403 réponses à ce sujet

[marshalleck]

lovgreno wrote...

marshalleck wrote...

self-hating liberal guilt

Or perhaps realisticly realising that you can't be best at everything as we are not infailiable gods.

And humanity are portrayed as anything BUT infallible in Mass Effect, so I'm just going to roll with my original statement. 

[TobyHasEyes]

marshalleck wrote...

lovgreno wrote...

marshalleck wrote...

self-hating liberal guilt

Or perhaps realisticly realising that you can't be best at everything as we are not infailiable gods.

And humanity are portrayed as anything BUT infallible in Mass Effect, so I'm just going to roll with my original statement. 

 and yet IF it turns out that ME3 that humanity is the key to saving the galaxy, or that Earth holds the key secrets, then the portrayal of their role will have substantially changed

[Clonedzero]

TobyHasEyes wrote...


 Earth having a macguffin does make our homeworld of central importance in the galaxy, which still has the same associated feeling of 'sigh, this again'

 And I admit that exploring more alien areas over human areas isjust a preference, but its a preference I am happy to express

i only mention earth having a macguffin because theres been a bunch of theory threads lately pointing at the frozen cheron relay and the prothean research base on mars.

personally im more interested in seeing earth and mars and how ME's humans live than i am seeing any of the other races homeworlds. i already have a feeling how things are for all the alien species, but whats it like on earth? whats the governments like? how are aliens treated on earth? are there many aliens on earth itself? things of that nature.

i mean, i know how the asari are. basically all female "exotic" humans with blue skin. turians are the military focused culture alien, salarians are the hyper scientists. its all pretty basic and predictable how each of their worlds are gonna be.

i really dont get the "aliens are more interesting simply because they're aliens" thing. personally i find the asari and quarians to be extremely boring and would MUCH rather explore human areas. salarians and turians could be pretty cool though to check out.

like in the fantasy genre theres so many people that think elves are more interesting than humans. when almost 100% of the time humans have the better written, more complex culture, and political landscape. elves are always just pointy eared clean shaven forest dwellers who are good at archery and magic. dragonage did the wonderful thing of changing it up and making them second class, but then they had to add in the damn dalish rofl.

[TobyHasEyes]

Clonedzero wrote...

TobyHasEyes wrote...


 Earth having a macguffin does make our homeworld of central importance in the galaxy, which still has the same associated feeling of 'sigh, this again'

 And I admit that exploring more alien areas over human areas isjust a preference, but its a preference I am happy to express

i only mention earth having a macguffin because theres been a bunch of theory threads lately pointing at the frozen cheron relay and the prothean research base on mars.

personally im more interested in seeing earth and mars and how ME's humans live than i am seeing any of the other races homeworlds. i already have a feeling how things are for all the alien species, but whats it like on earth? whats the governments like? how are aliens treated on earth? are there many aliens on earth itself? things of that nature.

i mean, i know how the asari are. basically all female "exotic" humans with blue skin. turians are the military focused culture alien, salarians are the hyper scientists. its all pretty basic and predictable how each of their worlds are gonna be.

i really dont get the "aliens are more interesting simply because they're aliens" thing. personally i find the asari and quarians to be extremely boring and would MUCH rather explore human areas. salarians and turians could be pretty cool though to check out.

like in the fantasy genre theres so many people that think elves are more interesting than humans. when almost 100% of the time humans have the better written, more complex culture, and political landscape. elves are always just pointy eared clean shaven forest dwellers who are good at archery and magic. dragonage did the wonderful thing of changing it up and making them second class, but then they had to add in the damn dalish rofl.

 We have been told in the codex how Earth is for humanity, and how their colonies work, and not only is it relatively similar to what its like now, its relatively similar to most sci-fi depictions, hence my lack of interest

 Salarians and Turians are also the guys I'd find more interesting, and the Elcor or Hanar as well

[Someone With Mass]

KingNothing125 wrote...

Someone With Mass wrote...

It just feels boring when humanity accomplishes everything without lifting a finger.

I don't know about you, but I see lots of Finger Lifting in ME.

Compared to what the other races have done, it's nothing. Yet, it's rewarded as an act of God or something.

Modifié par Someone With Mass, 08 août 2011 - 09:59 .

[Someone With Mass]

Saphra Deden wrote...

Humans being more genetically diverse than the aliens is stupid.

The speed of our rise is just... implausible.

I would've bought it if had taken the Alliance about a hundred years to be founded and rise to power among Earth's nations, but the games and the books makes it sound like it happened overnight, which is very improbable by today's standards.

[Reptillius]

Actually... If you really want to think about it in simplistic terms.

Humans do have a special ability. We've got the ability to ****** off all the Galaxies bullies.

We pissed off the Turians from the get go and there's still some hard feelings there. We pissed off the Batarians because we didn't let them just take advantage of us.

And we pissed off a supposedly infallible race of super machine creatures by killing one of them.

Really you don't have to look any farther than the fact that the Reapers are going after us first because we stood up and said "Hit Me!" before anybody else did by beating up one of the super tough bullies of the Galaxy that the Reapers are.

Tactically sound thinking of most people who think they are in the same position as the reapers. Push everybody around and do things your way. Somebody in particular shows up as a threat or pushes one of your guys around. Go push that specific person around and knock them down to show everybody else what happens when they want to try the same thing and then go back to pushing everybody else around.

We're being attacked first because we are the race through Commander Shepard and his actions against not only Sovereign but Harbringer as well that stood up and said "Hey! we might be a threat!" They still likely don't see any other race in the galaxy as a threat. In ME 2 they tried the "recruit us" tactic which didn't work. now in ME 3 we're getting the "Don't you mess with us and don't you ever forget it" tactic.

Modifié par Reptillius, 08 août 2011 - 10:04 .

[TobyHasEyes]

That tactic only applies if the bully stands to lose out when people stand up to them. If you are a Reaper presumably you don't care if the races fight back or not, as you will win anyway, and there is no point of making an example of one race when you are going to wipe them all out anyway

[LilyasAvalon]

I don't really see humans being portrayed as 'special' as lazy writing. It is the obsession of ourselves, it's something we've had for... years. Every sci-fi/fantasy movie or book I've ever seen has depicted humanity as a glorious, confident, almost reckless race. It's just how we are, possibly because, aside from in such creativity expressed through Sci-Fi/Fantasy, we are the most advanced life we know of so we tend to place the ourselves at the center of the galaxy.

Plus, the series is also marketed at... you know... humans... ._.

[SandTrout]

Vengeful Nature wrote..

Which is a load of crap, because it stems from a misunderstanding of biology based on outdated, and frankly dangerous, beliefs. Humanity is far less genetically diverse than those old coots ever thought.

So BioWare isn't composed of BioLogists. Who'd have thunk it. I recognize that diveristy is a plot device, but not one that lays out the galaxy on Humanity's lap. If you wish to discuss the validity of the plot device itself, there are other threads for that.

Right, but you can have a human-centric story without having a human-centric universe. From the start, Mass Effect was about humanity's place in a larger galaxy. It's a shame that they've made the Reaper particularly interested in humanity, because it basically makes humanity the centre of this large galaxy. If the Reapers are focusing on humanity for now, it might well mean that humanity holds the key to their defeat, either in terms of tactics, or some ridiculous deus ex machina that some people are predicting.

It seems like being special isn't such a good thing in this case, now does it? From a practical litterary standpoint, it would be difficult to convince an audience to empathise with the vitims if it were some random alien species geting harvested. Saying that the Reapers targeting us first makes us unduely special is like saying that 28 Days Latter made England unduely special because they were able to make the virus.

- Anything Harbinger says to you when you're with a teammate of another species.

So we know that the Reaper interest in humanity isn't just arbitrary. Reapers think we're special, no one else does, and we're not getting anything on a silver platter.

- Mordin's yakkety yakk about greater human genetic diversity, which clearly, at least to me, alludes to a greater part of the plot in ME3.

I thought it was just alludeing to why the Reapers might pick Humanity over other species (goes along the the Harbinger thing). Just because Reapers value genetic diversity doesn't inherently make it some overpowering trait beyond dealing with the Reapers.

- The fact that Commander Shepard, a human, is apparently the only person actually doing anything about the Reapers. Does he have any contemporaries of other species? I doubt it, but I guess we'll find out in ME3.

Events that make the Main Character special do not inherently make that character's entire species special.

Modifié par SandTrout, 08 août 2011 - 10:15 .

[Rinaros]

SandTrout wrote...

Can anyone please point out to me anywhere that Humanity is unreasonably portrayed as 'special' other than being unique, which every species in ME is?

Well a few things come to mind at the top if my head at the moment.

For one thing the games claim Humans are somehow more geneticly and culturally diverse than every other species out there, which is complete Bull**** if you stop and think about if for a few moments.

Secondly they claim that Humans are supposedly THE ONLY SPECIES, as far as the known species go, capable of "thinking outside the box". It was listed as one of the advantages of humans atleast in one of the books. How exaclty is that an Exclusively Human ability/trait?! Are they honestly trying to tell us that in all the thousands of years the other species have been in the galaxy before us, not a single one has ever though to "think outside the box"? I can understand the "if it aint broke, don't fix it" mentality, but they make it seem like the other species are either incapable of "thinking outside the box" or that they've never once come across situation calling for it, Both of which are ridicilous.

Thirdly the whole scale of the games have been shrinking form game to game. The first game was about preventing the possible exctinction of all Organic Life in the galaxy, not just humanity. In the second game it was all about saving HUMAN colonies from being abducted, the Collectors and reapers were focused on HUMANS and HUMANS were somehow more special, more diverse and more unique than all other space-faring species.

Those three are all that comes to mind at the moment atleast, And I'd say yes, humans are portrayed as being more special than other species.

As for the third game I really cannot say yet since it is not out
yet, but all marketing, trailers and other info makes it seem like its
not about saving the galaxy as a whole, but about rallying the other
races together and saving EARTH from certain destruction. But it could
be exageration made by the marketing department and it is about more than Humanity in ME3, but for now
we'll just have to wait and see what happens.

"End of Line" - MCP, TRON

[Clonedzero]

TobyHasEyes wrote...

 We have been told in the codex how Earth is for humanity, and how their colonies work, and not only is it relatively similar to what its like now, its relatively similar to most sci-fi depictions, hence my lack of interest

 Salarians and Turians are also the guys I'd find more interesting, and the Elcor or Hanar as well

codex pages? really? those are pretty damn vague at times, the ones for earth are at least. a paragraph explaination on how humans live isnt really enough to go on. sorry.

elcor and hanar? really? those are two races i hope stay away from the forefront of ME3. i dont wanna go to the stupid hanar world or elcor world. zealot jelly fish on a water planet. yup there we go, how interesting... the elcor, i dont really see any way visiting them could be neat at all. they're cute little side races but not really worth investing any significant time with.

[Clonedzero]

Rinaros wrote...

SandTrout wrote...

Can anyone please point out to me anywhere that Humanity is unreasonably portrayed as 'special' other than being unique, which every species in ME is?

Well a few things come to mind at the top if my head at the moment.

For one thing the games claim Humans are somehow more geneticly and culturally diverse than every other species out there, which is complete Bull**** if you stop and think about if for a few moments.

Secondly they claim that Humans are supposedly THE ONLY SPECIES, as far as the known species go, capable of "thinking outside the box". It was listed as one of the advantages of humans atleast in one of the books. How exaclty is that an Exclusively Human ability/trait?! Are they honestly trying to tell us that in all the thousands of years the other species have been in the galaxy before us, not a single one has ever though to "think outside the box"? I can understand the "if it aint broke, don't fix it" mentality, but they make it seem like the other species are either incapable of "thinking outside the box" or that they've never once come across situation calling for it, Both of which are ridicilous.

Thirdly the whole scale of the games have been shrinking form game to game. The first game was about preventing the possible exctinction of all Organic Life in the galaxy, not just humanity. In the second game it was all about saving HUMAN colonies from being abducted, the Collectors and reapers were focused on HUMANS and HUMANS were somehow more special, more diverse and more unique than all other space-faring species.

Those three are all that comes to mind at the moment atleast, And I'd say yes, humans are portrayed as being more special than other species.

As for the third game I really cannot say yet since it is not out
yet, but all marketing, trailers and other info makes it seem like its
not about saving the galaxy as a whole, but about rallying the other
races together and saving EARTH from certain destruction. But it could
be exageration made by the marketing department and it is about more than Humanity in ME3, but for now
we'll just have to wait and see what happens.

"End of Line" - MCP, TRON

sup, i can ignore major themes of a series too.

its not like the mass effect series has been about humanity finding its role in the galaxy or anything....

oh wait.......

[LilyasAvalon]

Saphra Deden wrote...

Humans being more genetically diverse than the aliens is stupid.

The speed of our rise is just... implausible.

It's actually pretty plausible when you think about it, look at what has happened in the last... 50 years. The first computer was made, it took up the size of a room and had as much data as a calculator, now we have things like the iPad, SmartPhones, Notebooks... We do tend to advance pretty quickly. Heck, we actually have holographic calls like the one Shep/TIM used nowadays and they plan to make them open to the general public in about a few years time.

That's just on our own, imagine what would happen if we DID find protheon tech. Massive tech boom.

[SandTrout]

sup, i can ignore major themes of a series too.

its not like the mass effect series has been about humanity finding its role in the galaxy or anything....

oh wait....... smilie

It is a human centric story. That does not automatically make it a story of how much better humans are than everyone else.

[Zulu_DFA]

Saphra Deden wrote...

Humans being more genetically diverse than the aliens is stupid.

The speed of our rise is just... implausible.

Not in a fictional universe, where the aliens have long agreed that not being retarded is a violation of their law.

Modifié par Zulu_DFA, 08 août 2011 - 10:42 .

[armass]

Only race i sometimes find more annoying than special and everpresent and dominant humans in fiction is the elves, which are described as beings of perfect beauty and elegance, of course from our point of view.

Asari do come pretty damn close tough...

Modifié par armass, 08 août 2011 - 10:53 .

[LilyasAvalon]

armass wrote...

Only race i sometimes find more annoying than special and everpresent and dominant humans in fiction is the elves, which are described as beings of perfect beauty and elegance, of course from our point of view.

Asari do come pretty damn close tough...

Oh agreed, definately... Elves in Dragon Age Origins were the first I've ever seen in a fantasy story where they were beneath humans and even then.....

[Goneaviking]

darth_lopez wrote...

DonDaMon wrote...

Humans are special = lazy writing ...

Honestly i don't see how it's lazy writing to take pride in your species and want it to be superior. If they say coppied someone elses method of doing it that would be lazy writing. But by that logic anything that has a Trope  that's used frequently is written lazily. Enjoy your Cinisim. ^^

While I'm not completely condoning the trope If i wasn't clear enough to begin with (good possibility) I was trying to state that i don't see where the "I don't Want Humans to Be Special" Attitude comes from in this situation. Is it not Good enough that our species could very well be ended? That we see our Home Burn Before invaders our cities and landmarks destroyed. Hostoric cities that Represent our rise and achievement crumbled before our eyes? Does this not warrant some sort of Opportunity for vengence that at least our world, if not our species, might hold?

On another note, specifically the one of the different species being "better" than humans by some degree:
Turian Fleet not defeat in a long time. Win at First contact. Lose Retaliatory strike by a Human Fleet. Military Superiority Achieved in favor of Humans (or at the very least putting us on par with the military might of the Turians)
Asari All in all humanity is more physically capable than the average Asari As well as being able to post Jedi-Powers. Special Traits Subverted.
Krogan Humanity is more sensible while still exhibiting Krogan Determination and stubborness. Aside from that The only thing the Krogan have going for them are being tanks. Not to mention a dying bread of tank thanks to their brutish culture (Cutlural Superiority as well as intellectual Superiority achieved)
Next the salarians As i recall their only remarkable traits are their intelligence then their Spec Ops/Intel Ops. Humanity while incapable of matching the average intelligence of the Salarian is all around Longer lived, more physically capable, probably less prone to heart attacks, cutlurally superior, and Still (as i recall from the occasional codex in ME 1) capable of matching their intelligence Agencies.
We are also all around superior to volus, batarian, probably elcor, hanhar, not necessarily drell, etc... the Yagh seem to be the only things we can't match and Conveniently they aren't in the story aside from being the shadow broker.

In short while all the races ahve unique talents. humanity in ME lore manages to successful match each races talents while being the focal point of reaper rage. Sounds like "Humans are special" to me Bioware simply approached the trope from a less obvious angle by flooding our imagination with diversity and Making us On par/Physically superior/Not dying off in comparison to everyone else. Not only that But The fact humans are special is refrenced through out ME 1 (Fastest Climb to galactic power ever seen before in galactic history since the formation fo the council, defeated super dreadnaught)

"Humans are special" is a trope already present in the ME universe. Just to sort out those who would delude themselves otherwise ;P Diversity does not exclude the trope from the universe but rather cleverly conceals it.

Humans discover alien species and within 30 years are militarily on par with the mightiest fleet in the known galaxy. The other races have had thousands of years of space travel, and our technology was already on par with theirs in a fraction of the time and with no contact with theirs whatsoever? Batarians abuse and practice aggression against every other species for literally thousands of years and then go into hiding the minute humanity begins establishing colonies on worlds that they've been eyeing off instead of actively challenging them?

The reapers decide that plucky humanity is the best breeding stock for superior reaper babies. Humanity gets an embassy on the citadel in less than a third of the time of virtually any other race, and gets a seat on the council almost as quickly.

That's fan-****** on par with Tolkien and his elves. It's been mitigated so far because the games have been entertaining, the characters engaging and the story intriguing; but it doesn't need to be compounded by making Earth the central focus of final game to the detriment of the other homeworlds. Especially if we wind up recruiting other races to help us save our homeworld at the cost of their own.

[Someone With Mass]

Goneaviking wrote...
Humans discover alien species and within 30 years are militarily on par with the mightiest fleet in the known galaxy. The other races have had thousands of years of space travel, and our technology was already on par with theirs in a fraction of the time and with no contact with theirs whatsoever? Batarians abuse and practice aggression against every other species for literally thousands of years and then go into hiding the minute humanity begins establishing colonies on worlds that they've been eyeing off instead of actively challenging them?

The reapers decide that plucky humanity is the best breeding stock for superior reaper babies. Humanity gets an embassy on the citadel in less than a third of the time of virtually any other race, and gets a seat on the council almost as quickly.

That's fan-****** on par with Tolkien and his elves. It's been mitigated so far because the games have been entertaining, the characters engaging and the story intriguing; but it doesn't need to be compounded by making Earth the central focus of final game to the detriment of the other homeworlds. Especially if we wind up recruiting other races to help us save our homeworld at the cost of their own.

Which is the ultimate "humans are spechul" trope, if you ask me. 

What puts humanity above every other race? Don't they have a right to exist too?

Humanity also gets a Spectre with their second attempt without barely trying. It just feels so undramatic when they can get anything they want and are getting away with almost anything. Not to mention that it makes me care less about them when they claim that they're fighting for their "rightful place" in the galaxy.

It's so distant from the real humanity as we know it, that I don't feel compelled to have any sympathy for them when it finally goes badly in one direction.

[Clonedzero]

yeah its not like humans arriving into the galaxy as a whole didn't cause vast political, cultural, and economic change or anything.

why do i get the feeling most people ignored a huge chunk of the story and thematic notes from the series so far just to jump on the "i hate humans being important in a story that has had them in the center since the beginning!" wagon?

[Rinaros]

Clonedzero wrote...

Rinaros wrote...

SandTrout wrote...

Can anyone please point out to me anywhere that Humanity is unreasonably portrayed as 'special' other than being unique, which every species in ME is?

Well a few things come to mind at the top if my head at the moment.

For one thing the games claim Humans are somehow more geneticly and culturally diverse than every other species out there, which is complete Bull**** if you stop and think about if for a few moments.

Secondly they claim that Humans are supposedly THE ONLY SPECIES, as far as the known species go, capable of "thinking outside the box". It was listed as one of the advantages of humans atleast in one of the books. How exaclty is that an Exclusively Human ability/trait?! Are they honestly trying to tell us that in all the thousands of years the other species have been in the galaxy before us, not a single one has ever though to "think outside the box"? I can understand the "if it aint broke, don't fix it" mentality, but they make it seem like the other species are either incapable of "thinking outside the box" or that they've never once come across situation calling for it, Both of which are ridicilous.

Thirdly the whole scale of the games have been shrinking form game to game. The first game was about preventing the possible exctinction of all Organic Life in the galaxy, not just humanity. In the second game it was all about saving HUMAN colonies from being abducted, the Collectors and reapers were focused on HUMANS and HUMANS were somehow more special, more diverse and more unique than all other space-faring species.

Those three are all that comes to mind at the moment atleast, And I'd say yes, humans are portrayed as being more special than other species.

As for the third game I really cannot say yet since it is not out
yet, but all marketing, trailers and other info makes it seem like its
not about saving the galaxy as a whole, but about rallying the other
races together and saving EARTH from certain destruction. But it could
be exageration made by the marketing department and it is about more than Humanity in ME3, but for now
we'll just have to wait and see what happens.

"End of Line" - MCP, TRON

sup, i can ignore major themes of a series too.

its not like the mass effect series has been about humanity finding its role in the galaxy or anything....

oh wait.......

*Facepalm* Humanity finding its place in the galaxy and earning its spot in the galactic community is one thing, claiming that Humanity is somehow more diverse, more unique and somehow BETTER than all other species is a whole different thing. You can have a story about humanity "growing up" but still have them be Equal/on the samwe level as the other species. I'm not saying that Humans can't have their own specialties, all species have certain things that they specialize in, but no one species is BETTER in everything than all other species.

They claim Humans are geneticly and culturally more diverse than all other species, that humans are more driven, are the only ones who can "think outside the box", the only species deemed "Worthy" by the Reapers and on the whole that Humans is the answer to pretty much anything and everything.

So once again, "Humans are more special" is still hovering over the series. Being special/unqiue is one thing and is OK, Humans Being MORE special/MORE unique/MORE Worthy/"The Chosen ones" is another thing and is NOT OK and just Lazy writing and has been done to death so many times it is getting annoying.

Modifié par Rinaros, 08 août 2011 - 11:39 .

[Wulfram]

The problem for me is that "Humans are special" is another way of saying "Aliens are rubbish".  Since we necessarily have to use humans as the baseline for comparison.

If, for example, Humans with 9 years of experience of advanced technology can out fight the Turians, who are supposed to be about the best soldiers around, then what that really implies to me isn't that humans are awesome but that the aliens are a bunch of wimps who couldn't fight their way out of a paper bag.

LilyasAvalon wrote...
Oh agreed, definately... Elves in Dragon Age Origins were the first I've ever seen in a fantasy story where they were beneath humans and even then.....

Elves are pretty much always portrayed as being a dying species, overtaken by Humans. 

Modifié par Wulfram, 08 août 2011 - 11:40 .

[didymos1120]

lovgreno wrote...

marshalleck wrote...

self-hating liberal guilt

Or perhaps realisticly realising that you can't be best at everything as we are not infailiable gods.

That's already true in ME-land though:

Krogan are far stronger, tougher, and longer lived.
Salarians are very much smarter and arguably the most dangerous species other than the Reapers.  Good thing they're friendly.
Turians are the biggest military power, less fractious and more socially cohesive, and more physically robust.
Quarians are technological wizards without peer and ridiculously resourceful.
Asari are unmatched at diplomacy, have the longest lifespans, and everyone wants them.
So on. So forth.