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[REgentleman]

"The man the Turian Hierarchy calls a diplomatic incident waiting to happen" sounds like he's doing a great job, yeah.

[Dean_the_Young]

slimshedim wrote...

So, we even want to be ruled by corrupt, selfish, false, backstabbing, powerhungry douches in computergames?

Udina neither been shown to be corrupt, particularly selfish, dishonest, or even personally ambitious. He's about as much an Alliance nationalist as you can get: there's yet to be a point where something that would benefit himself didn't benefit the Alliance, while even Anderson will admit he certainly puts himself in hard straits trying to make things better for the Alliance.

Backstabbing as a requirement of responsibilities and beliefs, of course, is something he shares with Anderson. ("Wouldn't tell you regardless, Shepard: Cerberus!"). Vis-a-vis the Normandy lockdown, Udina both kept Shepard from doing something that would have hurt Shepard more (get himself stripped of status and deemed insane), and made a reasonable decision given what he knew and didn't simply take on faith.

And yes, people who make informed choices and not those on faith are good people to have in positions in power.

[Raygereio]

I'm frankly puzzled at people claiming Udina is the better politician. Is in the books that he suddenly gains these magical diplomatic skills? Pretty much all we see him do in the games is be angry and throw hissy fits in front of the people he should be sweet talking. His goal does seem to be to secure power, but that's presented is being just for him, not for the people he's supposed to be representing.
Then again; it's not like Anderson is a really good choice in the end. If only because he doesn't want it and people don't tend to do a good job in those cases.

[slimshedim]

Raygereio wrote...

I'm frankly puzzled at people claiming Udina is the better politician. Is in the books that he suddenly gains these magical diplomatic skills? Pretty much all we see him do in the games is be angry and throw hissy fits in front of the people he should be sweet talking. His goal does seem to be to secure power, but that's presented is being just for him, not for the people he's supposed to be representing.
Then again; it's not like Anderson is a really good choice in the end. If only because he doesn't want it and people don't tend to do a good job in those cases.

This!

[Guitar-Hero]

I tried choosing Udina over Anderson once, sadly there didn't seem to be much difference.

[Eurhetemec]

Dean_the_Young wrote...

Udina neither been shown to be corrupt, particularly selfish, dishonest, or even personally ambitious. He's about as much an Alliance nationalist as you can get: there's yet to be a point where something that would benefit himself didn't benefit the Alliance, while even Anderson will admit he certainly puts himself in hard straits trying to make things better for the Alliance.

Backstabbing as a requirement of responsibilities and beliefs, of course, is something he shares with Anderson. ("Wouldn't tell you regardless, Shepard: Cerberus!"). Vis-a-vis the Normandy lockdown, Udina both kept Shepard from doing something that would have hurt Shepard more (get himself stripped of status and deemed insane), and made a reasonable decision given what he knew and didn't simply take on faith.

And yes, people who make informed choices and not those on faith are good people to have in positions in power.

You're right that he's not corrupt (that we know of), nor particularly selfish, though I think "not even personally ambitious" is ludicrous, as he obviously sees himself as the human councillor, and councillor is the most powerful political position in the entire galaxy.

That's like saying people running for president of the US aren't "personally ambitious". Sorry dude, they are. Just because their interests and the interests of the country align (at least to them), doesn't make them "not personally ambitious".

The other thing you're right about is that, like TIM and to a lesser extent Ashley, he's a "human nationalist". He puts human ascendence ahead of other concerns, but he sees himself as very much a part of that.

However, he is dishonest, both personally, in that he leads Shepard into a political ambush, rather than giving him any warning, and indeed, doesn't seem in the least sorry that he had to do it, and politically, in that he is totally happy to pretend that the Reapers aren't coming in ME1, despite initially seeming to think it was an issue, and happy to continue the cover-up of Sovereign in ME2, whilst seemingly not making any preparations to fight the Reapers (I don't hear any news about entire new fleets being built or the like). Anderson doesn't backstab with "Cerberus!", he honestly and straightforwardly admits to your face why he is not telling you something. That, Dean, is the opposite of a backstab. You can call it a facestab, but not a backstab. The Normandy lockdown was a serious error of judgement on Udina's part that actually calls his entire character into question, particularly as he does it gleefully rather than regretfully or apologetically.

Basically if you changed him from a grinning wanker to polite and apologetic, but had him do the same exact things, he'd seem like an honest fool, but as he is a grinning wanker, it highlights his dishonest nature.

He's also a legendary back-room wheeler-dealer, which means he's good at getting compromises, but strongly suggests he has few principles, and such an unprincipled nature rarely ends well in a politician.

EDIT - Also, as others have said, he seems to flip out and throw hissy fits a lot, and I don't know how Turian, Salarian or even Asari politics works, but I suspect hissy fits are not well-respected anywhere.

Modifié par Eurhetemec, 29 juin 2011 - 07:06 .

[Chuvvy]

Udina being councilor is canon. Anderson steps do as councilor in Retribution.

[Dean_the_Young]

Eurhetemec wrote...

Dean_the_Young wrote...

Udina neither been shown to be corrupt, particularly selfish, dishonest, or even personally ambitious. He's about as much an Alliance nationalist as you can get: there's yet to be a point where something that would benefit himself didn't benefit the Alliance, while even Anderson will admit he certainly puts himself in hard straits trying to make things better for the Alliance.

Backstabbing as a requirement of responsibilities and beliefs, of course, is something he shares with Anderson. ("Wouldn't tell you regardless, Shepard: Cerberus!"). Vis-a-vis the Normandy lockdown, Udina both kept Shepard from doing something that would have hurt Shepard more (get himself stripped of status and deemed insane), and made a reasonable decision given what he knew and didn't simply take on faith.

And yes, people who make informed choices and not those on faith are good people to have in positions in power.

You're right that he's not corrupt (that we know of), nor particularly selfish, though I think "not even personally ambitious" is ludicrous, as he obviously sees himself as the human councillor, and councillor is the most powerful political position in the entire galaxy.

That's like saying people running for president of the US aren't "personally ambitious". Sorry dude, they are. Just because their interests and the interests of the country align (at least to them), doesn't make them "not personally ambitious".

Let's rephrase that in a more explicit wording of an intended interpretation of my words:

Udina does not let his personal ambition get in the way of his job, which is to be ambitious for the Alliance.

However, he is dishonest, both personally, in that he leads Shepard into a political ambush, rather than giving him any warning, and indeed, doesn't seem in the least sorry that he had to do it, and politically, in that he is totally happy to pretend that the Reapers aren't coming in ME1, despite initially seeming to think it was an issue, and happy to continue the cover-up of Sovereign in ME2, whilst seemingly not making any preparations to fight the Reapers (I don't hear any news about entire new fleets being built or the like). Anderson doesn't backstab with "Cerberus!", he honestly and straightforwardly admits to your face why he is not telling you something. That, Dean, is the opposite of a backstab. You can call it a facestab, but not a backstab. The Normandy lockdown was a serious error of judgement on Udina's part that actually calls his entire character into question, particularly as he does it gleefully rather than regretfully or apologetically.

First, a surprise is not dishonesty. In so much that telling Shepard there was going to be an organized fleet to oppose Saren, this was a decision informed by everyone's evaluation of Shepard.. The Council and Alliance's concerns that Shepard might not return and faithfully obey lawful orders if warned ahead of time is, in fact, proven right when Shepard does not obey lawful orders and leaves the Citadel.

The Normandy lockdown, like all decisions, can only be weighed on the merits of what is known on the time... which means all the evidence that Shepard can bring to bare. That Shepard was right does not mean Udina was incompetent, unreasonable, or even incorrect to not believe him.

He's also a legendary back-room wheeler-dealer, which means he's good at getting compromises, but strongly suggests he has few principles, and such an unprincipled nature rarely ends well in a politician.

Yes, because back-room politics horse-trading implies few principals. (This site lacks a good eyeroll.)

Or we could take Anderson's depiction of him, in which Udina is good at knowing when to push and when to fold for future gains.

EDIT - Also, as others have said, he seems to flip out and throw hissy fits a lot, and I don't know how Turian, Salarian or even Asari politics works, but I suspect hissy fits are not well-respected anywhere.

Not to put too fine a point on it, but I don't think certain others understand the difference between hissy fits, hardline arguments, and personal grouchiness.

Modifié par Dean_the_Young, 29 juin 2011 - 08:51 .

[Dean_the_Young]

Slidell505 wrote...

Udina being councilor is canon. Anderson steps do as councilor in Retribution.

There is no such mention anywhere in Retribution.

[Spectre_907]

They made Udina the Councilor based on the in-game choice for the novels. We don't know how that will impact the game (if it even does) nor does it make Udina the 'true' human councilor.

[Mixon]

I think Udina will be with Reapers like Cerberus

[Saaziel]

I appointed Udina on my first run.

Though the rest of my play through have been split down the middle. I won't lie , appointing Anderson does feel better , and having him slap Udina around in ME2 is probably worth the trouble.

The political situation on the citadel isn't well defined enough, in my opinion , to make a proper judgement call here.

[Neverwinter_Knight77]

Just because Anderson might not have been councilor in some book does not mean that he won't be in Mass Effect 3.  The book has to make certain choices that the player would have made, for the sake of it being a coherant story.  It's not like a video game.  Why do so many people insist on downplaying Councilor Anderson?  I will not believe that he steps down until I play Mass Effect 3 and it's right there in front of my face.

Redundant Clarification: THERE IS NO "CANON" CHOICE FOR COUNCILOR.  The people who insist on perpetuating this myth on the forums are basing their conclusions on pure speculation.

Modifié par Neverwinter_Knight77, 29 juin 2011 - 09:00 .

[GamerJ]

anderson also wears a other suit if he is councillor, and udina not, and it looks like anderson does way more to help then udina does, he just talks bad about you everytime eventhough u saved his and the councils ass =-| When in me3 if anderson was still counciler, or still have connections on the citadel he will help u more then udina, in my eyes udina is a man with big words but when it finaly comes with the fight of the reapers arrive he's scared.

[Thargorichiban]

Udina always gave me a "Palpatine" vibe throughout ME1. I didn't ever think it a good idea to give the guy more power.

I'd rather give the power to the man who doesn't seem to want it at all.

[eye basher]

The fact is that the coucil is full of self serving politicians that only care about themselves if your going to deal with them you need someone that can play there own game and Udina is that choice.

[nitrog100]

I was kind of pissed when I found out that Anderson quit. I went through the trouble of recommending him, and he just up and quit on me. Not cool Anderson.

[Leoism]

If there is one character in the whole game i could get rid of, it would be that imbecile of a "man" he annoys me senseless. When i saw anderson spark him clean out i was smiling from ear to ear happy days!

[jamesp81]

There is no canon choice per se.

I do know that in ME3 Anderson is not the Councilor no matter what you chose. He retires from politics sometime between ME2 and the start of ME3.

[Leoism]

Had a feeling that might happen, shame but i guess he will possibly help shepard more on the frontline perhaps who knows.

[Kreid]

I don't doubt Udina is a better politician than Anderson and the Alliance would benefit more from him being the human councilor, but I don't trust the guy specially since he doesn't trust me at all, and knowing what I know that will (provably) lead to an undesirable outcome for all the Galaxy as a whole in the long run, just like it happened with the Normandy lockdown. I know Udina was making what he considered a logical approach to the situation but it still almost lead to the Reaper invasion taking place, no way around about that.

Besides, I replayed Arrival yesterday and when Harbinger says: "your leaders will worship us" I reaffirmed my opinion of Anderson being a better choice, I can see Udina trying to bargain with Harbinger and unknowingly dooming everyone, while I know Anderson will stay firm against the Reapers period. 

Modifié par Creid-X, 30 juin 2011 - 11:19 .

[Eurhetemec]

Dean_the_Young wrote...

Let's rephrase that in a more explicit wording of an intended interpretation of my words:

Udina does not let his personal ambition get in the way of his job, which is to be ambitious for the Alliance.

In a very general sense, I'd agree with this. However, his vision of Alliance success is not necessarily compatible with the realities of the universe.

First, a surprise is not dishonesty. In so much that telling Shepard there was going to be an organized fleet to oppose Saren, this was a decision informed by everyone's evaluation of Shepard.. The Council and Alliance's concerns that Shepard might not return and faithfully obey lawful orders if warned ahead of time is, in fact, proven right when Shepard does not obey lawful orders and leaves the Citadel.

Intentionally surprising people most certainly is, by definition, dishonest. It's not necessarily a nasty kind of dishonest, but absolutely requires that you withhold information from the other person in order to alter their behaviour, which is fundamentally dishonest. There's no getting out of that. A lie of omission is a lie, period.

His behaviour also shows that he's a bad candidate for leader, here, because he helps make a cowardly decision which risks the entire galaxy, rather than taking a more brave risk and letting Shepard go on his mission. It would be fair for him to say "Sorry Shepard, we can't send a fleet!" (which he does), but to go beyond that and pre-emptively stopping him from taking a stealth ship with little battle value to check Ilos out goes well into the realms of stupidity. It's an example of why he's a terrible leader for the ME situation - he prefers cowardice and appeas

It's simply untrue to suggest that Shepard is the only one to have seen or spoken to Sovereign, by this point, too. For example in my game, Garrus and Liara also saw Sovereign's projection and heard what it said. It's genuinely illogical of the Council to believe that Sovereign is a "Geth battleship", because it wildly outperforms the rest of the Geth ships in an obviously disturbing way. If he has an miltary advisors, they're either yes-men or he's failing to listen to them. At the very least he should have authorized Shepard's mission to Ilos by himself.

The Normandy lockdown, like all decisions, can only be weighed on the merits of what is known on the time... which means all the evidence that Shepard can bring to bare. That Shepard was right does not mean Udina was incompetent, unreasonable, or even incorrect to not believe him.

Absolutely it does. He had enough evidence to know that it was at least worth sending a scouting mission, but he chose to selectively ignore it in favour of what was the easy political decision. He put Alliance success in politics ahead of all other concerns - particularly security. Not a good trait in a politician involved in any kind of leadership or decsion-making.

Yes, because back-room politics horse-trading implies few principals. (This site lacks a good eyeroll.)

Or we could take Anderson's depiction of him, in which Udina is good at knowing when to push and when to fold for future gains.

Sorry, you have a specific example of him choosing theoretical political gain over real safety. That's what I'm talking about. Further he's show to have poor judgement in ME2, when he arrives after Anderson and Shepard have spoken to the Council and irrationally assumes that they've caused a problem, when they actually reached an equitable solution he was too cowardly to request.

See - this is what makes him so terrible. He's terrified of doing anything which might have "political fallout", yet happy to risk everything on the assumption that a threat doesn't exist - this is the exact opposite to the way most successful government run, for example. Just look at the US in 20th century. UFOs, for example, were a far-fetched threat. There was little evidence for them. The same for psychic powers. Yet the US spent a good amount of time and effort and even risk on checking them out, because you don't get to be a superpower by ignoring potential risks.

Yet that's what Udina prefers.

Not to put too fine a point on it, but I don't think certain others understand the difference between hissy fits, hardline arguments, and personal grouchiness.

I can't speak for others, but I do, and Udina's randomly aggressive/rude behaviour is extremely unhelpful, and would be considered a mark of stupidity or poor political judgement in a real politician.

TLDR: Udina is the kind of politician who will take political gain ahead of everything else. He ignores fringe threats in a way that modern Western politicians would consider dangerous.

[Dean_the_Young]

Eurhetemec wrote...

Dean_the_Young wrote...

Let's rephrase that in a more explicit wording of an intended interpretation of my words:

Udina does not let his personal ambition get in the way of his job, which is to be ambitious for the Alliance.

In a very general sense, I'd agree with this. However, his vision of Alliance success is not necessarily compatible with the realities of the universe.

Nothing he's done to date has been incompatible with known realities of the universe.

His behaviour also shows that he's a bad candidate for leader, here, because he helps make a cowardly decision which risks the entire galaxy, rather than taking a more brave risk and letting Shepard go on his mission. It would be fair for him to say "Sorry Shepard, we can't send a fleet!" (which he does), but to go beyond that and pre-emptively stopping him from taking a stealth ship with little battle value to check Ilos out goes well into the realms of stupidity. It's an example of why he's a terrible leader for the ME situation - he prefers cowardice and appeas

Eurhetemec, ex-post-facto realizations that can't be proven at the time of consideration can not be used as proof of poor judgement. Ignoring a risk that can only be proven with the argument of hindsight is not cowardly or irresponsible: addressing known and reasonable risks and ignorring unreasonable ones is the basis of responsibility.

Besides the nebulous subjective value of just how valuable a frigate that can't be targetted or spotted with conventional sensors could be in battle, of course.

It's simply untrue to suggest that Shepard is the only one to have seen or spoken to Sovereign, by this point, too. For example in my game, Garrus and Liara also saw Sovereign's projection and heard what it said. It's genuinely illogical of the Council to believe that Sovereign is a "Geth battleship", because it wildly outperforms the rest of the Geth ships in an obviously disturbing way. If he has an miltary advisors, they're either yes-men or he's failing to listen to them. At the very least he should have authorized Shepard's mission to Ilos by himself.

Sovereign doesn't wildly outperform the rest of the geth in an obvious way. Even the limits of geth technology are unknown in ME1: there's simply no known limit on what the Geth can or can not.

Nor, at the time that Sovereign is alive in ME1, is 'geth ship' the only competing theory.

Absolutely it does. He had enough evidence to know that it was at least worth sending a scouting mission, but he chose to selectively ignore it in favour of what was the easy political decision. He put Alliance success in politics ahead of all other concerns - particularly security. Not a good trait in a politician involved in any kind of leadership or decsion-making.

Very good ones, actually, when a scouting mission can be done at any time but political pressures to maintain an alliance are real now. Unless a valid reason can be demonstrated why Ilos has to be investigated NOW, at this minute, then it can not be called an immediate priority.

Shepard believed Illos was an immediate priority, but he had nothing to suggest why it was or even what the Conduit could do or how it would enable Saren victory over a mobilized Council fleet blocking the relay routes to the Citadel.

Sorry, you have a specific example of him choosing theoretical political gain over real safety. That's what I'm talking about. Further he's show to have poor judgement in ME2, when he arrives after Anderson and Shepard have spoken to the Council and irrationally assumes that they've caused a problem, when they actually reached an equitable solution he was too cowardly to request.

See, this isn't what you're talking about. You're talking hypothetical safety against other forms of hypothetical safety. Only when something ends up working out afterwards you call it 'real', and when it's a valid consideration beforehand you call it 'theoretical'.

There is nothing to suggest Udina was too cowardly to request anything, or even that he was approached in any regards. There is Anderson's own admission that he deliberatly went behind Udina's back and kept him in the dark.

There is nothing irrational in assuming Shepard coming may have caused a problem: Shepard does that quite often enough as is, and Anderson's conduct is already enough to warrant being called a problem.

See - this is what makes him so terrible. He's terrified of doing anything which might have "political fallout", yet happy to risk everything on the assumption that a threat doesn't exist - this is the exact opposite to the way most successful government run, for example. Just look at the US in 20th century. UFOs, for example, were a far-fetched threat. There was little evidence for them. The same for psychic powers. Yet the US spent a good amount of time and effort and even risk on checking them out, because you don't get to be a superpower by ignoring potential risks.

Yet that's what Udina prefers.

This site lacks a good eye roll, on multiple levels of historic analysis.

TLDR: Udina is the kind of politician who will take political gain ahead of everything else. He ignores fringe threats in a way that modern Western politicians would consider dangerous.

Udina's pretty conventional in the sort of threats he ignores.

Threat of galactic extinction via hyper-advanced AI race of star ships that thousands of year of acheology and science hasn't provided prior evidence, as argued by... a soldier who had a dream from mind-altering technology.

Yeah, 'sensible' governments would take that seriously.