429 réponses à ce sujet

[Poison_Berrie]

CaptainZaysh wrote...

If you watch the ending it's quite plain to see that the relay discharges its energy before being destroyed.  It stands to reason that less energy = smaller explosion, right?

But even if that weren't the case, it is a shame that the audience can't be relied upon to accept that "smashing a huge asteroid into a relay" would likely cause different results from "destroying the relay via an energy pulse released from the central control unit of the network".  What I've learned from this is that, in future, BioWare games will handhold us through everything.  No more can we be relied upon to act with the sophistication of a movie audience - we are all dumb grognards who can't eat anything that we are not spoon fed.

Mind you the energy pulse travels a multitude of lightyears in diameter, meaning that if it interacts with matter it will sterilize at least a fraction of that distance of all life and cause damage to, well everthing.
Meaning if you are willing to say the energy that would cause the relay to go supernova now is expelled as radiation, you are still killing everything (synthetics included) in at least the relays system.

[Fliprot]

Except even if you destroy the reapers, reapers could be created again. Specially since there are no reapers anymore to keep the galaxy in check.

Destroying the reapers doesnt guarantee that they will never exist again.
So maybe destroying the galaxy is too high a price to pay.

Modifié par Fliprot, 23 mars 2012 - 10:51 .

[CaptainZaysh]

Poison_Berrie wrote...

Mind you the energy pulse travels a multitude of lightyears in diameter, meaning that if it interacts with matter it will sterilize at least a fraction of that distance of all life and cause damage to, well everthing. 

Meaning if you are willing to say the energy that would cause the relay to go supernova now is expelled as radiation, you are still killing everything (synthetics included) in at least the relays system.

I didn't see any reason to believe the energy released was harmfully radioactive.  Did you?

[General User]

The energy pulses we see super-imposed over the galaxy at the very end travel dozens of light years in a couple of seconds.

I'm not so sure that graphic is meant to be taken literally.

And, even if it is, the exact nature of how any energy so exotic as to be moving at such speeds would interact with normal matter and energy is entirely up in the air (so to speak).

That or... the ending is just nonsense. All good choices.

[zovoes]

CaptainZaysh wrote...

Poison_Berrie wrote...

Mind you the energy pulse travels a multitude of lightyears in diameter, meaning that if it interacts with matter it will sterilize at least a fraction of that distance of all life and cause damage to, well everthing. 

Meaning if you are willing to say the energy that would cause the relay to go supernova now is expelled as radiation, you are still killing everything (synthetics included) in at least the relays system.

I didn't see any reason to believe the energy released was harmfully radioactive.  Did you?

it's call the arrivle DLC and internal continuity. if a relay goes boom then it's a super nova and kills everything. the "we don't know that" argument is why poeple call it space magic, energy and radiation don't work like that. it would be like dunking you face in green lava and thinking because its green it wan't burn you.

[Madecologist]

That said, I think the term Galactic Dark Age is a misnomer. The Dark Ages (the actual one) had some technological and even social innovation. It is refered to a Dark Age because progress slowed down, in some areas there was a social structure breakdown, and the mighty empires of yore collapsed so civilisations took a smaller turn.

Though many of these 'themes' apply to what happened to the ME universe. It is not quite accurate. The table top setting Fading Suns is an example of a star fairing dark age (though kind of taken literally in their case... with the rise of religion, nobility, and social castes). What happens in ME is closer to a Galactic Civilisation Collapse.

[General User]

Destruction via collision is not the same as demolition.

There is no reason not to look at the destruction of the relays at the end of ME3 as anything other than a controlled demolition. Indeed, the fact that a large beam of energy is sent out prior each relay's destruction lends firm support the "controlled demolition" theory.


That or... the ending is just nonsense.

Modifié par General User, 23 mars 2012 - 11:32 .

[Poison_Berrie]

CaptainZaysh wrote...

I didn't see any reason to believe the energy released was harmfully radioactive.  Did you?

A laser powerfull enough would kill you with ordinary light. And a dosage high enough would not need to be radio-active to be lethal.
Take Mass Effect 2 for an example of this. When rewriting the Geth in  A house divided the change is done by sending out an EMP which will kill you because of the intensity. 
Electromagnetic radiation is lethal if the intensity is high enough dependant on how much it interacts with matter. But if it moves through matter without interacting how can it affect any change to matter?

[wikkedjester]

Except, you know Mass Relay explosions DESTROY ENTIRE SYSTEMS!!! And don't give me that "SPACE MAGIC' stuff. Destroying systems is canon, nothing that is said by StarChild contradicts that.

Also the Citadel is a Mass Relay, how well do you think Earth and the ships around her came out when that thing finally went off? I'm guessing not to well, everything is dead, and that is why you only see the Normandy, and the crew no resolution for anyone because they are dead.

Modifié par wikkedjester, 23 mars 2012 - 11:44 .

[CaptainZaysh]

zovoes wrote...

it's call the arrivle DLC and internal continuity. if a relay goes boom then it's a super nova and kills everything. the "we don't know that" argument is why poeple call it space magic, energy and radiation don't work like that. it would be like dunking you face in green lava and thinking because its green it wan't burn you.

That's ironic, because people who call it space magic obviously don't know much at all about physics.  An explosion is caused by the rapid release of energy.  That's why breaking the Alpha relay open with a huge asteroid caused the devastating explosion it did.

In the ME3 ending we see the relay discharge its energy before it explodes.  Less energy = smaller explosion.  People used to think the sun coming up in the morning was space magic too, y'know.

Even if we hadn't explicitly seen this in the cut scene, an intelligent person would realise that blowing something up by smashing a small planet into it is likely to cause different results from destroying an object via an energy pulse delivered from the central control unit of the network.

[Scyldemort]

CaptainZaysh wrote...


No, the Catalyst is right.  Given enough time, one day our descendants will create synthetics that rebel, and we will war against them.  If you accept that then you accept that, given enough wars, organics will lose one of them.

And then...no more organics, because our children won't have the Reapers to sweep in and reset everything.

EDIT: that didn't stop me destroying the Reapers, though.  My descendants can be free to f**k up the galaxy on their own, thank you very much.

Point the first: I still don't really buy the whole distinction between synthetic and organic life. One is a molecular machine made primarily of oxygen, carbon, and hydrogen. The other is a robot. "Organic" life is not inherently superior or preferable to "synthetic" life. They're variations on a theme: self-aware beings that cease to function when their primary processors (brains, in the case of human beings) are destroyed and/or deprived of fuel (oxygen and ATP for humans). If some day "synthetic life" wipes out "organic life," well, it's sad that sentient beings were destroyed, but that's as far as it goes.

Point the second: "If you accept that" - I don't. My Shepard showed that organics and synthetics don't actually have to war against each other. That we can all cooperate together, live together in peace, even love one another.

[CaptainZaysh]

wikkedjester wrote...

Except, you know Mass Relay explosions DESTROY ENTIRE SYSTEMS!!! And don't give me that "SPACE MAGIC' stuff. Destroying systems is canon, nothing that is said by StarChild contradicts that.

Le sigh.  Another sun worshipper.  At least you spelled canon correctly, I suppose.

wikkedjester wrote...
Also the Citadel is a Mass Relay, how well do you think Earth and the ships around her came out when that thing finally went off? I'm guessing not to well, everything is dead, and that is why you only see the Normandy, and the crew no resolution for anyone because they are dead.

That's a pretty bad guess, since many Shepards didn't die.

Modifié par CaptainZaysh, 23 mars 2012 - 11:48 .

[General User]

wikkedjester wrote...

Except, you know Mass Relay explosions DESTROY ENTIRE SYSTEMS!!! And don't give me that "SPACE MAGIC' stuff. Destroying systems is canon, nothing that is said by StarChild contradicts that.

Also the Citadel is a Mass Relay, how well do you think Earth and the ships around her came out when that thing finally went off? I'm guessing not to well, everything is dead, and that is why you only see the Normandy, and the crew no resolution for anyone because they are dead.

The main evidence in support of the idea that the destruction of the mass relays at the end of ME3 does not infact destroy the star systems those relays are in, is visual.  Namely the powerful energy beam they send out prior to their destruction.

That or... the ending is just nonsense.

[The_Crazy_Hand]

Spotty Squirrel wrote...

The Final Hours of Mass Effect 3 has a flow chart that shows the Prothean VI stating that the Crucible will cause a "galatic dark age".  Is a galatic dark age a reasonable price to pay for destroying the Reapers forever, or is the price just too high?

I think it is a reasonable, but very high, price to pay.  If the Reapers were not eliminated, they would destroy most of the Galaxy's life anyway.

Combine the codex entries "Reaper Weaknesses" and "The Miracle at Palaven" and you start to realize just how senseless the concept is.  Sure, it makes sense if you couldn't amass much EMS, but if you could, you should certainly have enough dreadnoughts and warp bombs to take them out, according to the game's own damned lore.

[CaptainZaysh]

Scyldemort wrote...
Point the second: "If you accept that" - I don't. My Shepard showed that organics and synthetics don't actually have to war against each other. That we can all cooperate together, live together in peace, even love one another.

Sure, while we're equal partners with a common goal, everything's awesome between us.

So the geth get back to work on that Dyson Sphere of theirs, and they create a geth that's smarter than a salarian.  It creates a geth that's smarter than itself.  Etc, etc.

If left to their own devices, they will become many times more intelligent than us.  Godlike, even.

Two questions.
1).  Can you guarantee that when they're able to destroy us easily they won't choose to do so?
2).  Can you guarantee that someone like me, in control of a fleet, won't try to stop them evolving to that point?

If not, war is a non-zero possibility.  Given enough time, all non-zero possibilities eventually will occur.  Hence, the Catalyst was correct.

[Spectre Chris]

CheeseEnchilada wrote...

In an edgy, dark novel where this was an established theme, I would fully embrace it.

From a game series that had you walking out of the debris of a reaper with a smirk in the first game and getting everyone out of a suicide mission alive in the second, it seems like a high price, and one that goes against the theme of the first two games, which has always seemed to be 'triumph against the odds'. I was expecting a bittersweet ending, but this seems heavy on the bitter, light on the sweet. The way it was implemented wasn't flawless either. If there had been a ray of hope despite the darkness, I would have been okay. As it is, there's a lot left unexplained.

Exactly this. Whatever the writers were aiming for with the trilogy's ending, it was very jarring and went against everything we'd been experiencing in the first two games where we were shown if we played our cards right we could win no matter what.

[krayt298]

CheeseEnchilada wrote...

In an edgy, dark novel where this was an established theme, I would fully embrace it.

From a game series that had you walking out of the debris of a reaper with a smirk in the first game and getting everyone out of a suicide mission alive in the second, it seems like a high price, and one that goes against the theme of the first two games, which has always seemed to be 'triumph against the odds'. I was expecting a bittersweet ending, but this seems heavy on the bitter, light on the sweet. The way it was implemented wasn't flawless either. If there had been a ray of hope despite the darkness, I would have been okay. As it is, there's a lot left unexplained.

This,

I always thought Shepard's path was tough but glorious in the end.

[Scyldemort]

CaptainZaysh wrote...

Sure, while we're equal partners with a common goal, everything's awesome between us.

So the geth get back to work on that Dyson Sphere of theirs, and they create a geth that's smarter than a salarian.  It creates a geth that's smarter than itself.  Etc, etc.

If left to their own devices, they will become many times more intelligent than us.  Godlike, even.

Alternately, what if the "organics" invest huge resources into transcending their own limits? What if humans modify the human genome in such a way as to produce one that's smarter than a salarian? What if that human creates a new variant that's smarter than itself? What if we alter the brain in such a way as to vastly improve its processing speed, or set ourselves to go through a continuous cycle of our bodies resetting to, say, 20 years of age every 20 years? Or if you want to go for something specific to the mass effect universe, what if in the future humanity alters itself to be an entirely biotic race?

Synthetic life does not have a monopoly on that sort of advancement.

Two questions.
1).  Can you guarantee that when they're able to destroy us easily they won't choose to do so?
2).  Can you guarantee that someone like me, in control of a fleet, won't try to stop them evolving to that point?

If not, war is a non-zero possibility.  Given enough time, all non-zero possibilities eventually will occur.  Hence, the Catalyst was correct.

1). Yes. I can do so via a sort of biological systems engineering singularity that keeps pace with a synthetic one.
2). Yes. See #1.

Modifié par Scyldemort, 24 mars 2012 - 12:06 .

[wikkedjester]

General User wrote...

wikkedjester wrote...

Except, you know Mass Relay explosions DESTROY ENTIRE SYSTEMS!!! And don't give me that "SPACE MAGIC' stuff. Destroying systems is canon, nothing that is said by StarChild contradicts that.

Also the Citadel is a Mass Relay, how well do you think Earth and the ships around her came out when that thing finally went off? I'm guessing not to well, everything is dead, and that is why you only see the Normandy, and the crew no resolution for anyone because they are dead.

The main evidence in support of the idea that the destruction of the mass relays at the end of ME3 does not infact destroy the star systems those relays are in, is visual.  Namely the powerful energy beam they send out prior to their destruction.

That or... the ending is just nonsense.

However from the galaxy map, we see an explosion radiating from the systems, with no context other than the entire destruction of that system to go on.

Your right it’s a bad ending.

I have no problem with a dark age ending, other than the apparent social and economical, and environmental problems that would be created from billions from other races stranded on Earth, and the Wars for control that would evolve from the devolution of society under the post Reaper invasion.

Modifié par wikkedjester, 24 mars 2012 - 12:11 .

[Poison_Berrie]

CaptainZaysh wrote...

In the ME3 ending we see the relay discharge its energy before it explodes.  Less energy = smaller explosion.  People used to think the sun coming up in the morning was space magic too, y'know.

Even if we hadn't explicitly seen this in the cut scene, an intelligent person would realise that blowing something up by smashing a small planet into it is likely to cause different results from destroying an object via an energy pulse delivered from the central control unit of the network.

The laws of thermodynamics. That energy has to go somewhere. 
Where into two things: 
1 -  A transfer of information/energy to the next relay
2 - A pulse that covers many lightyears. 

The second one has to be the more taxing one, since jumping ships between relays is chump-change for a Mass Relay and it covers quite a few lightyears. Hence to maintain any reasonable effect or worhtwhile intensity over such a massive distance the pulse has to be a massive amount stronger at the origin and surrounding area than the end point.
Thus lethal radiation for at least the Mass Relays own system or radiation that doesnt actually do anything.

[sistersafetypin]

Galactic Dark Age is what the Reapers were after to begin with. How is it any less heinous when our Sheps do it?

[Snowship]

no, the reapers destroy "advanced civilisations", by destroying the Reapers/Sythetics you ensure that when the current races (or ones to come) become "advanced" again then there are no Reapers to destroy them.

Also even if the destruction of a relay destroyed the system it was in, there are plenty of inhabited worlds that reside in a system without a relay (benning being one, the asari planet with ardyt yashii monastery in it is another.)

Modifié par Snowship, 24 mars 2012 - 12:19 .

[mikelope]

sistersafetypin wrote...

Galactic Dark Age is what the Reapers were after to begin with. How is it any less heinous when our Sheps do it?

It's a new beginning. It ends the war and destroys the reapers never to come back again. And it's supposed to be a difficult compromise. Real historical figures faced more difficult decisions than this, the atomic bomb on Japan for one.

[Scyldemort]

mikelope wrote...

It's a new beginning. It ends the war and destroys the reapers never to come back again. And it's supposed to be a difficult compromise. Real historical figures faced more difficult decisions than this, the atomic bomb on Japan for one.

Except the atomic bomb didn't actually have anything to do with ending World War 2. That was just the product of the self-justification of the people who deployed it. Do you seriously think the atomic bomb meant a damn next to the sheer unbridled destruction we were already unleashing on the Japanese populace with our fire-bombing raids? The war was won by logistics. Materiel. We out-produced our enemies, and we'd have done so against Japan with or without the atom bomb.

But that's neither here nor there.

Modifié par Scyldemort, 24 mars 2012 - 12:32 .

[General User]

wikkedjester wrote...
However from the galaxy map, we see an explosion radiating from the systems, with no context other than the entire destruction of that system to go on.

We see those explosions on the galaxy map cover dozens of light-years in mere seconds.  You could do like I do and just don't take that graphic literally, or you could just chalk it up as another of the ending's many flaws and/or plot holes, or you could explain the "explosions" as non-lethal using your favorite "space magic" theory.  All good (and valid) choices

wikkedjester wrote...
I have no problem with a dark age ending, other than the apparent social and economical, and environmental problems that would be created from billions from other races stranded on Earth, and the Wars for control that would evolve from the devolution of society under the post Reaper invasion.

Billions?

Modifié par General User, 24 mars 2012 - 12:33 .