223 réponses à ce sujet

[SpiffySquee]

I did this rather quickly so the quality is a little shoddy, but it should clearly explain the points to everyone. Enjoy!

[snowfox522]

I thought you present most of your case is very well and for the most part I agree.

however, my stance on the whole situation is that the Council was willing to believe that the reapers were real until they found a lack of concrete evidence during the two years that Shepherd was presumed dead and during that time. They talked themselves into a state of complacency thus,the dismissal of Shepherd's claims

plus, as you said, just because they run a government doesn't mean the sharpest crayons in the pack.

[Kasai666]

You amuse me. You get a cookie. But I eated it.

[SpiffySquee]

 Nooooooooo! My cookie!!!! 

[Savber100]

There's an issue about the Council denying the Reapers? 

We (as in Americans) had a government that pretended for years that Iraq had WMD. We overlooked the the concentration camps despite plain evidence. We made up crap to start the Vietnam War.

Governments are stupid.

Sure it might be a cliche but it's hardly a total leap in logic to see the Council bury their heads in the sand just as a ineffectual government usually is.

Modifié par Savber100, 22 juillet 2011 - 04:35 .

[Kane Corr]

The Council wanted to stop widespread panic before it could even begin. Investigate it in private, and in the shadows. If knowledge of the reapers hit the extranet and newsstands all around, then the Citadel government and everyone around, the whole infrastructure, would have collapsed under the insanity...therefore, leaving a very big mess for when the Reapers actually DID approach.

[The Real Bowser]

Good post, I agree. I never really thought heavily on it, but yeah it makes sense.

[shepskisaac]

Kane Corr wrote...

The Council wanted to stop widespread panic before it could even begin. Investigate it in private, and in the shadows. If knowledge of the reapers hit the extranet and newsstands all around, then the Citadel government and everyone around, the whole infrastructure, would have collapsed under the insanity...therefore, leaving a very big mess for when the Reapers actually DID approach.

You suggest the Council actually believes it, found evidence and all and is just trying to cover everything up including making Shepard believe they don't think Reapers are real, while in the meantime they're actually preparing somehow? I could see that happening.

[Kane Corr]

IsaacShep wrote...

Kane Corr wrote...

The Council wanted to stop widespread panic before it could even begin. Investigate it in private, and in the shadows. If knowledge of the reapers hit the extranet and newsstands all around, then the Citadel government and everyone around, the whole infrastructure, would have collapsed under the insanity...therefore, leaving a very big mess for when the Reapers actually DID approach.

You suggest the Council actually believes it, found evidence and all and is just trying to cover everything up including making Shepard believe they don't think Reapers are real, while in the meantime they're actually preparing somehow? I could see that happening.

It's actually true. I mean, well....I guess I'll go into it a little bit right now.

So, let's look at this from the Council's perspective. All the council races, the Terminus, etc. Alot of people. Imagine all of them being notified of a very REAL threat that was knocking on their door...panic, chaos, anarchy.

Stocks would drop, inflation, debt,  civil wars, crime rate increase, drugs on the rise, strife between various other forms of governments. It would be an absolute mess. The Council races would be handing themselves over to the reapers on a silver platter. So, what do you do? Deny. Deny. Deny.

Why?

Because it's the only way you'll keep your civilization intact, and as primed as it ever will be. Just investigate, experiment, and build secretly for years. You don't know how the Reapers will do it, or even partially why....only that they DO exist, and you have to maintain order. Order is the MOST important facet. The Reapers LOVE chaos. It makes their job easier. So, the Council is actually right in doing what they were doing.

Also too, there were little hints of this in Mass Effect 2. Especially from the Alliance's perspective...like sending Ash/Kaidan to various outpost worlds, setting up defense systems against The Collecters. It's not like these governments don't realize the threat, just that they'd rather do it in the shadows, and without public interference.

Modifié par Kane Corr, 22 juillet 2011 - 05:43 .

[ubermensch007]

SpiffySquee wrote...



I did this rather quickly so the quality is a little shoddy, but it should clearly explain the points to everyone. Enjoy!

Goddamn... That YouTube Vid is long! I just stopped it at 10:11 - Good grief: You know there is an easier way of going about explaining,"Why the Council denying the existence of the Reaper Fleet isn't crazy or stupid.

One of the things that really surprised me about Commander Shepard in Mass Effect 1 is how quickly and without much resistence, he believes in all this buisness about 'cycles of extinction' uber-powerful sentient starships and so forth.It's like he doesn't have a skeptical bone in his body.

Here's the deal.BioWare did something truly brilliant with Shepard's relationship to the Council.

- Commander Shepard is Fox Mulder.

- The Citadel Council is Dana Sculley.

The Council is circumspect.They have to be.For there are political and economic matters that Shepard doesn't consider.He's like Peirce Brosnan's character from Dante's Peak.There is even a scene in that film where his boss and friend says to him, something like what I have mentioned about the political/economic ramifications that cannot be treated lightly.

If the Council repeals the Treaty of Farixen.If the Council starts spending all this money and resources on building the largest fleet of dreadnought class starships in the known galaxy and Commander Shepard is wrong about there being a Reaper Fleet.It would not only be an embarrasment to them.It would quite possibly cripple thier economy and cause them to lose all credibilty as a government body.

Sovereign is like Superman in a way.Superman looks human but he can do things that no other human can.Soveriegn is recognised as a dreadnought but its scal eof power and size is unlike any known dreadnought ever encountered before.For most of us -- It would be alot easier to believe that one person could be as powerful as Superman, but not 10,000 people.It's the same with Sovereign;.Its hard to believe that something as powerful as that could be Mass-Produced...Its as simple as that.

Modifié par ubermensch007, 22 juillet 2011 - 06:05 .

[George-Kinsill]

As for not being able to carbon date Soveriegn, that would be true if he were made purely from inorganic materials, but all Reapers are made from organic materials as well, which could be radio carbon dated. Tthis for a fact could be done in the ME universe as salarian scientists did it with the living starship (and possible dead Reaper) Leviathan of dis, which was radio carbon dated to be nearly a billion years old.

And also, while proving age does not prove who made them, there is a benefit to ruling out hypotheses in science, and by carbon dating, Geth origin would be disproved, allowing the council and their scientists to focus on other theories that would fit (like the Reaper theory) and prevent valuable time from being wasted.

Edit:

Also, your argument that the council isn't stupid because generally governments do stupid things does not prove that they are not idiots. It only proves that like many other governments they are stupid, on par and exceeding that of Neville Chamberlain, considered by many one of the most ineffectual leaders of our time. Sure, you prove it isn't a plot hole (and I also hate it when everyone shouts plot hole, especially when ME3 hasn't been released yet) but not that the council isn't acting idiotically when it comes to the Reapers.

Modifié par George-Kinsill, 22 juillet 2011 - 06:54 .

[Halo Quea]

This sort of reminds me of the reaction to the Y2K bug that had everyone from Alan Greenspan to FEMA scaring the crap out of everyone. It's estimated that nearly $600 Billion dollars was spent in an effort to keep computers around the world from crashing.

The scenarios being put out there ranged from the minor annoyance to an apocalyptic collapse. I know practically none of the public schools were made compliant, and hospitals that didn't have the budgets couldn't just stop using medical equipment and medical records. Most said they would meet the problems as they came.

So in the end the nations and corporations that had the resources pumped hundreds of billions into preparing for it. The nations that lacked the resources simply crossed the fingers or ignored it altogether...............................................and nothing happened. There was egg on so many faces.

I remember the local Home Depot in my neighborhood took pity on some customers and allowed them to return things like huge supplies of water and generators that they no longer needed or wanted. It was really ridiculous.

Now we of course know the Reaper threat is REAL, but I imagine that the Council could be thinking that if it took the warnings of one man/woman and his/her crew, and built a massive fleet or planetary defenses to counter the Reapers........................and nothing happens IT WOULD BE A MAJOR PUBLIC EMBARRASSMENT.

The thing is everyone knows from the Kasmui Stolen Memories mission that the Alliance HAS the proof Shepard needed to convince the Council all along.

[didymos1120]

George-Kinsill wrote...

As for not being able to carbon date Soveriegn, that would be true if he were made purely from inorganic materials, but all Reapers are made from organic materials as well, which could be radio carbon dated.

Sure. And the date obtained would be useless because you'd have no idea where that carbon came from.  You have to know that in order to compensate for all sorts of factors (rate of C14 production on the planet of origin, whether the species it came from had some physiological or environmental factor skewing the expected ratio for that planet,  etc., etc., etc.).  Not to mention that you'd have no idea if the processing methods screwed with things further (beyond the fact that you'd have carbon from who knows how many individuals from who knows how many different planets all jumbled together).

[didymos1120]

George-Kinsill wrote...
 Tthis for a fact could be done in the ME universe as salarian scientists did it with the living starship (and possible dead Reaper) Leviathan of dis, which was radio carbon dated to be nearly a billion years old.

OK, one, radiocarbon dating doesn't remotely cover that range.  It's only useful up to ~60K years.  Two, it was never said how they estimated its age.  Most likely from a combo of the geology of the crater it was found in and some other radioisotope method.  In any case, probably not a direct dating of the Leviathan itself.

Modifié par didymos1120, 22 juillet 2011 - 07:04 .

[CroGamer002]

WTF?!

This didn't appear in my sub box!
Watching it now.

[George-Kinsill]

didymos1120 wrote...

George-Kinsill wrote...

As for not being able to carbon date Soveriegn, that would be true if he were made purely from inorganic materials, but all Reapers are made from organic materials as well, which could be radio carbon dated.

Sure. And the date obtained would be useless because you'd have no idea where that carbon came from.  You have to know that in order to compensate for all sorts of factors (rate of C14 production on the planet of origin, whether the species it came from had some physiological or environmental factor skewing the expected ratio for that planet,  etc., etc., etc.).  Not to mention that you'd have no idea if the processing methods screwed with things further (beyond the fact that you'd have carbon from who knows how many individuals from who knows how many different planets all jumbled together).

Considering how with Leviathan they were able to tell the difference between organic and inorganic carbon (which even now we have the technology to do so) the scientists could learn a number of things:

1) The ship has organic parts in it, which would make it remarkably different from a Geth ship,

2) Sov was definitely made before the Geth even existed, as he would have to be at least 100,000+ years old.

Again, as I mentioned previopusly, this would not prove the Reaper theoy all together, but it would rule out the idea that it is of Geth origin. Another aspect of Sov that would prove it is not of Geth origin are the thanix cannons. These guns tore up the alliance fleet, and were able to kill a collector cruiser in two hits (which is advanced enough to see through the Normandy's stealth system). If the Geth built or in any way were able to get into Sov's systems, they would have been able to easily reverse engineer the thanix cannons as the Turians did, and attatch them to all of their ships. Tthe Turians were able to do this in less than two years, and are easy enough to install on the Normandy in a couple of days, so why wouldn't the Geth have thanix cannns when they had 20 or so years to prepare? Again, the Geth origin theory is untenable.

[Aimi]

I always thought it was that the extant evidence for the Reapers was insufficient to justify the information's release and the inevitable costs associated with preparing for such an invasion. Sure, pieces of Sovereign are pretty good evidence. But is this evidence worth trillions of credits in dreadnought expropriations, or the like? Besides, most militaries were rearming anyway, especially if the Council wasn't saved in ME1, and most reverse-engineering on Sovereign's wreckage that could be done seems to have been done (from the Thanix cannon to EDI).

[Halo Quea]

George-Kinsill wrote...

didymos1120 wrote...

George-Kinsill wrote...

As for not being able to carbon date Soveriegn, that would be true if he were made purely from inorganic materials, but all Reapers are made from organic materials as well, which could be radio carbon dated.

Sure. And the date obtained would be useless because you'd have no idea where that carbon came from.  You have to know that in order to compensate for all sorts of factors (rate of C14 production on the planet of origin, whether the species it came from had some physiological or environmental factor skewing the expected ratio for that planet,  etc., etc., etc.).  Not to mention that you'd have no idea if the processing methods screwed with things further (beyond the fact that you'd have carbon from who knows how many individuals from who knows how many different planets all jumbled together).

Considering how with Leviathan they were able to tell the difference between organic and inorganic carbon (which even now we have the technology to do so) the scientists could learn a number of things:

1) The ship has organic parts in it, which would make it remarkably different from a Geth ship,

2) Sov was definitely made before the Geth even existed, as he would have to be at least 100,000+ years old.

Again, as I mentioned previopusly, this would not prove the Reaper theoy all together, but it would rule out the idea that it is of Geth origin. Another aspect of Sov that would prove it is not of Geth origin are the thanix cannons. These guns tore up the alliance fleet, and were able to kill a collector cruiser in two hits (which is advanced enough to see through the Normandy's stealth system). If the Geth built or in any way were able to get into Sov's systems, they would have been able to easily reverse engineer the thanix cannons as the Turians did, and attatch them to all of their ships. Tthe Turians were able to do this in less than two years, and are easy enough to install on the Normandy in a couple of days, so why wouldn't the Geth have thanix cannns when they had 20 or so years to prepare?

That's a good question, the obvious answer is that the Reapers didn't want them to have that technology.     For all that we know the Reapers didn't have to indoctrinate the Geth-Heretics, they were willing recruits.  It may not even be possible to indoctrinate the Geth without reprogrammng them.  Legion expressed surprise when he learned that the Heretics were planning to encode Reaper viruses within Geth networks to bring all Geth under Reaper control.   Legion's reaction would indicate that the Geth retain their individuality despite their exposure to the Reapers or Reaper artifacts.   It could just come down to something simple.................the Reapers don't trust anyone they can't indoctrinate and weren't about to share their weapons technology with the Geth-Heretics for that exact reason.

The Collectors on the other hand were completely repurposed and fully assimilated.   While the Collectors had firepower, it's clear their ships and bases were not designed with defenses for combat, the Reapers aren't going to have the same problem.  I say this because of the O4R, the fact that the Collectors would do their dirty work and immediately take refuge in the galactic core.  The Collectors were used to hit and run assaults, not a straight up fight.

[SpiffySquee]

George-Kinsill wrote...

As for not being able to carbon date Soveriegn, that would be true if he were made purely from inorganic materials, but all Reapers are made from organic materials as well, which could be radio carbon dated. Tthis for a fact could be done in the ME universe as salarian scientists did it with the living starship (and possible dead Reaper) Leviathan of dis, which was radio carbon dated to be nearly a billion years old.

And also, while proving age does not prove who made them, there is a benefit to ruling out hypotheses in science, and by carbon dating, Geth origin would be disproved, allowing the council and their scientists to focus on other theories that would fit (like the Reaper theory) and prevent valuable time from being wasted.

Edit:

Also, your argument that the council isn't stupid because generally governments do stupid things does not prove that they are not idiots. It only proves that like many other governments they are stupid, on par and exceeding that of Neville Chamberlain, considered by many one of the most ineffectual leaders of our time. Sure, you prove it isn't a plot hole (and I also hate it when everyone shouts plot hole, especially when ME3 hasn't been released yet) but not that the council isn't acting idiotically when it comes to the Reapers.

First of all how would carbon dating prove anything? How would know the material used to make sov is millions of years old help? How old do you think the metal in the geth ships are? The materials for the geth ships were most likely mined from a planet that formed  billions of years ago. It would only tell you when the materials formed, not when the ship was constructed.

Also, the organic tissue would not help. Carbon dating only works on decaying tissue. I can't carbon date you (for example) until your cells start to decompose. (unless I am seriously mistaking on carbon dating)  The organic tissue is not dead in the reapers or it would have decomposed millions of years ago.  All it would tell them is that the tissue died when Sov died.

And Lastly, I never said the council was not stupid. I only said that it is not some unbelievable plot hole that they could be that stupid.

Modifié par SpiffySquee, 22 juillet 2011 - 09:34 .

[SpiffySquee]

ubermensch007 wrote...

SpiffySquee wrote...



I did this rather quickly so the quality is a little shoddy, but it should clearly explain the points to everyone. Enjoy!

Goddamn... That YouTube Vid is long! I just stopped it at 10:11 - Good grief: You know there is an easier way of going about explaining,"Why the Council denying the existence of the Reaper Fleet isn't crazy or stupid.

Sadly, the only way to prove anything on these forums is to adress every argument one by one, or they will just say you ignored it. Thus the long video. 

[didymos1120]

SpiffySquee wrote...

 I can't carbon date you (for example) until your cells start to decompose. (unless I am seriously mistaking on carbon dating).  The organic tissue is not dead in the reapers or it would have
decomposed millions of years ago.  All it would tell them is that the
tissue died when Sov died. 

Even carbon dating a dead Reaper is useless, for reasons I noted above (as well as others not explicitly noted above).  Similar problems apply to other radioisotope dating methods too.  Dating methods are not as context independent as people like to think.

[SpiffySquee]

didymos1120 wrote...

SpiffySquee wrote...

 I can't carbon date you (for example) until your cells start to decompose. (unless I am seriously mistaking on carbon dating).  The organic tissue is not dead in the reapers or it would have
decomposed millions of years ago.  All it would tell them is that the
tissue died when Sov died. 

Even carbon dating a dead Reaper is useless, for reasons I noted above (as well as others not explicitly noted above).  Similar problems apply to other radioisotope dating methods too.  Dating methods are not as context independent as people like to think.

Yeah, I read your post after your reply. more reasons why it would not work I guess :happy:

[TheKillerAngel]

While you have some decent points, you have a fundamental misunderstanding of radiometric dating, but I won't blame you for it because you admitted that it's not something you are familiar with.

You state that radiometric dating only states how old the material used is. This is a misunderstanding of radiometric dating techniques. If what you said was correct, you mean that C14 dating on pretty much anything today would show that the item is billions of years old. While the atoms may be very old, Radiometric dating does not tell us how old the atoms in a material are. It tells us how long they have been in the sampled form.

This quote, taken from a Yahoo answers response sums it up well (surprise, Y!Answers is usually a ****hole).

What does it mean, then, to say that this rock is a billion years old and that rock is two billion years old? We get this information from radioactive dating. (Carbon-14 dating applies to relatively recent organic material. Other elements, such as uranium, are used for dating rocks.)

As you say, all rocks on earth are the same age in one sense, but they have solidified at vastly different times. (If you want to see new rock forming before your eyes, visit Kilauea volcano in Hawaii and watch flowing lava cool and solidify.)

Radioactive dating of a rock tells us not when the atoms came to earth, but when the rock solidified. Here's a good quotation on the subject that explains why:

"Radioactive isotopes will decay in a regular exponential way such that one-half of a given amount of parent material will decay to form daughter material in a time period called a half-life. A half-life is NOT one-half the age of the rock! When the material is liquid or gaseous, the parent and daughter isotopes can escape, but when the material solidifies, they cannot so the ratio of parent to daughter isotopes is frozen in. The parent isotope can only decay, increasing the amount of daughter isotopes. Radioactive dating gives the solidification age."

You cannot use C14 dating to measure the age of an object past roughly 50k years because by that point so much C14 has decayed that it cannot be accurately measured. However, there are multiple dating methods, and techniques such as K-Argon or Uranium dating can measure the age of an object up to many billions of years, because isotopes like K40 have a half-life of 1.3 billion years.

As for another point - recordings. Cameras are apparently standard issue on suits, evidenced by the video feed from Eden Prime at the beginning of Mass Effect 1, which came from a soldier.

Modifié par TheKillerAngel, 22 juillet 2011 - 10:27 .

[Hydralisk]

Savber100 wrote...

There's an issue about the Council denying the Reapers? 

We (as in Americans) had a government that pretended for years that Iraq had WMD. We overlooked the the concentration camps despite plain evidence. We made up crap to start the Vietnam War.

Governments are stupid.

Sure it might be a cliche but it's hardly a total leap in logic to see the Council bury their heads in the sand just as a ineffectual government usually is.

This, this and this!