337 réponses à ce sujet

[hwf]

They could've spun up another reason for Shepard being out of circulation for two years. Imprisonment comes to mind.

Still - being legally dead is not going to be overlooked; you cannot put a dead person on trial.
No, I'm afraid there's a very good reason to Shepard being turned at least partly synthetic.

The similarity with Saren, with what we know the Reapers are, is uncanny.
In fact I wouldn't be surprised if there'd be horrific reactions by some people during the events of ME3 in that a scarred Shepard looks a bit too much like those monsters.

Out of three potential LIs from ME1, only one knows what Shepard was and has become - and she has hopes, desires and yet distanced herself from Shepard, at least at first.
The other two potential LIs are in the dark about Shepard's changes and to me it seems they'll likely be confronted with Shepard's alterations during the trial.

Frankly the how doesn't really bug me, because dark energy manipulation and faster-then-light travel's a bit far out there too.
But how all these characters, Shepard including, will handle the question of "what does it mean to be alive?" - now that's going to be interesting.

[Repearized Miranda]

Khayness wrote...

Phaedon wrote...

Khayness wrote...

I just wish they allow Shepard to reflect on being dead for 2 years and being a quasi-cyborg more than "Oh, I was out for 2 years, let's kick some ass then!".

Pondering on transhumanism is a classic sci-fi cliché they sadly forgot to include.

The only thing that Shepard remembers is black-ing out due to lack of oxygen and then waking up with Miranda yelling 'OMG MECHS ALL OVER THE PLACE RUN FOR YOUR LIVES'. There's not much to ponder about.

There is more to the game than the tutorial.

Everytime Shepard mentions his/her own death he/she is being a smartass (I got better) or demanding an explanation (I was out for 2 years!), but no deep thoughts.

Joker/Chakwas or hell, Kelly the bloody ship counselor could have used a few lines about this topic.

That's not any worse than what we got from the VSes on Horizon. The whole "2 years" thing was practically everywhere in this game. (Wonder why it wasn't released in 2009?)

It'd be great if we got the chance to have some reflection time, but who has time to think when Harbinger is on his way bringing a brigade with him? As much as they harped on 2 years, it may as well only take two seconds of hesistation of save the galaxy (Earth) or have it destroyed. "He (or She) who hesistates is lost!" That's practically what Renegades ( but Paragons should also) live by!!

[Mister Mida]

Phaedon wrote...

I find it rather surprising that you don't want to see any point reiterated, when you apparently ignore my first posts in this thread (the points of which I repeat again and again). 

-Bioware can't possibly explain how it works. FTL travel? Mix up some research on FTL Travel such as Alcubierre's drive, vaguely reference it, add even vaguer subjects such as mass, matter and dark energy and you have a decent, yet still incredibly vague explanation. This is biology/biochemistry/neurology we are talking about. They are not that much of an uncharted territory, at least not as much as other aspects of the MEverse are. What you want is BioWare to cook up something that sounds "cool" using terms from biochemistry and neurology.

So you're saying Bioware wrote themselves in a corner?

[Phaedon]

Mister Mida wrote...
So you're saying Bioware wrote themselves in a corner? 

Only if explaining how the Lazarus Project worked was a major plot point.

You are assuming that BioWare wanted at some point, or still wants, to explain it more thoroughly. To write one self's in a corner assumes that the writer actually wants/needs to get out of the corner.

I can almost assure you that Shepard's death, let alone the Lazarus Project or an explanation about it will not be in ME3. 

[sighineedname]

Sable Phoenix wrote...

I can't believe I have to reiterate the point a third time, especially since you obliquely referred to it this time around.

The "how" is the point.  We're never given the "how", and that is bad writing.  If it isn't resolved in the third game, it's a plot hole.  I'm not making an argument about anything that's impossible now being or not being possible in the future.  It's called the willing suspension of disbelief, and Mass Effect 2 doesn't have it.  The Lazarus Project, given all the other information we have on the Mass Effect universe, is not internally consistent and is not believable.

It is, in fact, a wallbanger.  It's dangerously close to a Dethroning Moment of Suck, and if it's not somehow turned into something integral to the plot once the third game finishes, it will be ensconced irrevocably as the moment that the Mass Effect series jumped the shark.

Are you seriously expecting a scientific explanation of resurrection? You don't have a problem with fully holographic faster than light communication. Or an element that manipulates mass, which also somehow lets you exceed light speed. Or grain sized particles of metal killing people, not to mention having sufficiently different damage potential between a pistol and an assault rifle with the same projectile. Ohh, and the shields which only protect against the afformentioned tiny super fast moving "bullets"... You could just take a M16 and kill everyone.

It's a damn game.

The lazarus project existed to put everyone on the same story line in ME2 regardless of what decisions you made in ME1. Anyone who thought about it before playing the game would realize they had to do something like this. No matter what choices you made Shepard HAD to be in basically the same situation to make the games economically feasible. There are too many possibilities otherwise.

[Mister Mida]

Phaedon wrote...

Mister Mida wrote...
So you're saying Bioware wrote themselves in a corner? 

Only if explaining how the Lazarus Project worked was a major plot point.

You are assuming that BioWare wanted at some point, or still wants, to explain it more thoroughly. To write one self's in a corner assumes that the writer actually wants/needs to get out of the corner.

I can almost assure you that Shepard's death, let alone the Lazarus Project or an explanation about it will not be in ME3. 

I agree, Shepard's death probably won't be explained in ME3. Many people didn't care much about it in ME2 or were really shocked to see him alive again, so ME3 will probably be no different. But it's definitely a major plot point, because it is the excuse they used in order to set time two years further.

And my writing themselvese in corner referred to this: you said Bioware can't explain this, because they can't go use sci-fi mumbo jumbo as much as with space travel because our knowlegde of human biology is more extensive than with space travel, or at least that's how I interpreted your earlier post. Then why did they wrote such a questionable scene aka wrote themselves in a corner which in no way they can get out of?

[Phaedon]

They can very well explain it as a plot point.

Shepard died, SB agents picked his body up, Liara and Feron recover it, hand it over to Cerberus, Cerberus decides to mostly restore the body with limited use of cybernetics, and they are the first to manage to be able to do so, as they also manage to sell some of the information from the research, according to the SB files on Cerberus.

That's all they need.
Yes, they may need more for a codex entry, but "restoration, reproduction of some organs and limited use of cybernetics" covers all the how a player needs.

[VegasVance]

Skirata129 wrote...

you kind of have to wonder what shep's life expecancy is now. if his vital organs, skeletal structure and circulatory system are all cybernetic, He could easily be immortal.

Good now people who want to settle down and have little blue kids can kindly not take up devolpment time, they've got 900 years for that stuff now. >

[sighineedname]

Destroy Raiden wrote...

For brain trauma I've had that it's not fun having hit my head in a car crash and gotten a severe one messed me up it was horrible so shep crashing into the ground that brain trauma is off the charts he'd never recover from ever so they'd be bringing back one messed up shep right from the get go yet he can function, he fallows orders, can fallow movement, his body reacts to him when he wants he's up and about no issues. When I had my concussion I couldn't fallow stuff, hearing was terrible, when people spoke to me I caught 1 or 2 things they said if that and my brain couldn't put the sentences together in any meaningful way sometimes words would be completely out of order, I could barely fallow instructions, so shep off the table able to go from the get go already not believable. I still feel things aren't right up there.

4000 years ago, if you broke a leg, it was probably game over. Modern day, you break a leg, you can get a cast on it and get moving with crutches in a decent amount of time. 180 years in the future, breaking your leg might be a 5 minute problem.

There's no reason to think the same won't apply to brain injuries. Incidentally, people have fallen from aircraft, impacted a "soft" enough surface and managed to walk away after the impact. A human body will hit terminal velocity quite quickly given their shape, so a fall from orbit is not really different than a fall from 1000 ft. The possilbity exists that Shepard could impact without significant brain damage. After two years on an operating table, I'm going to guess the side effects from a concussion are no longer a concern. Especially considering the managed to solve the whole -being dead- problem.

It doesn't make sense to completely bind Shepard's recovery in the understanding of modern science. In that sense, Bioware could pretty much say whatever they wanted to. Mass Effect 2 had some story line problems, but the scientific validity of the Lazarus project is not one of them.

[Ryzaki]

Praetor Shepard wrote...

Ryzaki wrote...

I would like to see it explained myself.

Why on earth BW didn't just use the coma trick I'll never understand.

There is the possibility that the reason it took two years is because Shepard was in a coma. I just hope that someone, maybe Miranda, will comment on the project in ME3.

Maybe it can come up on that trial?

 

Nah he was "meat and tubes" that's not...a coma.   

Newart wrote...
Because I think that would be too ordinary. It's much more dramatic to kill the hero and then bring him/her back to life. Nothing would be more shocking than to see your Shep getting spaced and dying helplessly.

Now to answer OP, I would really like to see some file of Lazarus project and how they brought Shep back. And Shep would even have good reason for asking those files. After all during the Overload mission, Rogue VI took complete control of Shep, because of those cybernetics (and Omni-tool). And what would happen if Reapers would do the same?

So, I would say it would actually made, even plot wise, to reveal how Lazarus project brought Shep back. All we know is that it could even save Shep later from possible Reaper controlling.

Ordinary beats facepalm worthy impossibility. Plus him being kidnapped by Cerberus while in a coma and woke up to me would probably make the whole "They brainwashed you!" thing have a little more weight. 

Modifié par Ryzaki, 25 juin 2011 - 10:57 .

[Destroy Raiden_]

Perhapse sighineedname  but people thought in the 50's we'd all be in flying cars today and we aren't. 2 made a huge leap into a new strange territory for medical science yet it's nothing. The genophage is causing more questions then resurrection in this game and considering they only tell of the ability to gene edit in the series that's still a far cry from fixing immense brain and bodily trauma.

Modifié par Destroy Raiden , 25 juin 2011 - 11:01 .

[Iakus]

sighineedname wrote...

Are you seriously expecting a scientific explanation of resurrection? You don't have a problem with fully holographic faster than light communication. Or an element that manipulates mass, which also somehow lets you exceed light speed. Or grain sized particles of metal killing people, not to mention having sufficiently different damage potential between a pistol and an assault rifle with the same projectile. Ohh, and the shields which only protect against the afformentioned tiny super fast moving "bullets"... You could just take a M16 and kill everyone.

It's a damn game.

The lazarus project existed to put everyone on the same story line in ME2 regardless of what decisions you made in ME1. Anyone who thought about it before playing the game would realize they had to do something like this. No matter what choices you made Shepard HAD to be in basically the same situation to make the games economically feasible. There are too many possibilities otherwise.

It's called worldbuilding.

When everything is possible, everything is less magical.  The incredible becomes ho-hum.  The impossible becomes mundane.  If something as extreme as the resurrection of a dead character becomes a plot point, the reasons behind it need to be explained.  It doesn't have to be "real" science.  It doesn't have to be understood by the characters, but it has to explain how and why it happened:

1) a faux-science explanation how a person so heavily augmented with cybernetics is still "exactly the same"? To the point where nothing odd comes up on at least two scans done to confirm Shep's identity.
2) How did Cerberus get their hands on this technology?
3) Why TIM thought Shepard was worth spending all this time and a good chunk of Cerberus' funds to resurrect (no "You're a symbol" isn't good enough)
4) Why this is a unique event and there won't be a sale on Lazarus Booths at the local Wal-Marts in two or three decades

This author does really good magic systems.  I like how he describes it:  Sanderson's_First_Law

Yes, I really hope we get some sort of explanation in ME3, and I hope someone asks CH about that.  I for one really want to know.

[Iakus]

Ryzaki wrote...

Ordinary beats facepalm worthy impossibility. Plus him being kidnapped by Cerberus while in a coma and woke up to me would probably make the whole "They brainwashed you!" thing have a little more weight. 

I'd think that being captured and used as a lab rat by Collectors before being rescued by Cerberus would do that, and better illustrate the Collector obsession with Shepard, than say, blowing him out of the sky in the first ten minutes 

Ordinary beats facepalm Every.  Single.  Time.  

[sighineedname]

Destroy Raiden wrote...

Perhapse sighineedname  but people thought in the 50's we'd all be in flying cars today and we aren't. 2 made a huge leap into a new strange territory for medical science yet it's nothing. The genophage is causing more questions then resurrection in this game and considering they only tell of the ability to gene edit in the series that's still a far cry from fixing immense brain and bodily trauma.

A false expectation does not invalidate all other possilbities. The fact is Bioware chose that this universe has the tech available at this time to perform a bodily resurrection. As I stated before, there is the possiblity he has no brain damage from the impact, so given we are following his story, we can just assume this is the case and move on. The science of the lazarus project offers no plot development. It merely would satisfy fan curiosity. I fail to see how progress on gene therapy determines progress on traumatic injury in our universe, let alone a fictional one.

Demanding an explanation of the science in modern terms is absurd, at best.

[Destroy Raiden_]

sighineedname wrote...

Sable Phoenix wrote...

I can't believe I have to reiterate the point a third time, especially since you obliquely referred to it this time around.

The "how" is the point.  We're never given the "how", and that is bad writing.  If it isn't resolved in the third game, it's a plot hole.  I'm not making an argument about anything that's impossible now being or not being possible in the future.  It's called the willing suspension of disbelief, and Mass Effect 2 doesn't have it.  The Lazarus Project, given all the other information we have on the Mass Effect universe, is not internally consistent and is not believable.

It is, in fact, a wallbanger.  It's dangerously close to a Dethroning Moment of Suck, and if it's not somehow turned into something integral to the plot once the third game finishes, it will be ensconced irrevocably as the moment that the Mass Effect series jumped the shark.

Are you seriously expecting a scientific explanation of resurrection? You don't have a problem with fully holographic faster than light communication. Or an element that manipulates mass, which also somehow lets you exceed light speed. Or grain sized particles of metal killing people, not to mention having sufficiently different damage potential between a pistol and an assault rifle with the same projectile. Ohh, and the shields which only protect against the afformentioned tiny super fast moving "bullets"... You could just take a M16 and kill everyone.

It's a damn game.

The lazarus project existed to put everyone on the same story line in ME2 regardless of what decisions you made in ME1. Anyone who thought about it before playing the game would realize they had to do something like this. No matter what choices you made Shepard HAD to be in basically the same situation to make the games economically feasible. There are too many possibilities otherwise.

I think his point is death trumps everything so when you kill off your main character then bring him back by  a vague and unknown project you should try harder to explain how that project succeeded and worked.

For me the way in which ships travel in scifi has been established as it's complex make up of x, y, z and most people not being scientist don't care to delve further into it, it works for the universe even SGU ship recharges by flying into stars literally is accepted for that world. Death and resurrection however is not so well waived off everyone knows when you die you don't come back with the exception of 2 people ever. It's a fact you and I will die and we won't be brought back unless God himself does it shep being brought back minus godly intervention needs to be discussed BW shouldn't have thought it was OK to go this route if they couldn't explain it.

If BW just did a  and your main character got put in acoma that'd be it no one would question it much more but they didn't so questions have come up and BW should try it's best to answer it. My form hopefully will help BW in this task if we lay out specifically what we want to know they can focus on our request and try hard to answer them satisfactory and in as much of a plausible fashion as possible. The handwaive was not universally excepted they need to explain.

[Ryzaki]

iakus wrote...

I'd think that being captured and used as a lab rat by Collectors before being rescued by Cerberus would do that, and better illustrate the Collector obsession with Shepard, than say, blowing him out of the sky in the first ten minutes 

Ordinary beats facepalm Every.  Single.  Time.  

 

Oh hellz yes. Them experimenting with Shepard and probably probing his mind for the Cipher and exactly what he saw would've been awesome. (would've been a better tie in with ME1 too). 

Missed opportunity much? 

[Chonhulio]

The best thing they could do about this whole Lazarus Episode: Forget it and deny it ever hapened (and find a way to make players forget it as well while playing ME3 - maybe an hypnotic intro video could help ;-)

Death not being absolute invalidates the most basic assumptions and ruins credibility and dramaturgy. Because of this, even most games that do use resurrection as a gameplay mechanic take pains to avoid it in plotlines ("Oh noes! The king was assassinated!" "Yeah? So just rezz him..."). I simply do not understand why this was done in ME2. Especially since - as many have already pointed out - it was only used superficially at best during the game. Bioware ought to know better...

For me, this was a major dampener in ME2. Close to game-breaking and with a lasting negative effect even while replaying. It literally made it impossible for me to enjoy ME2 for quite a while.

That being said, it could have worked, IF there had been a very good explanation very early in the game and IF the aspects of being resurrected had been explored in detail. Doing that in ME3 is far too late. Better try to forget it now.

However, one part of the Lazarus Project might have major consequences: Shepards cybernetics (actually I think they already had an effect storywise: clue word "sedatives"). I think those will play an important part in ME3.

[sighineedname]

iakus wrote...

It's called worldbuilding.

When everything is possible, everything is less magical.  The incredible becomes ho-hum.  The impossible becomes mundane.  If something as extreme as the resurrection of a dead character becomes a plot point, the reasons behind it need to be explained.  It doesn't have to be "real" science.  It doesn't have to be understood by the characters, but it has to explain how and why it happened:

1) a faux-science explanation how a person so heavily augmented with cybernetics is still "exactly the same"? To the point where nothing odd comes up on at least two scans done to confirm Shep's identity.
2) How did Cerberus get their hands on this technology?
3) Why TIM thought Shepard was worth spending all this time and a good chunk of Cerberus' funds to resurrect (no "You're a symbol" isn't good enough)
4) Why this is a unique event and there won't be a sale on Lazarus Booths at the local Wal-Marts in two or three decades

This author does really good magic systems.  I like how he describes it:  Sanderson's_First_Law

Yes, I really hope we get some sort of explanation in ME3, and I hope someone asks CH about that.  I for one really want to know.

I like Sanderson's work in general. But the ending of the Mistborn series was far more ludicrous than Shepard being resurrected with medical technology. Resurrection Shepard is far from anything being possible. 

1) I got the impression TIM wanted him exactly the same mentally; IE his decision making and deduction remains the same.

2) This may yet be a plot point. IE, reaper tech.

3) TIM isn't as specific about it, but I imagine it's the same reason the reapers want him. He killed one.

4) 4 is answered by number 3 isn't it? We're playing the story of the most exceptional person in the unverse. No one else would be worth the economic expense to resurrect.

I admit I would like a codex entry with their explanation of the project, but I simply don't see how the details of the project are relevant to the reaper apocalypse. The only exception is if it's reaper tech that makes him more inclined to being indoctrinated.

[Chonhulio]

sighineedname wrote...
A false expectation does not invalidate all other possilbities. The fact is Bioware chose that this universe has the tech available at this time to perform a bodily resurrection. As I stated before, there is the possiblity he has no brain damage from the impact, so given we are following his story, we can just assume this is the case and move on. The science of the lazarus project offers no plot development. It merely would satisfy fan curiosity. I fail to see how progress on gene therapy determines progress on traumatic injury in our universe, let alone a fictional one.

Demanding an explanation of the science in modern terms is absurd, at best.

There is a huge difference between things that are well known in the real world and things that are not.

Travelling faster than light is impossible as far as we know. Yet, that is no issue. We do not encounter this problem in everyday's life. We know that it is impossible *in theory*. Also, there is a good reason for it in the game: Without it, a reasonably fast-paced story outside our solar system would not be possible.

If you do not reject sience fiction as a whole, you can accept it quickly (a physicist might have more difficulties - as would a person who rejects science fiction). So, Bioware does not have to explain FTL in detail because we are readily willing to accept it.

Death, however, is something everyone of an age to play ME should at least have heard of. Most players probably have already been confronted by it - and everyone knows that dead people won't come back. We know that it is impssible *in practice*.
Additionally, it is completely unnecessary in the game. Why was Shepard killed and resurrected?!
Story element? No, it wasn't even used.
Excuse for character reset? Come on...
Excuse to get cybernetics in him/her? A thousand other ways would have been more plausible.
Explanation for co-operation with Cerberus? Doesn't work, because now we need an ever bigger explanation .

This makes it very hard to accept this plot element. The best I can come up with personally is trying to ignore it.

[Sable Phoenix]

Most people here "get" the ideas behind willing suspension of disbelief.  I'm stunned at how many there are that still don't seem to get the point, however.  I can only facepalm and assume that people like that are why something like Twilight is actually popular.

We're not expecting Mass Effect to be internally consistent with modern science.  We're expecting it to be internally consistent with itself.  What's the one thing that sets Mass Effect apart from the modern world?  The titular mass effect, of course.  The "magic" in the science fiction comes from that and that alone.  Everything else is extrapolated from modern technology, whether it's medical or otherwise.  Element Zero is the Applied Phlebotinum of the universe, which, when it's done well, is all we need for suspension of disbelief.

The Lazarus Project has nothing to do the mass effect, and as such needs additional explanation.  Explanation we're never given.  That is why it's bad writing.

[Warkupo]

Yeah Bioware, tell us how to make zombies already! We know you know!

[Iakus]

Sable Phoenix wrote...

We're not expecting Mass Effect to be internally consistent with modern science.  We're expecting it to be internally consistent with itself.  What's the one thing that sets Mass Effect apart from the modern world?  The titular mass effect, of course.  The "magic" in the science fiction comes from that and that alone.  Everything else is extrapolated from modern technology, whether it's medical or otherwise.  Element Zero is the Applied Phlebotinum of the universe, which, when it's done well, is all we need for suspension of disbelief.

The Lazarus Project has nothing to do the mass effect, and as such needs additional explanation.  Explanation we're never given.  That is why it's bad writing.

This.  All of it.  This one paragraph encapsulates all that's wrong with the Lazarus Project.  It boggles my mind too that more can't or won't understand this problem.

[Praetor Knight]

Ryzaki wrote...

Nah he was "meat and tubes" that's not...a coma.  

Yeah OK, Shep was only meat and tubes for the whole 24 months Shepard was out of it .


Seriously though, I figured rebuilding / restoring the body would not be as hard as getting the brain right.

So with the brain most likely being the last part that got to working properly, why can't Shepard have been in a Coma or something similar?

We did get that one scene with Wilson and Miranda where Shepard was waking up too quickly and was sedated, then awakened sometime later with their little mech problem.

Modifié par Praetor Shepard, 26 juin 2011 - 03:01 .

[Reapinger]

DCarter wrote...

Phaedon wrote...

DCarter wrote...

I'm no biologist but I've never seen this part of the plot as much of a stretch. We can already recreate some individual organs in real life. Flash forward 170 odd years and with the added bonus of interaction with lots of other advanced species and I don't see why it wouldn't be possible to recreate organic materials to a very specific degree with enough time and resources.

That's not the problem, the problem is not restoring the damaged brain cells either, the problem is that for now, we are unaware as to how to "turn the swich back on"

Electric currents wouldn't work? 

Flood the brain with L-Dopamine. 

[Destroy Raiden_]

Praetor Shepard wrote...

Ryzaki wrote...

Nah he was "meat and tubes" that's not...a coma.  

Yeah OK, Shep was only meat and tubes for the whole 24 months Shepard was out of it .


Seriously though, I figured rebuilding / restoring the body would not be as hard as getting the brain right.

So with the brain most likely being the last part that got to working properly, why can't Shepard have been in a Coma or something similar?

We did get that one scene with Wilson and Miranda where Shepard was waking up too quickly and was sedated, then awakened sometime later with their little mech problem.

I think once shep's body was up and running he/she was in acoma or at least a medically induced one until Wilson accidently woke him/her up.