuous, Balkanized political situation in the Fleet, with the only real reason for doing so being if you think the experiments are ethically/ morally unjustified, which I don't (in fact, I wish I could inform Xen of them myself), or wish to give Koris some political ammunition.

[Vazgen]

I can see a character who is against AI and does not care much about Tali personally to hand over the evidence. Otherwise, I don't see the point. This is what Tali wants, if you can't get the admirals to keep her in the fleet, let her be exiled. 

[Quarian Master Race]

I can see a character who is against AI and does not care much about Tali personally to hand over the evidence. Otherwise, I don't see the point. This is what Tali wants, if you can't get the admirals to keep her in the fleet, let her be exiled. 

I can't see that. I'm against self determinant AI and as a political decision with Tali out of the equation, you are destroying the reputation of one of the most influential pro war voices on the Admiralty. Han'Gerrel calls out how oxymoronical it is if you do so and then urge the quarians to war in the next dialouge, and Koris thanks you regardless. The only positive caveat is that you can encourage the quarians to use the research and Xen will agree, not that it makes any difference.

 

I didn't see it completely that way.. but she does. Which sucks. She says something about not needing another father or something.

 

 

None of these choices matter to the Quarians or Geth sadly. It's all about your standing with Tali.

Does she? I know that afterword you basically have the choice of either apologizing to her or going the parental route and basically saying "you're young and I did what's best for you" or something to that effect along with blaming her for not speaking up as being evidence that she's secretly okay with what you did, for which she chides you for being a bad friend and not understanding quarian culture. IDK it's been awhile, and I also did this as a femshep so maybe the lines are different.

Yeah, that was the most disapointing part to me. In ME2 Tali talks of the Fleet being torn apart and breaking up into factions over the revelations but this gets retconned in ME3. I noped out of that playthrough after I got to the Dreadnought and realized that nothing of note changes. Tali doesn't even really stay pissed at Shepard, in typical ME fashion. 

[Quarian Master Race]

You can apologize to her, but she still cuts you off and thinks you're not approaching her like a friend. It's not like you can win her over again, like you can if you sided with Legion.

yeah, I suppose it's good there is at least that level of reactivity with your attitude towards her. Most of the LM's have the character end up loving you no matter how much of an insensitive douche you act like as long as you complete them. Zaeed, Samara and Thane are the only others I can think of with a similar outcome, though in the latter twos' cases you have to intentionally fail their missions. Guess you can include Miranda and Jack if you consider the argument as an extension of their missions (though Miranda's isn't related at all really.)

That ability with Legion is just such a cop out. More pro-AI BS to prop them up as supposedly being more "logical" and able to see reason than obviously lesser organic beings. I tell it to get lost with trying to pilfer data, which is only fair considering that's all you can do with Shepard when Xen similarly asks to study its platform for her own people's advantage.

[Vazgen]

I can't see that. I'm against self determinant AI and as a political decision with Tali out of the equation, you are destroying the reputation of one of the most influential pro war voices on the Admiralty. Han'Gerrel calls out how oxymoronical it is if you do so and then urge the quarians to war in the next dialouge, and Koris thanks you regardless. The only positive caveat is that you can encourage the quarians to use the research and Xen will agree, not that it makes any difference.

I don't see that voice being silenced. Officially, yes, they strip his name of all records etc. But Shepard even mentions, that despite actions of Rael'Zorah were bad, the research can still be useful, to which Xen readily agrees. And the continuation of Rael's research will lead to war. I don't remember Gerrel's dialogue, tbh.

[Quarian Master Race]

I don't see that voice being silenced. Officially, yes, they strip his name of all records etc. But Shepard even mentions, that despite actions of Rael'Zorah were bad, the research can still be useful, to which Xen readily agrees. And the continuation of Rael's research will lead to war. I don't remember Gerrel's dialogue, tbh.

Xen finds out about the experiments either way, but supposedly revealing the evidence causes the Migrant Fleet to Balkanize and splinter. Since the quarians (and Cerberus, as evidenced by Overlord) are seemingly the only factions to be taking the geth threat seriously, and you are greatly reducing their force projection capability by revealing the evidence publicly, it is objectively a poorly thought out decision from an anti AI/geth perspective. Only the Special projects and possibly Heavy Fleet would then be inclined to war, and they aren't self sufficient without the Civilian liveships and others that make up the bulk of the Fleet, which are stated in dialouge to have started sending peace envoys to the geth.

Better to keep it under wraps, keeping the Fleet united and far more potent, and leaving Koris with little clout to change what Shala'Raan describes as a pro war "way the wind is blowing". Unfortunately there is no way to inform Xen yourself this way other than going public, but she finds out almost immediately regardless and it has no effect on how soon she finishes the weapon. You can at least confide in Han'Gerrel (whose dialouge if you go public is very negative, basically accusing Shepard of squandering any chances of gathering support for the war).

Of course, this is all irrelevant. ME3 outright retcons the Fleet's breaking up, along with the entire quarian political structure (the interplay between Ship councils and the Conclave isn't even mentioned, and the Admirals are essentially made oligarchs an a totalitarian structure). I get the feeling that the potentialities of that option were mostly ignored and handwaved by the writers because they were too difficult to fit into the narrative they were trying to sell in ME3 of monolithic trigger happy organics vs peaceful synthetics, hence default Tali is exiled.
 

I don't like that we can't make a clear alliance with Xen. You kind of get nods to Destroy and Synthesis, but not Control. Not that I necessarily want to do it... but it'd be nice for roleplaying purposes and different characters. Or sometimes I'd like to make different choices in all 3 games -- have Shepard evolve or devolve in one way or another. I hate when railroading gets in the way of this character constructing process (it's why I dislike Liara's role too). It's stupid to have variations of Shepard, of completely different psychologies, life experiences, upbringing, etc.. to be so accommodating on the exact same things.

 

ME3 kind of rectified some of the AI/Quarian stuff  though. I can at least get some token dialogue in there.

Yes, it's very clear Xen was intended as a villainous embodiment of the viewpoint of synthetics as tools to be used rather than lifeforms that was loathed by the writers and derided by L'etoile as "slavery" and "racism", hence most non neutral dialouges with her end up criticizing her, and Tali, the "good" but misguided quarian who merely wants to destroy the geth out of "institutionalized prejudice" to protect her people sees her as insane. They were never going to allow you to control their precious pinnochios because they assumed no one would be subjectively reprehensible (to them) enough to engage in "slavery". Being an anti AI Luddite like Tali or Gerrel is a bit more okay (hence the lipservice), but intelligent people can't possibly hold views of AI like Xen without being insane (even though virtually every modern AI expert shares this outlook on the technology).

It was actually intended to be worse though, in an earlier build, Xen originally had her own post Rannoch side mission where you could approve a request from her at the spectre terminal then had the option arrest or kill her for some research focused on helping the war effort by utilizing either reprogrammed geth or reanimated geth platforms (depending on outcome) as self guided explosive weapons. If you didn't you lost war assets. You can still access some of the dialouge, actually.

[Dantriges]

Well that´s nice for modern AI experts but Xen´s point of view sounds a bit insane when the AI you wish to control has a lot of guns, already kicked you off your planets once, killing 99% of your people in the process. Oh and taking over the lab ship when tali´s father tried that. I get revenge for the war and retake our homeworld, I get Shepard´s "get over it and make peace," but controlling them?

 

*I admit the peace and happyness options sounds a bit too sweet.

[Quarian Master Race]

Well that´s nice for modern AI experts but Xen´s point of view sounds a bit insane when the AI you wish to control has a lot of guns, already kicked you off your planets once, killing 99% of your people in the process. Oh and taking over the lab ship when tali´s father tried that. I get revenge for the war and retake our homeworld, I get Shepard´s "get over it and make peace," but controlling them?

 

*I admit the peace and happyness options sounds a bit too sweet.

It's hardly insane. The quarians by ME3 have a weapon that completely overwhelms and neutralizes the geth's ability to organize any resistance before the Reaper code upgrades to their processing power. When they are subdued and the code upgrades taken away, they can be reprogrammed, perhaps this time around with whatever the quarian equivalent is to Asimov's 3 Laws. Even if the geth somehow manage to circumvent this, they will not be able to resist further reprogramming until the quarians can finally get the software builds right, because of the weapon. Post ending, there's also the Crucible and it's ability to destroy synthetics, assuming it can be repaired, though that is metagaming and thus sort of irrelevant to the question at hand.

Pragmatically, It's a much better option than either of the other two. You gain all of their benefits as a tool and technology for improving organic existence while mitigating the drawbacks. Destroying the geth gains one nothing ( is admittedly the safest, but also an example of backwards looking Neo-Luddism). Allowing them self determination along with their Reaper upgrades is extremely dangerous, because they are by definiton superior to organics and will always hold the cards in relations with them as a result, and conflict (which the organics will probably lose) is inevitable. I'd argue the latter is far, far more dangerous and "insane" than maintaining control over them. There's no guarantee that the ceasefire will last at all, and with their Reaper upgrades the galaxy is essentially the geth's to take with the Reapers gone, should they decide they want it.

[Dantriges]

The problem is they already did it once and at the moment you are fighting with a far superior machine intelligence (made out of organic components) built by a species who thought of their AI just as a tool. IIRC only quarians, Shepard and his crew are present and I am not surprised that they think of it as madness. Ai research was highly even before the quarians made the geth, billions of quarians got killed, a galaxy is in the process of being harvested, I don´t think that anyone would be willing to consider "let´s use AI as tools." 

 

If we go with pragmatic, it´s safer to simply waste them and start from scratch instead of going through 300 years of code with a fine comb, hoping that you won´t miss a failsafe. And who needs a sapient lawn mower? Most AI things can be done by VI, drones and tools with a bit more sophisticated operating system.

 

I m not surprised that Xen view point is portrayed as insane. It´s not a setting where you explore transhumanism, technological/scientific singularity or somethng like that. It´s a setting where we get "synthetics will always rebel and win" like irrefutable religous dogma.   

 

I went the peace route. I don´t buy into this dogma anyways and if both sides stopped shooting each other they would realize that there is no need for conflict. The geth can live everywhere, they actually built a site offworld to live there and the quarians primary objective is to retake their homeworld the geth keep in shape as a preserve and don´t use it much.

 

I was surprised the the quarians did a full turn around but if they let geth into their suits that´s their decision. I like to keep my lamp heads at arm´s length or on the next planet.

[Quarian Master Race]

The problem is they already did it once and at the moment you are fighting with a far superior machine intelligence (made out of organic components) built by a species who thought of their AI just as a tool. IIRC only quarians, Shepard and his crew are present and I am not surprised that they think of it as madness. Ai research was highly even before the quarians made the geth, billions of quarians got killed, a galaxy is in the process of being harvested, I don´t think that anyone would be willing to consider "let´s use AI as tools." 

The Leviathan only lost control of their AI because of the hilariously stupid arrogance characteristic of them. We needn't repeat that. The geth are in a position where the organics have superiority. They obviously couldn't increase their processing power to overcome Xen's weapon without Reaper aid during the war with the quarians, and there's no reason to think that they would be able to do so in the short term after, especially if reprogrammed again. When you have a nascent technology, you don't just give up when there are setbacks, you learn from and compensate for them.

 

If we go with pragmatic, it´s safer to simply waste them and start from scratch instead of going through 300 years of code with a fine comb, hoping that you won´t miss a failsafe. And who needs a sapient lawn mower? Most AI things can be done by VI, drones and tools with a bit more sophisticated operating system.

I'd agree that destroying them is the next best option (It's what I do), and with headcanon knowledge that the Reapers can be defeated without geth assistance is probably safer in the long term. As to who needs a sapient lawn mower? No one, but that isn't what the geth are. They aren't AI's, they are VI's that rely on P2P networking. Individual programs are not capable of much of anything on their own. When they network with around a hundred or so units in a single platform, they can delegate low level processes and thus simulate animalistic intelligence. The more geth you add to the network, the more independent thought they are capable of.

That's was the whole point as to why they were able to rebel in the first place. The quarians weren't purposefully flaunting Council laws, indeed the geth were barely VI's and thus entirely legal under the laws against AI's. They were just hit by the law of unintended consequences (with a bit of plot required idiot ball, namely assuming there would be no consequences for letting them network in the billions). In fact, the only reason the geth were successful is that they society they were rebelling against was entirely dependent upon them by that point, and for seemingly no reason the ones who could have easily put an end to the whole thing (Council) decided to illogically sit on their heels seemingly out of spite (depsite acknowledging the danger that the geth represented). The Protheans had the right idea in presenting a united front whenever situations like this inevitably happened.

Either way, no one has forgotten the mistakes that resulted in the geth rebelling. Future software builds can take this potentiality into account and compensate for it. Limit the amount of geth that can be networked together to a sensible number, for a start. They can function as cannon fodder military and labor equipment without sapience. Perhaps replace the Prime units with dedicated networking nodes operated by quarian specialists. There's any number of middle ground solutions between "kill them all" and "give them complete self agency", and not all of them are inherently dangerous on a large scale.
 

I m not surprised that Xen view point is portrayed as insane. It´s not a setting where you explore transhumanism, technological/scientific singularity or somethng like that. It´s a setting where we get "synthetics will always rebel and win" like irrefutable religous dogma.   

Synthetics will always rebel (or conflict will be initiated otherwise) when given the chance, but they won't always win. Indeed, the Protheans seemed to be dealing with them just fine, until the Reapers showed up. Similarly, the quarians themselves (without even the assistance of the billions of other organics in the galaxy) were on the verge of wiping out or reacquiring control of the geth.....until the Reapers showed up. Seeing a pattern here? The dogma is not irrefutable at all even within it's own setting, in fact it is intentionally reinforced by the antagonists to suit their own ends, so I see no reason to pay it any mind with them either dead and gone or under organic control.

The setting is absolutely one where we explore transhumanism and technological singularity. That's why the "best" ending is one that results in exactly that. My only issue is that the writers vision of how we reach that point is stupid, unnecessary and nonsensical. Organics can achieve it or something similar on their own terms if they don't have giant synthetic Cthulhu manipulating the variables and using them as a science experiment due to a programming error.

 

I went the peace route. I don´t buy into this dogma anyways and if both sides stopped shooting each other they would realize that there is no need for conflict. The geth can live everywhere, they actually built a site offworld to live there and the quarians primary objective is to retake their homeworld the geth keep in shape as a preserve and don´t use it much.

I don't buy that peace at all. Giving the geth Reaper upgrades is stupid dangerous, and there is every reason to conclude there will be more conflict. If not immediately than eventually over resources. Organics cannot exist alongside beings that are superior to them in every way, and whom will eventually conclude that organics have no legitimate purpose for existing. It could be in 10, 10,000 or 10 million years, but it will happen, and if it does organics are doomed. Organics on the other hand, can be relied upon to maintain the advantage in the relationship without a similar situation inevitably happening, because they are reliant on synthetics to improve their own existence, and synthetics are by their nature expendable and able to be recreated.
 

I was surprised the the quarians did a full turn around but if they let geth into their suits that´s their decision. I like to keep my lamp heads at arm´s length or on the next planet.

That broke suspension of disbelief. You don't get over 300 years of social conditioning with a little bit of rainbows and sunshine. Yet another issue with taking that route.

Keeping them on the next planet is fine and dandy until you both need the same resource or a "math error" makes them completely genocidal, and easily able to carry out said genocide because you knowingly gave them code upgrades that allowed them to surpass you.

Anyway, this is hugely off topic. Suffice it to say, I don't think that Xen's ideas are "insane" at all, especially in a setting where a single organic can gain seemingly permanent control over synthetic beings much, much more advanced than the geth are via one of the endings.

[Dantriges]

I think that starting over from scratch would be a better idea.

 

As I said I find this dogma rather stupid. perhaps I didn´t communicate that clearly.

 

If we take the geth or something similar as the typical synthetic that shows up, there is no reason for conflict. Space is huge, resource scarcity isn´t really a problem, there are a lot of raw materials floating around in space. They don´t need a huge load of resources, they don´t really care if the planet is a garden world or as lifeless as the moon, the geth don´t even need a lot of living space compared to organics. They can get resources from planets organics have trouble to exploit. Going to war with organics will probably result in needless losses and it seems that self preservation is a high priority for them.

Would be different if the synthetics were interested in expansion but why?

 

Even if they think organics have no purpose, there is no real reason for genocide. The galaxy is full of stuff that has no real purpose in existing and I don´t see AIs flying around blasting useless asteroids or comets. There is no need to prove your superiority by nuking someone.

The whole abstract organic-synthetic conflict (excluding the quarian-geth conflict) boils down to "it could be that they want to destroy us so we do it first." And well as you pointed out the one synthetic race beside the squids wasn´t so superior after all anyways.

 

10,000 years, 10 million years? 10,000 years is before the rise of civilisation, 10 million years? I don´t see us planning for continental shift

 

The whole abstract organic-synthetic conflict (excluding the quarian-geth conflict) boils down to "it could be that they want to destroy us so we do it first."

 

Mass Effect explored transhumanism and technological singularity in the last fifteen minutes. The rest of the time we explored planets, our crew´s daddy issues and their personality. Oh and we killed or blew up a lot of stuff because we didn´t want to be turned into sauce. On a more serious note, it didn´t feel like we were really exploring transhumanism or technical singualrity in the games. It came up in the end but it wasn´t a theme  during the game. 

 

I don´t think we should discuss the control option. At the time when Shepard and other said that Xen´s ideas are insane, no one knew about it. We know that Rael tried hacking, seems that he had to increase the amount of geth networking, they are probably not very useful without it anyways and he got killed. IMO you don´t put your whole species on the gambling table. They got them over the barrel at that moment, after they shot their megastructure, it´s a good question if the geth couldn´t recover given time.     

[Alexisonf1re]

Greetings fellow Tali fans

Been a while since i've been on here.