194 réponses à ce sujet

[suusuuu]

sistersafetypin wrote...

sistersafetypin wrote...

J717 wrote...

I'm pretty sure that BioWare did in fact retcon the Protheans...

Somewhere along the way, someone probably thought, "wouldn't it be cool if the Collectors WERE Protheans?!" and incorporated it into the story, and it was probably too late to change the "bug-like" looks of the Collectors...so they changed the Protheans to resemble a Collector instead....

They WERE supposed to be the tentacle-faced creatures on Ilos (those were not the Inusannon, the ME1 art book even says they are Protheans).

Hence, the BLATANTLY LAZY changes in flashbacks between ME1 and ME2:

If you pay attention both photos... You can tell it's meant to depect the same scene. And yet, in one there are tentacles and in the other... We have Javik type Protheans

Actually, looking at this closer... The main 'Prothean' is literally copy and pasted over the original. You can still see the body and the tentacles below the Javik type Prothean's waist

Well it is stated in a few credible places that the plot of Mass Effect was developed "on the go". Karpyshyn's blog for example, the Art of Mass Effect Universe is another one. And it is also explicitly stated in the Art of Mass Effect Universe artbook, that the Protheans were designed AFTER the Collectors and based on them, not the other way around. So the creation process was reversed.

Modifié par suusuuu, 02 avril 2012 - 04:24 .

[Zuka999]

bloodstalker1973 wrote...

Zuka999 wrote...

bloodstalker1973 wrote...

Zuka999 wrote...

ROTTOK Crapgame wrote...

A great civilisation can be strong militarily and great scientist, philosophers and academics, take the Greeks, at their height they made the Romans look like an angry mob at pub chucking out time, Peter the Great, Alexander the Great both led the largest armies ever to have taken to the battlefield up to that point, but Aristotle, Plato and Socrates, their philosophy still taught in universities today.

And Javik says that he had known nothing but war, the Reaper invasion was already underway when he was born, no wonder hes view is a little jaded.

The era when the Greeks were driving advancements in philosophy and science is not the same as the era of Alexander the Great. The Wars of the Diadochi were essentially a dark age for Greece from which they never recovered. By the time of the Roman invasions of Greece, the Greeks were just holding on to ancient teachings. All of which were destroyed in the Library of Alexandria.

Sorry, brutal governments always quell scientific advancement. if you can't see that, you're blind. Science drives change. Change is bad for governments built on subjugating people. Ergo, brutal governments always suppress science. How much does this have to be hammered into our skulls during primary school for it to be obvious?

The Golden Age of Athens was not just philosophy and science. Athens became the lead state of what was basically an Athenian Empire in all but name. They expanded democrocy to other city-states, even when said city-state wanted no part of democracy. Athens pretty much exploited a lot of their allied states for wealth to fund their building projects, and military resources (mostly naval warships), and were often very willing to move to brutally crush any ally who wanted to break from the alliance.

Athens dictated to it's allies in everything from demanding tribute from them to ordering cities to tear down their local defenses to dictating what type of government a city could have. They also demanded and kept hostages from various cituies as a means of making sure those cities fell in line.  They attempted to bring Melos into their alliance against its will, and when that city resisted, Athenians executed all the adult men and enslaved the women and children. That was not out of character for Athenians. Socrates, and most other Athenian philosophers, were also veterans of the military with Socrates having fought at the battle of Potidea, another city that Athens would not allow to leave the alliance without a long, drawn out siege.

The Athenians became so intent on their own power that Sparta was able to lead a group of Greek States against them and, in the end when they conquored Athens, the Greek world roundly proclaimed it a victory for freedom against Athenian tyranny. So while Athens was a great flower of philosophy and science, it was funded by it's exploitation of it's allies after the Perisan Wars on up through the outbreak and eventual defeat during the Peloponessian Wars.

Athens was also a democracy. And one city. Which existed in the form you've mention 2,500 years ago in the bronze age. And their contributions barely added up to anything until a much more enlightened society rediscovered them.

Are we to believe the galaxy-spanning Prothean Empire, built on the subjugation and assimilation of entire species, is somehow comparable to a city-state in Greece in the bronze age? I don't even know if these arguments are jokes anymore.

My response was not intended to reflect on the protheans. It was instead in reposne to your statement that brutal governments always suppress science. A government can be democratic as well as brutal. By the same token, a non democratic government can be capable of great scientific and philosophical advancement. I assumed that because you argued the difference between Athenian Greece and Alexanders time, that you were stating that Athenian Greece was a much better comparison and were indicating that because Athens wasn't "brutal" it was a valid comparison where Alexanders Greece wasn't.

I am not sure what you are arguing here unless it's that the Athenian example is invalid because it is ancient and not advanced enough to make a difference when you project it out as a model for the Protheans. That is completely fair,but to be honest, going by that argument, then there are no societies in existance anywhere that can be comparable to the Protheans because of scale. In terms of scale, one city in Greece is pretty much equivilant to one planet in an entire galaxy.  It's not the extent of the area, or the level of technology that matters. It's how much influence and what level of technology is a government capable of supporting in it's own time and with the tools and materials at hand that matters.

Nowhere is it stated that Protheans systematically cracked down on their own people. They were expantionists, and compelled other cultures to join their empire. Nothing is said about what happened once those other races had progressed to the point that they identified themselves as Prothean. We only have the viewpoint of a single Prothean, who it must be remembered was born into the war with the Reapers without ever having experienced any of the high points of prothean civilization, to go by. The experiences of Javik can be compared to the experiences of an Athenian who had been born into the Peloponessian War and only knew the tales of whatever hieghts his civilization had reached through distant tales.

 For all we know, internally the Protheans may well have been much more lenient than they were externally. Nowhere is it stated outright that there was anything in Prothean government resembling a King or Emperor. It is just as possible Proethean government could have been as democratic as Athenian givernment. Democracy can be an arm for empirical military expantion just as much as dictatorships can. The Prothean Empire may have been modeled along the same lines as the Athenian Empire was for all we know. Democracy at home (be it Athens or the Prothean homeworld) dictating to the rest of the Empire, which then had little choice except to fall in line. Just as Athens was able, admittedly on a much smaller scale, operate a government that was both military, expantionist, and culturally and scinetifically advanced for it's time, so to could the Protheans. We can safely guess that the Prothean empire was never as all powerful as to have controlled every corner of the Galaxy. Javik comments on several wars which indicate that there were races not under Prothean control. At the same time, Javik comments that the Protheans actively engaged in uplifting other races like the Asari. He also comments about how the Protheans saw a great deal of potential in the Asari. That may indicate that the Protheans were more open to bringing in species with high potential than we might first believe an oppressive government would be willing to do. I think we're trying to view the Protheans as an either/or culture. They were either military based, or scientific. The United States, Great Britain, Soviet Russia, all have been expansionist empire builders at some point while still remaining at the forefront of science, technology and medicine. The Cold War is what drove the competition between the U.S, and Soviet Union to make the first steps in the space race, mostly because they were trying to outdo each other. Even the Renaissance era, which rediscovered the Greeks ideas and produced great levels of art and so forth, was a smoldering cesspool of rival factions competing against each other for power over their own cities and was in a near constant state of warfare between the Italian cities.

We do advance at a much greater rate than we did before. That much is valid, but I think it has more to do with the tools we have available now than it does with government. Computers have made a lot of the practicalities of math and science a lot faster. The internet allows for people to reach a much broader range of information than ever before. Instead of being limited to what is in your local library, you can research practically anything you want at the click of a mouse. Transportation advances means materials can be transported in greater volume over large distances than they ever could before. Telephone, radio, and again, the internet, means researchers and scientists can now communicate in an instant whereas before it communication was at a snails place. Technology is driving scientific advances because its taking all the down time out of the equation. It's not so much that governments nowadays allow their people to do these things so much as it is the technology makes it all happen at light speed. Given the methods and tools the ancient Greeks had at their disposal, they accomplished amazing things. That they fell, and it was only later societies that made any real use of them is like saying that because the Protheans died out, and only this cycle really did anything with what they left, Prothean technology and advances are worthless because they didn;t survive.

EDIT: I'm not ignoring the rest of the argument, its just horrendously removed from Mass Effect at this point and doesn't really belong on this forum I don't think. Otherwise, I think we're mostly not qualified to be simplifying an issue so huge to such simple terms.


This would make sense if the Protheans were the most advanced civilization by far and actively withheld some technologies from lesser races. I can't really fathom how any military could successfully occupy a whole world for an extended amount of time otherwise.

Afterthought:
This would make sense why the modern Asari believe the Protheans were gods, actually. They came upon much lesser technologically-advanced worlds and dominated them, projecting themselves as hyper-advanced spacegods basically.

Modifié par Zuka999, 02 avril 2012 - 04:29 .

[Giantdeathrobot]

They didn't change much. We assumed they were a wise, ancient race because they left us their technology. We knew next to nothing, hell Liara was a big-time specialist on Protheans and she in fact knew very little about them. I find their true selves as an all-encompassing, militaristic empire much more interesting. Clashes with the cliche ancient benevolent precursors. For the statues on Ilos, it's explained, and even if it wasn't we could safely assume that there wasn't one single space-faring race in their cycle, and Javik confirms this.

[sonicnymphonic]

I actually quite enjoy that Javik isn't what the Protheans were believed to be like. As odd as it is to say about a work of science fiction, it adds a layer of bitter realism that the Protheans didn't adhere to the idolistic and almost god-like view that the modern world had saddled them with in the wake of their extinction. It's what real life is -- we develop these images and expectations of everything, but it just hardly seems realistic for it all to fit the mold we created. 

And by the way, Javik's accent is African.

[Yorkston9152]

Despite some holes such as how they looked, i think the protheans were done rather nicely. Through out the games, even the codex says very little, if nothing was understood about their society and culture due to the reapers basicly wiping out anything that had to do with them as a people. People simply believed that since the mass relays and the citadel brought some what galactic unity in their time, it must of had the same use for the protheans. They where looking at a different culture through their eyes, not the cultures

As for them being cold and militaristic, even legion in his loyalty mission states it is wrong, even racist to judge a people simply on your cultures outlook. Take when Europeans came to America. When they came across a tribe where the men where resting while the women did the farming, they believed this tribe to be slothful and barbaric because the men let women do farming work along with normal "women work" such as kid raising ect. They didn't realize that the men did education, trade skills, hunting and warring and since native American's didnt have massive stagnate populations, it was more efficient to have women do simple farming while the men where out doing their jobs. Not to say the natives didnt view the new comers in a less then pleasing light, but the point is each culture does things that works for it.

That said, remember Javik was born into a time of war where the sole occupation of every prothean was aimed at fighting the reapers. It would of been more like Sparta then Athens. Even simple tradesmen and non soliders probably worked for the war effort. He even states at one point that before the reapers, the prothean empire was engaged in a massive war with synthetics where it it was a loosing battle in till the protheans gave every advance race a choice: join "willingly" and prosper or refuse and fall by the way side" in order to band the galaxy together. Even today in the "war on terror" this mentality is applied with countries that band together get benefits while those who abstain suffer for their choices.And in both cases, its always the biggest, baddest kid on the block with the best toys who leds them, weather by diplomacy or force to insure survival. The Protheans simply choose the simpler of the two because thats how their culture came to be through their own law of survival.

[Vaktathi]

Zuka999 wrote...

Javik basically contradicts everything we already knew about the Protheans. I get that they weren't a known quantity, really, but.. why do they have Jamaican accents or whatever? We had already talked to Prothean VIs and heard them speaking in Mass Effect 1. They sound more like they have transatlantic accents with a dash of regality.

One wil notice not all the Protheans in Javik's flashback had that sub-saharan accent. It was a very effective way of differentiating Javik from everyone else and their primarily very neutral North American accents. 

And why were we led to believe they were some sort of highly advanced species with great scientists if they're going to turn around and show that they were a brutal empire that subjugated everyone around them and was beaten by its own lack of diversity? When was the last time a brutal empire supported endeavors into science? I mean, we're talking about the species that almost broke the cycle.

I'm fairly certain the Roman Empire, relative to its time, was about the most highly advanced civilzation around except possibly that in China at the time. Roman engineering projects stand and in some cases are still in active use to this very day. Likewise, look at 1940's Germany and the Soviet Union, both "brutal empires" in their own way even if relatively short lived that dumped huge amounts of resources into scientific endeaveors.

And then there are the statues on Ilos. Why did they look the way they did? They had the tentacled beards and stuff, they looked cool. Like they had immolated themselves en masse and been left like the Romans at Pompeii. Instead, they're.. whatever Javik is. He doesn't stand out at all. Why did the Protheans have all of these statues everywhere if they weren't even related to them in the slightest?

Retconned into an older civilization that the Protheans built on top of IIRC, the Inusannon. 

I feel like the writers quietly retconned half of what made ME1 so compelling to begin with..

Really only their visual, the rest can simply be explained exactly as the game explained it, the Galaxy's view of the Protheans was incomplete and as a result overly rosy. 



Also keep in mind, Javik wasn't "typical" Prothean. He was a soldier, considered the avatar of Vengeance by his civilization, a deeply bitter and scarred person who was born at the tail end of the Prothean genocide into a civilization who's entire living memory was fighting against a brutal extermination and on the brink of collapse and whose entire life was lived in the midst of slaughter, carnage, betrayal, and combat. He awoke from that life into yet another genocide getting under way in what to him was literally the blink of an eye 50,000 years later with peoples who he had known as extreme primitives.

Thus, Javik is not exactly a great example of what greater Prothean civilization may have been. 

Modifié par Vaktathi, 02 avril 2012 - 05:20 .

[Thighs_of_thor]

I think we already had enough human looking aliens.

[darthclide]

I feel the same way... Mass Effect had the chance to get better with every game that came out. They proved me right with ME2 (though I wouldn't give it as much praise as ME1), but now, there are a million small things that have gone wrong with ME3 (some of which I can't talk about because most people would disagree with me/I could be banned for these thoughts) including this... I remember the awe I felt in ME1 when I discovered Prothean artifacts on all the different planets. That feeling was so amazing... And yet, they just wrenched that wonderful feeling out of me, and threw it by the wayside... You see. If they had planned from the beginning that the protheans were going to be "ruthless and dictatorial" then I believe the "build-up" of emotion that they made in ME1 and ME2 would have been MUCH MUCH less. This would have been done, so that you didn't feel as "attached" to the protheans like I did. But nope, it really seems like they have a whole new team that doesn't give a rat's *** about the other writers from ME1 and ME2 (that includes Drew). I am saddened by all these "minor" mistakes they made. I will still love the game, but my god, they could have have "gone to the stars" with this game so to speak.

[bboynexus]

I think the one thing BioWare absolutely nailed in ME3 was everything Prothean related.

[daigakuinsei]

Humans never had diverse accents and languages.

Also, every public announcement machine uses the local accent where it's installed.

[thehomeworld]

I thought he was more African like so Shaka Zulu his voice was creepy when he laughed. Also Javik seems to be an even bigger jerk then ren shep could ever be....

Maybe BWs trying to say big jerks make great scientist who care? Really the researchers at Mars and Illos cared about the next cycle they manipulated the human genome so we could in the future use their beacons to get their warnings, and Illos not only sabotage the keepers but sent the warning. Javik goes against this and basically says we (the prothean empire) were a bunch of racists jerks who wanted slaves, and hated the world in Javiks world those scientist must've been uber desperate to do what they did to extend an arm out to the next cycle.

For looks why would they include tentacles if they had none? I thought the shell ones that come on to the Normandy have them once Joker dies by one ( I could be wrong though). If they were trying to do a retcon it goes along well with how 3 went they wanted the vast majority of their established lore, characters, and conflicts to just go away for the sake of the new players.

Modifié par thehomeworld, 02 avril 2012 - 05:45 .

[Dendio1]

Imagine if bioware decided to make an ME4 with shepard being frozen for 50,000 years. You awaken to a new society with species like the varren fully evolved and in rule. Your squad and their civilizations are long gone. You join up with the new species in hopes of giving them a chance against the reapers that you never had.

Now check that memory shard and relive memories of having to track down and kill your indoctrinated crew members one at a time. Including your love interest.

Javik really is amazing to keep it together as well as he has. He's allowed to be a jerk every now and then all things considered. His plan is to help us stop the reapers and then join his crew in death at a prothean grave yard. How sad..and yet it gives him some closure..in his own words " the last of the protheans has spoken"

Modifié par Dendio1, 02 avril 2012 - 05:50 .

[MysticSpace]

KevShep wrote...

Zuka999 wrote...

And why were we led to believe they were some sort of highly advanced species with great scientists if they're going to turn around and show that they were a brutal empire that subjugated everyone around them and was beaten by its own lack of diversity? When was the last time a brutal empire supported endeavors into science? I mean, we're talking about the species that almost broke the cycle.

 Why did the Protheans have all of these statues everywhere if they weren't even related to them in the slightest?

Brutal empire?...You mean like Cerberus?
If Cerberus was unopposed then they WOULD have an empire, and as it stands they were every advanced for OUR cycle.

The statuse could be from the race before the protheans.

They are. Javik said their name (can't remember) when he and Liara tell him abotu IIos.

[Turtlicious]

This one worships the Enkindlers in all their forms. It believes even the collectors deserve reverance. This one would like to state that the Enkindler made it clear that the statues on Ilos were of a previous race. This one would also like to state that it does not hear Javik's voice as nigerian, but as a set of flashing lights, as it's translator translated the voice to Hanarian.

[ZLurps]

J717 wrote...

I'm pretty sure that BioWare did in fact retcon the Protheans...

Somewhere along the way, someone probably thought, "wouldn't it be cool if the Collectors WERE Protheans?!" and incorporated it into the story, and it was probably too late to change the "bug-like" looks of the Collectors...so they changed the Protheans to resemble a Collector instead....

They WERE supposed to be the tentacle-faced creatures on Ilos (those were not the Inusannon, the ME1 art book even says they are Protheans).

Hence, the BLATANTLY LAZY changes in flashbacks between ME1 and ME2:

One thought I had about Ilos statues, was that whoa, good for animators that those are static.

I think they changed how they look because of squid creature would be pain to animate. Not only because of tentacles but hands IIRC. Then there is also a problem how to do anysort of facial expression with tentacle face model and in case of squad mate, connecting something so alien with player.

Someone else pointed out how older ME artbook names tentacle creatures as Prothean.

I don't have issues with retcon, I think it was done for good reason, then I really would like to see something so alien in game. I felt original design was a bit more "outside of the box" than usual designs.

Modifié par ZLurps, 02 avril 2012 - 07:22 .

[MeatShieldGriff]

I thought it was great. The accent to me is no big deal. That's like judging all asari based on Avina VI. Having all the facts about the protheans the same but support another conclusion rocked as I saw Liara's reaction. And it makes sense how their homogenous society failed despite their superior genetics. It was cool seeing their super sense and how that correlates with the memory fragments that Shepard struggles to understand.

Good DLC and fantastic entrance for a prothean.

[Vaktathi]

thehomeworld wrote...

Also Javik seems to be an even bigger jerk then ren shep could ever be....

Again, lets be fair here, he's a dude born at the tail end of a centuries long genocide that his people have slowly been losing for hundreds of years, who has known little but defeat, carnage, slaughter, betrayal and combat his entire life, whose knowledge of his civilization is pretty much the last few dying gasps, and whose last remembrance before beign awoken by people who dwelled in caves was of near total defeat. This is a guy who had to fight and eventually kill his former subordinates, living a life of total warfare where every aspect of life was devoted to survival.

So yeah, there's a reason he's a bit prickly.

[PsyrenY]

Javik's accent is AFRICAN, not Jamaican.

Arokel wrote...

The Inusannon (spelling?) were the predecessors of the Protheans. It was their statues on Ilos. The Prothean facility there was built atop their ruins.

Not a great retconn but I am okay with it for some reason.

I'm okay with it too, but the ME3 codex entry for "Protheans" still shows those statues. If anything it should show Javik.

[kegNeggs]

my thoughts were that the designers obviously never checked the prothean codex entries. hell even the entry in me3 shows some thing, that looks quite different from javik and his companions.
maybe there are different subspecies?
clans that look totally different?
lazy designers?
i dunno

[AntonioA9011]

thehomeworld wrote...

I thought he was more African like so Shaka Zulu his voice was creepy when he laughed. Also Javik seems to be an even bigger jerk then ren shep could ever be....
 

That's because Renegade Shepard in ME3 was a slightly annoyed Paragon.

[kalerab]

Zuka999 wrote...
 When was the last time a brutal empire supported endeavors into science?

**** Germany for example. Soviet Union had one of the best scientific staff, especially in military and cosmic sector. "American empire" during Cold War. British Empire during colonisation period. Roman Empire in Dark Ages. Frankly, when exactly did not world powers supported science?

[Iwillbeback]

Zuka999 wrote...

Javik basically contradicts everything we already knew about the Protheans. I get that they weren't a known quantity, really, but.. why do they have Jamaican accents or whatever? We had already talked to Prothean VIs and heard them speaking in Mass Effect 1. They sound more like they have transatlantic accents with a dash of regality.

And why were we led to believe they were some sort of highly advanced species with great scientists if they're going to turn around and show that they were a brutal empire that subjugated everyone around them and was beaten by its own lack of diversity? When was the last time a brutal empire supported endeavors into science? I mean, we're talking about the species that almost broke the cycle.

And then there are the statues on Ilos. Why did they look the way they did? They had the tentacled beards and stuff, they looked cool. Like they had immolated themselves en masse and been left like the Romans at Pompeii. Instead, they're.. whatever Javik is. He doesn't stand out at all. Why did the Protheans have all of these statues everywhere if they weren't even related to them in the slightest?

I feel like the writers quietly retconned half of what made ME1 so compelling to begin with..

For starters we had no idea what the Protheans were like, them statues could been any of the "Protheans" or they could of been just statues.

The Protheans were multiple species from different planets that were raised up by the single most powerful prothean.
Javik was from the species that rasied the other species up, javik shows you just how great the protheans were.
They can transfer information they learnt instantly and the other prothean will instantly uderstand it.
Imagine how much easier everything would be if that was possible.

[Beliyaal]

Also, it's not a retcon if it was never stated in the game world. It's clear that at some point behind the scenes bioware planned for those tentacle-faces to be the Protheans, and that changed, but since none of that information was ever canon, changing it is not "retconning", it's just changing their mind.

[F4H bandicoot]

In the original Mass Effect's LE came a codex and art book.
In neither of these is their any reference or hint at the protheans even existing. No drawings etc.

[Hogge87]

Zuka999 wrote...

Javik basically contradicts everything we already knew about the Protheans. I get that they weren't a known quantity, really, but.. why do they have Jamaican accents or whatever? We had already talked to Prothean VIs and heard them speaking in Mass Effect 1. They sound more like they have transatlantic accents with a dash of regality.

Tali has a very distinct and special accent, yet another Quarian you stumble across in ME2 has a very normal american accent.
Look at any country and you'll hear different accents.
If we're to knit-pick: the prothean VI didn't even speak english, Shepard could just understand prothean without realising that he was spoken to in the prothean language.

And why were we led to believe they were some sort of highly advanced species with great scientists if they're going to turn around and show that they were a brutal empire that subjugated everyone around them and was beaten by its own lack of diversity? When was the last time a brutal empire supported endeavors into science? I mean, we're talking about the species that almost broke the cycle.

Ever heard of **** Germany? Or the Soviet Union? The Roman Empire? The Brittish and French empires during the 19th century? Hell, if you listen to some people, the same could be said about the US.