310 réponses à ce sujet

[Cossack72]

We'll rebuild. And repopulate.

Probably not in that order, but still

[Bourne Endeavor]

Candidate 88766 wrote...

Bourne Endeavor wrote...

Candidate 88766 wrote...

People keep going on about how many plotholes there are in ME2, but I honestly don't see that many. There are just as many, if not more, in ME1. 

While not perfect, ME1 has far less qualms in its overall structure. I could write, and actually have, a thesis of what is wrong with ME2's main plot. The Suicide Mission itself is asinine, at least how they went about it. Nevertheless, this topic will inevitable derail this thread. So if anyone wants to discuss it than create another thread so as not to get Ieldra2's lock. I will not comment here on this further for that reason.

In any seriousness, if any of you do start a thread. Do send me a link. If you have seen any of my posts, you will know I love to debate. 

At least you take the time to explain your thoughts. I have no problem with people not liking ME2. I do have a problem with people who insult it and hate on it and don't bother explaining why.

Incidentally, do you have a link to what you wrote about the SM? I really enjoyed ME2s plot but I'm interested to see a well-explained critique of it.

Unfortunately, I do not, at least not unless I dug through some relatively old threads. Eventually, I would like to toss up my own rewrite of the plot, which serves to critique the existing one and offer an alternative. Of course, it would be meant entirely as fun while we wait the many months for ME3 to come out.

To touch on what I mentioned with regards to the SM. It was not so much a plothole, as it lacked exposition and essentially amounted to Shepard and crew bull rushing devoid oh at least attempting something different before hand. We had no idea whether or not the Collectors might have had an army on the other side, thus it should have been imperative we look to additional trial and error approaches before resorting to the worst case scenario of charging through. Probes is a good example of the aforementioned. Even if they ultimately did nothing, it shows we tried.

Also, to stray back on topic I think that if humanity lost Earth it would be a blow from which they would never recover. Population, economy, military and morale would take such a hit that it would be finished as a power regardless of whether it survived. Humanity hasn't had time to spread out form Earth enough to be able to afford its loss.

On topic, I tend to agree if Earth is destroyed the likelihood of humanity recovering borders between slim to nonexistent. They would inevitably be targeted by hostile races such as the Batarians, although being the galaxy's saviors. The other races may step in to assist. I would be content if large portions of Earth were left in ruin and/or it was even insinuated while a significant portion of the population did survive. They might have to abandon the planet for a time. Basically anything that does not undermine the Reaper threat or make humans "special" as I am tired of those plots.

[Kaiser Shepard]

Also, no way we'll be letting go of the Citadel now that we have it. We won't end up like the quarians, we'll merely take what is rightfully ours.

[Uszi]

So far as I've seen, the explanation for why the reapers are sacking Earth has been, "It's the next closest target," with the Batarians being reaper chowchow well before the invasion of Earth begins.

That said, I agree with the points made in the OP. Humanity would become about as significant a force as the Quarians, if we lose Earth.

[Humanoid_Typhoon]

sponge56 wrote...

It would be good to stick this post in the 'why should the alliance defend earth' thread so we can let this topic die, you pretty much answered it brilliantly

Yeah,until fixer and zulu read it so they can pick it apart and troll because they don't like being wrong.

[CroGamer002]

Mesina2 wrote...

Alliance isn't like UN, that would be Council.

But Alliance is like NATO and guess what? NATO members need to pay membership fee every year.

For example, Republic of Croatia needs to pay 3-4 million Euros.

Just to throw that here.

[Goneaviking]

Fixers0 wrote...

Goneaviking wrote...

Fixers0 wrote...


I was talking about example 1&2 , Akuze and Teltin.

Irrelevent. As of ME1 Cerberus was not part of the Alliance.

Some members of Cerberus were in the Alliance, but the organisation itself was not.

A person or group isn't legitimately designated terrorist because of their objective, only their methods. Cerberus routinely kills noncombatants in pursuit of its goals, which makes it a terrorist organisation by definition.

Have you played the first game.?

Cerberus was an Alliance Black ops initiative, the Kahoku side-quest from the first game

If you don't what terrorism is read this

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terrorism

 

When they went rogue they stopped being military. For a comparable real world example have a look at thiese fellows: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Los_Zetas_Cartel ?

They stopped doing their job as Special Forces and they stopped being regarded as soldiers.




Back to topic:

The loss of Earth doesn't just mean the loss of Earth, it means the loss of the entire solar system. Which is the heart of the Alliance and the source of it's military and political power. A strategic withdrawal makes sense, but only with the intention of coming back and reclaiming the planet as soon as possible.

Because we know that the reapers are intent on harvesting humans they're less likely to wholesale slaughter humanity because it would limit the resource and hamstring their efforts at producing a new reaper to replace Sovereign, or just reproduce.

Abandoning the population of Earth would also mean abandoning some of the finest minds of humanity, as well as the political leadership that will be required to rally the troops and keep everyone on task and to remind people what they're fighting for. Random rescues have utility, but I'm sure that some of the rescue shuttles will be sent to extract key personnel that the Alliance cannot afford to lose.

It would also show a lack of backbone to the other races. Humanity wasn't just handed their embassy, and they weren't given a seat at the council because they're so nice to have around, they received them because of their strong resolve and their ability to back up their warnings.Walk away from Earth and allow the bulk of humanity to die and then they lose their primary deterrant factor once the war ends, the Batarians and anyone else will run roughshod over the survivors.

Finally, given that we know the reapers want to harvest humanity to make them into reapers, leaving Earth in their hands amounts to handing them what may be the most valuable resource in the galaxy to them. If they have Earth, and the bulk of humanity, then they will have reinforcements well before their campaign of galactic genocide finishesl.

[James2912]

Cossack72 wrote...

We'll rebuild. And repopulate.

Probably not in that order, but still

not if we all become batarian slaves in the meanwhile. 

[Malanek]

James2912 wrote...

I think the closest comparison would be if the US lost the entire mainland but retained Hawaii and Alaska, sure the US would still exist but in would not longer be a world power.

Oddly enough I'm actually reading a book called Without Warning by John Birmingham that deals with almost that exact premis (although Seattle also survives). It is set just before the invasion of Iraq in 2003, although all the mainland is gone, much of their existing military survives and is still a force, at least in the short term. Quite interesting, looking at what happens in the world without the US.

[Malanek]

Ieldra2 wrote...

Earth accounts for an estimated 99% of humanity's population base.
Earth has a population of over 11 billion. Humanity has about "a dozen established colonies and hundreds of industrial outposts" (Source: Codex Entry "Humanity and the Systems Alliance"). The established colonies have populations of around 3-5 million (source: planet descriptions of Terra Nova, Bekenstein and Eden Prime, wiki entry about Elysium (source unclear)) , That makes about 50 million for the established colonies and let's say those industrial outposts account for another 50 million (which is very generous). That's a sum of 100 million human colonists, assuming they're all human, which isn't true (see Elysium) but can be overlooked for the sake of the argument. 100 million to Earth's 11 billion, that is roughly 1%. 99% of all humans live on Earth, 1% in the colonies. 

I'm not going to deny that losing Earth, or even the bulk of the industry on earth, would be a catastrophic disaster. But catastophies can be survived. Your numbers here are slightly off because you are making assumptions based on incomplete information. Check out the population for Joab or Trident or if you're really keen Arvuna although the last one is likely not what Bioware went with in the end. What is the population of Demeter, which is likely to be the biggest colony of all?

You mention some of these colonists are not Human, but at the same time fail to mention that many of the colonists on alien planets and settlements are human (like Omega), and in fact this is much likely to be a much bigger number because humans are portrayed as being much more likely to live on an alien world than any other alien species (bar the vorcha) are.

Leaving the specific numbers aside I am willing to work off 100 million although it is likely higher. Out of the 100 million a majority is likely to be younger and fertile because older people would be much less likely to be colonists. A population of this size given the incentive, policy, excess of resources and the technological level available to them can expand very rapidly. I could easily see the population doubling every 20 years, so after another 100 years humans would be back to significant numbers.

In the meantime humans would have to be smart. Work together, make clever alliances and leverage technological based, rapidly expanding economy. The lack of manpower is not as big an issue to industry as one would think because so much is automated. The bigger problem is the smaller market and lack of financial and therefore political clout. People can see how quickly the US became a super power, in 1800 europeans would have been having a laugh over the concept. More recently you see how fast places like Germany and Japan have recovered from the war. It's not impossible.

Modifié par Malanek999, 26 juillet 2011 - 01:06 .

[HTTP 404]

I didn't know this game was about making mankind powerful

[Malanek]

It is very clearly about humanities survival and place in the galaxy though.

[HTTP 404]

Malanek999 wrote...

It is very clearly about humanities survival and place in the galaxy though.

 I thought it was about stopping the reapers. my bad

[Malanek]

HTTP 404 wrote...

Malanek999 wrote...

It is very clearly about humanities survival and place in the galaxy though.

 I thought it was about stopping the reapers. my bad

A story can be about more than one thing but in this case they are completely entwined anyway.

[1136342t54_]

The game is about Commander Shepard's story and journey through the Mass Effect Trilogy mostly. I have no doubt that humanity will be all but destroyed by the end of Mass Effect 3 effectively destroying it as a position of power for many many years. Abandoning Earth entirely would be stupid and the Alliance would have no choice but to try and evacuate as many people as possible.

Its likely that the Systems Alliance military would probably stay a power for a short while. Remember Humanity aren't the only ones getting attacked. The Turian homeworld have pretty much been turned to rubble. By the end of the game I seriously doubt the other races are going to come out unscathed. In fact they may be as wrecked as humanity will be.

I'm envisioning one of the endings as the Reaper's assault pretty much screwed up all the races to the point that we would have to hold off on any wars and conflicts to at least simply rebuild Galactic society. Hell their may not even be a Council in one of the endings simply because no one is strong enough to fill that seat. A new Galactic Government may have to be formed. Probably in a style similar to the Republic from Star Wars.

[Malanek]

lightsnow13 wrote...

I just don't understand how earth is going to withstand the attack until reinforcements get there. The point of ME3 is apparently to rally the forces of the galaxy to save earth. But if the galaxy is under attack...the other races wouldn't have the forces available. Not to mention they would want to save their own planets first. I'm just really...confused about the whole thing.

If the reapers were going for planetary bombardment and and they had orbital superiority, then there would be no way to survive. However they seem more intent on capturing enough humans to build a reaper in which case they need troops on the ground. If they don't have something like the seeker swarms (that humans can't counter) it becomes guerilla warfare, something in which could take a lot longer for them to win.

[1136342t54_]

James2912 wrote...

Cossack72 wrote...

We'll rebuild. And repopulate.

Probably not in that order, but still

not if we all become batarian slaves in the meanwhile. 

Unlikely. The Batarians would likely be the first ones to get hit by the Reaper invasion.

[Arijharn]

They wont try to evacuate as many people as possible... especially if the Reapers continue to destroy evacuating shuttles. I think what we saw in the demos was just an emergency response due to being simply attacked, but at some point military command will cut their losses and essentially declare 'survival of the fittest' as they try to think up some strategy to deal with the threat. Why? Because it is actually counter-intuitive to throw shuttles in such a situation in an extended amount of time while they consistently get shot down. But that isn't the same as a 'plot hole.'

[matt-bassist]

Ieldra2 wrote...

Lately, I'm often reading about scenarios where Earth is abandoned or completely lost to the Reapers, and some people apparently don't care a lot about that.

You should care. If Earth falls to the Reapers or is abandoned for any reason, humanity will be destroyed as a political, military or economic power. This is why:

Earth is not a world of slums and barbarism.
Earthborn Shepard is from such a place on Earth, but Earth as a whole is in a new golden age, according to the Codex. Different regions profit differently from the influx of resources and technological development, but all in all Earth is, compared to earlier times in its history, a very good place to live. Source: Codex Entry "Humanity and the Systems Alliance"

Earth accounts for an estimated 99% of humanity's population base.
Earth has a population of over 11 billion. Humanity has about "a dozen established colonies and hundreds of industrial outposts" (Source: Codex Entry "Humanity and the Systems Alliance"). The established colonies have populations of around 3-5 million (source: planet descriptions of Terra Nova, Bekenstein and Eden Prime, wiki entry about Elysium (source unclear)) , That makes about 50 million for the established colonies and let's say those industrial outposts account for another 50 million (which is very generous). That's a sum of 100 million human colonists, assuming they're all human, which isn't true (see Elysium) but can be overlooked for the sake of the argument. 100 million to Earth's 11 billion, that is roughly 1%. 99% of all humans live on Earth, 1% in the colonies. 

Economic and military considerations:
You could argue that not all people on Earth contribute the same to the total economy as the colonies. That might be true, but even if we say that only the reasonably developed nations "count", let's say with a third of Earth's total population, that's still 3.6 billion to 100 million, meaning that 97% of Earth's economical power is located on Earth, even if you don't consider that the colonies will likely have more children and minors. And those with low productivity still count as consumers.
Since military costs money, you can also conclude that losing Earth would mean that the Alliance will be unable to support most of its personnel and material resources. Humanity will be, if maybe not in danger of extinction as a species, then at least no longer a factor anymore, not worth of consideration by even a minor power of the galaxy.

So abandoning Earth is not a viable strategy. Except if you don't care about reducing humanity to a power of no consequence at all - or if you go with that hypothetical plan of TIM's to hide a few million humans from the Reapers and outlast their occupation.

Edit:
This point by Saphra Deden should also be considered. Humanity will be unable to expand for a significant time, possible many generations, until the populations of the established colonies are big enough for emigration:

Saphra Deden wrote...
[...]without Earth there will be no more human expansion because the first generation of settlers on any human colony are people from Earth.

Also, Earth is a major source of revenue for the colonies, buying up a lot of the resources they dig up. These resources are largely then reinvested into the colonies in the form of ships and more colonies and industrial
facilities. Earth pays the costs of establishing industrial outposts. There are several worlds seen in the games which were scouted out or are actively developed by companies and countries based on Earth.

The PARAGON option HAS to be abandon Earth to save the Citadel or some equally important mutli-cultural multi-alien place. Sure there might be an option to save both, but then there must be repurcussions for such a decision. Focusing on just saving Earth (ONE planet, in a galaxy full of thousands of inhabited planets and systems) because you're human can only be a completely DICK thing to do, and thus is the RENEGADE option.

It should go something like this:

PARAGON: We can't focus all our attention on saving Earth when there are other planets, including the Citadel, the heart of galactic civilisation, that are in danger.

RENEGADE: Screw the rest of the galaxy, Humanity is the only important race out there. It doesn't matter if all the other races die. But Shepard, you might say, that's a bit dickish and selfish, wouldn't you say? Of course it is, but do I look like a PARAGON? LOL.

See?

[Malanek]

matt-bassist wrote...
The PARAGON option HAS to be abandon Earth to save the Citadel or some equally important mutli-cultural multi-alien place. Sure there might be an option to save both, but then there must be repurcussions for such a decision. Focusing on just saving Earth (ONE planet, in a galaxy full of thousands of inhabited planets and systems) because you're human can only be a completely DICK thing to do, and thus is the RENEGADE option.

It should go something like this:

PARAGON: We can't focus all our attention on saving Earth when there are other planets, including the Citadel, the heart of galactic civilisation, that are in danger.

RENEGADE: Screw the rest of the galaxy, Humanity is the only important race out there. It doesn't matter if all the other races die. But Shepard, you might say, that's a bit dickish and selfish, wouldn't you say? Of course it is, but do I look like a PARAGON? LOL.

See?

Agree. Putting humanity ahead of others is renegade, treating everyone equally is paragon.

[Destroy Raiden_]

BW better not make me give up the Earth as a para choice and doom it to reaper hood forever! I also don't want people saying how horrible I am for saving it yes it's my homeworld that trumps everyone else's because it's mine I don't want to nuke it or blow up the relay and destroy it so I can save all other races and doom my species to the dinosaurs I want to save Earth if for nothing else for those humans left out in the far reaches of the galaxy to be able to come back and recolonize it sense I'm fairly sure 99% of Earth originals will be dead by end game anyhow.

[Arijharn]

Well, it is the harsh reality of military command. A military's job is to win an engagement first and foremost, if they keep on loosing shuttles, it's obvious that that strategy isn't a workable. Some point they just need to trust that the people can survive, not all of them certainly, but they can't just rush into the area essentially blind either.