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[przemichal]

Davie McG wrote...

crimzontearz wrote...

wait I am not following this

Rana Thanoptis specifically says that indoctrination is a "signal" not a bunch of nanites

if it was nanites she would have known so given she gave autopsies to several dead indoctrinated specimen.....

She also said in the next breath (paraphrasing) "perhaps signal isn't the right word, more of an energy..."

dunno if that makes much of a difference though I know f*ck all about nanites.

What about "Retribution", then, and Grayson's case?

[crimzontearz]

przemichal wrote...

Davie McG wrote...

crimzontearz wrote...

wait I am not following this

Rana Thanoptis specifically says that indoctrination is a "signal" not a bunch of nanites

if it was nanites she would have known so given she gave autopsies to several dead indoctrinated specimen.....

She also said in the next breath (paraphrasing) "perhaps signal isn't the right word, more of an energy..."

dunno if that makes much of a difference though I know f*ck all about nanites.

What about "Retribution", then, and Grayson's case?

you should ask Bioware

that's what happens when you  green light the writers to give explanations you have not touched in the games -groans-

[Davie McG]

I'm not saying it isn't nanites. I read retribution so I agree with you on that, just wondering how the energy she was describing fits in with the nanites.

Another thing I wondered about was the fact that she said you had to be aboard sovereign and near the signal/energy being emitted (I think Benezia also said this) to become indoctrinated yet the reapers re-purpose Grayson from dark space. I can't remember if retribution explained that or not, need to pick it up again before mass effect 3, especially since Kai Leng's going to be hunting us down.

Edit: I know he was infected deliberatley by TIM but how does somthing from dark space signal little machines in a cerberus facility so quickly?

Modifié par Davie McG, 18 juin 2011 - 01:34 .

[crimzontearz]

Davie McG wrote...

I'm not saying it isn't nanites. I read retribution so I agree with you on that, just wondering how the energy she was describing fits in with the nanites.

Another thing I wondered about was the fact that she said you had to be aboard sovereign and near the signal/energy being emitted (I think Benezia also said this) to become indoctrinated yet the reapers re-purpose Grayson from dark space. I can't remember if retribution explained that or not, need to pick it up again before mass effect 3, especially since Kai Leng's going to be hunting us down.

Edit: I know he was infected deliberatley by TIM but how does somthing from dark space signal little machines in a cerberus facility so quickly?

comm relays

they must have some since that's what they used to activate the keepers before the protheans screwed it up

[Davie McG]

yeah but the protheans did screw it up, if they could use the mass relays they would be carrying out sovereigns original plan rather than travelling for 2 years at FTL to get to the batarian relay

Modifié par Davie McG, 18 juin 2011 - 01:40 .

[crimzontearz]

Davie McG wrote...

yeah but the protheans did screw it up, if they could use the mass relays they would be carrying out sovereigns original plan rather than travelling for 2 years at FTL to get to the batarian relay

comm relays =/= mass relays

[Davie McG]

Ah, fair enough.

[knightnblu]

Regarding autopsies and the lack of evidence for nannites, there really wouldn't be any nannites in the tissues per se. I imagine that they would drain with the blood to pool at the lowest point in the body and therefore would not be found if that blood wasn't sampled. Nannites are molecular machines and may pass through cell membranes with normal body fluids. As Rana Thanoptis was unaware of the potential of nannites to be in the patients she dissected, she would not know to examine the pooled blood for them.

So it is possible that they could indeed have been infected with nannites and the autopsy by Thanoptis could have missed them.

[crimzontearz]

knightnblu wrote...

Regarding autopsies and the lack of evidence for nannites, there really wouldn't be any nannites in the tissues per se. I imagine that they would drain with the blood to pool at the lowest point in the body and therefore would not be found if that blood wasn't sampled. Nannites are molecular machines and may pass through cell membranes with normal body fluids. As Rana Thanoptis was unaware of the potential of nannites to be in the patients she dissected, she would not know to examine the pooled blood for them.

So it is possible that they could indeed have been infected with nannites and the autopsy by Thanoptis could have missed them.

doubtful, assumes the lack of sophisticated tech and sensors and the use only of a microscope or similar tech

[przemichal]

Davie McG wrote...

I'm not saying it isn't nanites. I read retribution so I agree with you on that, just wondering how the energy she was describing fits in with the nanites.

Another thing I wondered about was the fact that she said you had to be aboard sovereign and near the signal/energy being emitted (I think Benezia also said this) to become indoctrinated yet the reapers re-purpose Grayson from dark space. I can't remember if retribution explained that or not, need to pick it up again before mass effect 3, especially since Kai Leng's going to be hunting us down.

Edit: I know he was infected deliberatley by TIM but how does somthing from dark space signal little machines in a cerberus facility so quickly?

You need to be near the Reaper (or Reaper artifact) so that the nanites may enter your system.
How do they communicate despite the distance? It is stated that they do by QEC - Quantum Entanglement Communicator - the same device Shep is using to contact TIM. If you ask Edi, she explains it all; also, there was a topic about QEC in ME2 forums somewhere, so you can just look for it. Anyway, if you remember, it allows you to momentally contact a single point no matter the distance.

I wonder if that signal thing is indeed some kind of inconsistency or something to be explained. We're surely going to see.

[przemichal]

crimzontearz wrote...

knightnblu wrote...

Regarding autopsies and the lack of evidence for nannites, there really wouldn't be any nannites in the tissues per se. I imagine that they would drain with the blood to pool at the lowest point in the body and therefore would not be found if that blood wasn't sampled. Nannites are molecular machines and may pass through cell membranes with normal body fluids. As Rana Thanoptis was unaware of the potential of nannites to be in the patients she dissected, she would not know to examine the pooled blood for them.

So it is possible that they could indeed have been infected with nannites and the autopsy by Thanoptis could have missed them.

doubtful, assumes the lack of sophisticated tech and sensors and the use only of a microscope or similar tech

No, not really; the only assumption made is that the Reapers' tech is much more advanced than ours.
More to it: in "Retribution", when Grayson is dying, he feels that the Reapers' influence - as he describes it - slowly abandons him. It may be because the nanites self-destruct, which makes sense, 'cause, if you think of it, one of the nanites purposes was to decompose fallen collectors and constructs - so, there is no reason they couldn't "destroy" themselves. (Anyway, we're still going to see, for at the end of "Retribution" Grayson's body is also taken for autopsy; and Rana's experiments - just like all of Saren's experiments with indoctrination - were really controlled by Sovereign; and he wouldn't let them just discover what his most useful trick is all about, right?)

Modifié par przemichal, 18 juin 2011 - 10:08 .

[Parah_Salin]

And beyond all this, considering Kei Leng is in ME3 and such I don't think they would totally pull something out of their ass in retribution. Not indoctrination anyways. Like if they've stuck with nanites for retribution this long in retribution it's probably that.

[WizenSlinky0]

Absolutely not. All evidence points against this.

Indoctrination is a passive ability coming from contact with a reaper. This is demonstrated several times as with the Cerberus scientists on the Derelic reaper. The only way they could have been implanted with nanites would be if they were airborne. Something I'd find extremly hard to believe.

It is inherently different from what Grayson went through, which was being turned into a husk, by a slow process in which nanites are implanted into the body that slowly begin to replace the organic components. Although this yields a more responsive slave it also begins to erode the users free will at a faster pace, making it a short term measure at best. Lack of free will begins to take away the productivity of the avatar.

Grayson took on a very robotic and husk like appearence the farther into the book you got. This would defeat the purpose of indoctrinated slaves who are supposed to be able to infiltrate and sabotge without drawing suspicion.

"Hey fred, what's with all those robotic tubes and the blue blood?"

"Uh, I have a cold?"

[Parah_Salin]

They act more like the C'tan, the necron gods. The husks and minions serve more the role necron foot troops served in 40k. Yes the whole "consciousness preserved in mechanical bodies" thing is like the necron foot troops, but the reapers are hyper-intelegent, described as each being an independent nation, not mindless soldiers.

Plus pulling an even greater power out of thin air when they've spent 3 games building up how powerful the reapers are it would silly to pull out something even more powerful

[Lady Olivia]

I think there are three different types of indoctrination:

1) Physiological - by direct infection with Reaprer nanites. It's how the husks and the avatars are made.

2) Physiological - by indirect infection with Reaper nanites, possibly with inactive Reaper nanites. It's what happened to TIM and Saren.

3) Psychological/Telepathic - by proximity to an emitter of some sort of "indoctrination field" which can be a Reaper, a Reaper artifact, or a Reaper avatar.

The first two cases are what knightnblu spoke in his (or her?) nice posts. When an organism is infected with active nanites, they repurpose the organism. If they are inactive, they can be activated by some sort of signal, probably by proximity to an emitter like in case 3.

The husks and Grayson were made by direct injection; TIM's friend from Evolution and presumably Desolas, were made by touching an artifact.

My guess is that indirect contact (say, through touching an infected person, but not the source of th infection), infects you with inactive nanites. This happened to TIM when he touched his friend in Evolution, and to Saren when he touched Desolas. When Saren first visited the Sovereign, his nanites were activated and only then did he start growing implants.

The third case is what we knew as "indoctrination" prior to Retribution. The Reapers and their technology emit some sort of field that messes with your brain but doesn't alter you physically. Examples are many: people who first discovered the Sovereign; the Cerberus crew on the derelict Reaper; the crew investigating the Object Rho.

It seems that an "avatar" such as Grayson, can also emit the indoctrination field. Witness this in the final scenes of Retribution, where Grayson indoctrinates Khalee by talking to her. Also, if you pay attention to the "big words" the Reapers like to use: destiny, fate, evolution, inevitable - they are an essential part of TIM's, Saren's and Grayson's speech patterns.
 
And that opens some interesting possibilities:

Perhaps Saren was able to indoctrinate this way. Think of Benezia and his other implied allies and moneymen - surely not all of them had direct contact with the Sovereign.

But more importantly, perhaps TIM can indoctrinate people to his views and wishes through this mechanism, even if he is not (yet) indoctrinated himself. Perhaps this is why Cerberus is such a fanatical organization: they are indoctrinated.

The moment TIM gets in contact with operational Reaper technology, his nanites will activate and he'll start to turn into an avatar. That's my prediction for Cerberus involvement in ME3, and the explanation of TIM's shifting loyalties.
 

Modifié par Lady Olivia, 18 juin 2011 - 12:01 .

[crimzontearz]

and wait a second, how could the cerberus team on the derelict reaper be indoctrinated if indoctrination is caused by nanites? One ofthe video diaries specifies there was no nanotech activity on board at all

[przemichal]

crimzontearz wrote...

and wait a second, how could the cerberus team on the derelict reaper be indoctrinated if indoctrination is caused by nanites? One ofthe video diaries specifies there was no nanotech activity on board at all

If so, the diary may be a false account, because if there was no nanotech activity onboard the Reaper, the question arises: where from did TIM get his nanites (I mean the ones he used to infect Grayson with)? Because he didn't get them from the Collectors' base. Why? Because they would get destroyed by impulse as well as an explosion, I guess. And what if you destroyed the base? Then the book would contradict player's decisions: and that would be a fail. (I know there is a problem with Udina being councilor, but it can be well explained, especially since Anderson seemed to dislike his duty in ME2 if you chosen him in ME1.) And even if there were no nanites onboard the Reaper, indoctrination may come in many types, just like Lady Olivia pointed. Just why not?
Also, the nanites may simply be hard to detect: Cerberus' team didn't detect them, Rana didn't detect them... you know. Seems like a good point to me.

Moreover, even if you are right, it still wouldn't contradict the thesis that the Reapers started with indoctrination, and this is the most important part of this theory.

Modifié par przemichal, 18 juin 2011 - 12:40 .

[przemichal]

An interesting idea from another topic:

przemichal wrote...

Paulinius wrote...
Plus, with thousands of Reapers and their indoctrination fields, I'm betting most of the population is going to be indoctrinated.

Hey! I just came up with an idea! If what you said is true and my Reaper theory is true (that THE REAPERS STARTED WITH INDOCTRINATION), then the final choice of ME3 may be a choice between killing every indoctrinated person to prevent the Reapers' re-creation after the war (this would mean killing every person on Earth I guess) or sparing those indoctrinated. Pure renegade vs paragon, it seems to me, just like in two previous games.
What do you think?

Originally here: http://social.biowar...65382/1#7672899

[WizenSlinky0]

When Saren first visited the Sovereign, his nanites were activated and only then did he start growing implants.

The third case is what we knew as "indoctrination" prior to Retribution. The Reapers and their technology emit some sort of field that messes with your brain but doesn't alter you physically. Examples are many: people who first discovered the Sovereign; the Cerberus crew on the derelict Reaper; the crew investigating the Object Rho.

It seems that an "avatar" such as Grayson, can also emit the indoctrination field. Witness this in the final scenes of Retribution, where Grayson indoctrinates Khalee by talking to her. Also, if you pay attention to the "big words" the Reapers like to use: destiny, fate, evolution, inevitable - they are an essential part of TIM's, Saren's and Grayson's speech patterns.
 
And that opens some interesting possibilities:

Perhaps Saren was able to indoctrinate this way. Think of Benezia and his other implied allies and moneymen - surely not all of them had direct contact with the Sovereign.

But more importantly, perhaps TIM can indoctrinate people to his views and wishes through this mechanism, even if he is not (yet) indoctrinated himself. Perhaps this is why Cerberus is such a fanatical organization: they are indoctrinated.

The moment TIM gets in contact with operational Reaper technology, his nanites will activate and he'll start to turn into an avatar. That's my prediction for Cerberus involvement in ME3, and the explanation of TIM's shifting loyalties.
 

I don't think so.

Saren never "grew" implants. He showed no outward signs of having any sort of reaper tech, until at one point, his will started to waver while taling to Shepard. After that the reapers implanted him with tech before the final battle in order to make sure their soldier was resolute in his loyalty to the reapers. I assume they figured they wouldn't need Saren after the final battle for the Citadel and therefore could afford the ienvitable loss of free will and productivity that would eventually occur.

I never really fealt like Kahlee was being "indoctrinated". It was more along the lines of simply being influential. The reapers use large words and emit such utter confidence it's hard not to look at what they are saying and go, well maybe. There wasn't enough evidence present to suggest indoctrination was in play. And if it was, then we have to assume the nanites present in his body, emit a very low and short range indoctrination field. However, there's absolutely no evidence of this being used before then and I find that very odd. If you can indoctrinate people just through agents then things should be going a lot smoother than they have for the reapers thus far.

Benezia was said to have gone to Saren in order to try to turn him from his ways. She had direct contact with Soverign and it overwelmed her mentally. His other allies, why wouldn't they help him? He was a very influential person even before finding Soverign. He has contacts, friends, etc. And as he still had some sembelence of free will at the time there was no reason not to help him if he was paying. I mean, why does everyone have to be indoctrinated? It was just a job for most of them I'm sure. And It's highly unlikely they had any real knowledge of what he actually wanted to do.

Have you never heard of cults? There are no shortage of fanatical individuals especially over polarizing issues. Considering the bitterness over the first contact war you'll find no short helping of people who have no sympathies for aliens. If he could indoctrinate people, since Grayson had direct contact with TIM while working for him, he wouldn't have simply been able to 'leave'. The indoctrination wouldn't have let him especially after having so long for it to sink in.

It's just not plausible with what information we have to suggest we have a third type of reaper control. As far as I can tell the games and novels only provide suitble evidence to suggest the distinction between nanite implantation and indoctrination field exposure.

przemichal wrote...
If so, the diary may be a false account,
because if there was no nanotech activity onboard the Reaper, the
question arises: where from did TIM get his nanites (I mean the ones he
used to infect Grayson with)? Because he didn't get them from the
Collectors' base. Why? Because they would get destroyed by impulse as
well as an explosion, I guess. And what if you destroyed the base? Then
the book would contradict player's decisions: and that would be a fail.
(I know there is a problem with Udina being councilor, but it can be
well explained, especially since Anderson seemed to dislike his duty in
ME2 if you chosen him in ME1.) And even if there were no nanites onboard
the Reaper, indoctrination may come in many types, just like Lady
Olivia pointed. Just why not?
Also, the nanites may simply be hard to
detect: Cerberus' team didn't detect them, Rana didn't detect them...
you know. Seems like a good point to me.

Moreover, even if you
are right, it still wouldn't contradict the thesis that the Reapers
started with indoctrination, and this is the most important part of this
theory.

The pulse used to clear the base was to take out organic matter, not machines, which is what nanites essentially are. Little robots. It would not destroy nanites.

Also the wording is intentially vague to avoid picking either choice as Canon, but suitble so to assume TIM could have gotten the information to produce said nanites through remains of the base and information collected from EDI prior to Shepard's final 'goodbye' to Cerberus.

He says directly they need to continue the experiments of the Collectors on live humans based on data collected.

Theories are all well and good, but the "Well why not?" thing doesn't really hold up. We don't have enough evidence to assume there are multiple levels of nanite exposure.

I also find it highly unlikely they are unable to detect nanites. As I said, they amount to little robots. Technology uses energy. By searching for energy signatures it'd be pretty hard to miss them.

Modifié par WizenSlinky0, 18 juin 2011 - 04:22 .

[knightnblu]

There has been a lot of discussion regarding the easy detection of nannites and I am not sure that it is so easy. The critical factor in the Reapers success is secrecy. Stealth was used to conceal the Citadel's true purpose, specialized Reaper tech was required to gate through the Omega 4 relay securing the Collector base, and even with the invasion happening nobody knows their true goals and objectives. Therefore, I don't think that it would be much of a stretch to imagine that secrecy would have been employed in the design of Reaper nannites.

Energy sources can be shielded, function can be hidden, and if you are not specifically looking for them, you can easily miss them. We assume that the ME galaxy tech is roughly equivalent to the Reaper tech and I believe this to be a grave mistake. The Reapers are millions of years more advanced than the ME civilizations and they have played a large role in directing the technological development of advanced civilizations.

The Protheans have proven that the Reaper indoctrination methods are not bullet proof as have Benezia and Saren, but Dr. Kenson demonstrates how those methods don't need to be in order to accomplish Reaper objectives. In essence, it is a shotgun approach rather than a surgically precise one because if one doesn't get you, the other ten thousand will. That being said, if the nannites were so easy to discover then people would start asking questions and the answers to those questions may reveal the Reaper's intentions. If one thing is obvious in the Reaper expositions, it is that the Reapers have expended a great deal of thought and effort in hiding their actions. Further, they have had millions of years and unknown reaping cycles to perfect these techniques. For the above reasons, I do not believe that the nannites would be easy to detect.

[WizenSlinky0]

knightnblu wrote...

There has been a lot of discussion regarding the easy detection of nannites and I am not sure that it is so easy. The critical factor in the Reapers success is secrecy. Stealth was used to conceal the Citadel's true purpose, specialized Reaper tech was required to gate through the Omega 4 relay securing the Collector base, and even with the invasion happening nobody knows their true goals and objectives. Therefore, I don't think that it would be much of a stretch to imagine that secrecy would have been employed in the design of Reaper nannites.

Energy sources can be shielded, function can be hidden, and if you are not specifically looking for them, you can easily miss them. We assume that the ME galaxy tech is roughly equivalent to the Reaper tech and I believe this to be a grave mistake. The Reapers are millions of years more advanced than the ME civilizations and they have played a large role in directing the technological development of advanced civilizations.

The Protheans have proven that the Reaper indoctrination methods are not bullet proof as have Benezia and Saren, but Dr. Kenson demonstrates how those methods don't need to be in order to accomplish Reaper objectives. In essence, it is a shotgun approach rather than a surgically precise one because if one doesn't get you, the other ten thousand will. That being said, if the nannites were so easy to discover then people would start asking questions and the answers to those questions may reveal the Reaper's intentions. If one thing is obvious in the Reaper expositions, it is that the Reapers have expended a great deal of thought and effort in hiding their actions. Further, they have had millions of years and unknown reaping cycles to perfect these techniques. For the above reasons, I do not believe that the nannites would be easy to detect.

They might not be easy to detect for people looking for general threats, but we're talking about Cerberus that has looked at, seen, and experimented with reaper technology. They have a general idea of their methods and have a better idea of what specifically to look for.

It's the difference between scientists running general tests to look for any anomolies and a group of scientists with specific knowledge spot checking directly for certain tests with more advanced sensors.

[Parah_Salin]

Yeah. They also might not just be spread out EVERYWHERE. Like the complexity of what the reapers do with the nanites makes me think they don't just act like random dust that gets spilled everywhere. They could easily be contained somewhere, and a reapers is pretty big ship, there would be areas, nooks, crannies, etc... that they wouldn't have found.

We also don't know what materials they are made of, but given thier interactions with organic beings and the reapers genetic tampering ability I wouldn't be surprised if they use the same proteins and such that make up our bodies.

As to where TIM got his nanites, the collectors were turning people into husks pretty quickly. There were also dragon's teeth in a lot of places before all the collectors and such. Anything husking people that quickly would have alot of nanites.

All of this said, something had to huskify those scientists on board, and that means reaper tech got into them somehow.

[Lady Olivia]

WizenSlinky0 wrote...
Saren never "grew" implants. He showed no outward signs of having any sort of reaper tech, until at one point, his will started to waver while taling to Shepard.

Heh, seems like one of us needs to play ME again.
He sure looked like he had a variety of Reaper implants to me from the first. And what of his biotics?

I never really fealt like Kahlee was being "indoctrinated".

Can't tell you how to read the book, but the implications were clear enough for me.

His other allies, why wouldn't they help him? He was a very influential person even before finding Soverign. He has contacts, friends, etc. And as he still had some sembelence of free will at the time there was no reason not to help him if he was paying.

Thin ice there. In the end of Revelation, he's thinking about how he'll find other moneymen to finance his project. It's never stated that he's rich, although ME seems to imply it. But at the time of Revelation, he certainly wasn't.

It's just not plausible with what information we have to suggest we have a third type of reaper control.

Perhaps it's not very probable, much less a certainty. But nothing you said contradicts my idea strongly enough as to call it implausible.

Modifié par Lady Olivia, 18 juin 2011 - 05:15 .

[przemichal]

WizenSlinky0 wrote...

przemichal wrote...
If so, the diary may be a false account,
because if there was no nanotech activity onboard the Reaper, the
question arises: where from did TIM get his nanites (I mean the ones he
used to infect Grayson with)? Because he didn't get them from the
Collectors' base. Why? Because they would get destroyed by impulse as
well as an explosion, I guess. And what if you destroyed the base? Then
the book would contradict player's decisions: and that would be a fail.
(I know there is a problem with Udina being councilor, but it can be
well explained, especially since Anderson seemed to dislike his duty in
ME2 if you chosen him in ME1.) And even if there were no nanites onboard
the Reaper, indoctrination may come in many types, just like Lady
Olivia pointed. Just why not?
Also, the nanites may simply be hard to
detect: Cerberus' team didn't detect them, Rana didn't detect them...
you know. Seems like a good point to me.

Moreover, even if you
are right, it still wouldn't contradict the thesis that the Reapers
started with indoctrination, and this is the most important part of this
theory.

The pulse used to clear the base was to take out organic matter, not machines, which is what nanites essentially are. Little robots. It would not destroy nanites.

Also the wording is intentially vague to avoid picking either choice as Canon, but suitble so to assume TIM could have gotten the information to produce said nanites through remains of the base and information collected from EDI prior to Shepard's final 'goodbye' to Cerberus.

He says directly they need to continue the experiments of the Collectors on live humans based on data collected.

Theories are all well and good, but the "Well why not?" thing doesn't really hold up. We don't have enough evidence to assume there are multiple levels of nanite exposure.

I also find it highly unlikely they are unable to detect nanites. As I said, they amount to little robots. Technology uses energy. By searching for energy signatures it'd be pretty hard to miss them.

What you said about the radiation pulse is true. But I'm not really into speculating how did TIM get his lil' nanites. The derelict Reaper - it's a safe bet. The base? - If you gave him the base, it is all right, but if you destroyed it, it's not (not until he scrapped the remains). What IS important is that he has them. Somehow, somewhere he did get them and he's using it to experiment on people.

As I said, it's just a speculation theory; there is no proof pro, but also no proof contra, not really, not yet; so we have to accept it or not, and if we do, then try to develop it as far as we can basing on the evidence we have. So far, I guess, we know that cloaking tech in ME's universe is not bad. If Normandy can enter star system undetected, nanite can surely enter someone's nervous system.

Also, this theory is good because among all other Reapers theories it is "probable" in light of the things we know about this universe and storytelling in general. Especially, we know that if there's going to be a big twist in the last part of the trilogy, it should utilize some of the background material provided by two previous parts; and if it's to be a good writing, it has to affect you the way you say OH MY GOD! I CAN'T BELIEVE I DIDN'T SEE IT COMING! IT WAS SO OBVIOUS!