136 réponses à ce sujet

[Arkitekt]

D.I.Y_Death wrote...

Well if you want to go down that road theory of relativity might not be right correct, big debate on that going on in the science community.

There's no debate at all. FTL is impossible and all empirical evidence shows this. Yes, even "latest" ones. OPERA director was fired for his... ahhh... recklessness on that particular embarrassing episode.

In anycase I wouldn't say FTL is impossible, but if we can do it it's gonna take some serious quantum mechanics and power sources that don't rely on burning the sludgey remains of creatures that once were (fossil fuels).

We just don't know what it would take.

[The Razman]

BobSmith101 wrote...

The Razman wrote...

BobSmith101 wrote...

The Razman wrote...
Imagine that Iran will develop a superweapon in the future, that will 100% kill everyone on the planet. You could send the UN in, be diplomatic, impose sanctions, denounce them, threaten them, all of those "finnese" options ... but they all have a chance of failure. In all of those scenarios, there's a chance that Iran might succeed anyway, and if they do ... then we're all screwed. No last minute alternative options, no takebacks ... we're all gone, dusted, done for.

The only 100% way of being sure that humanity doesn't die is to nuke Iran, right here, right now. What do you do?

I think our definitons of finesse are a little different.

Logic does not compute it's a false premise.

I am asking you to participate in a hypothetical scenario. Do you not understand the terms, or ...?

Why would I participate when the premise of the hypothesis is flawed?

You haven't said how, though. You've just made some vague allusions to there being "other options". The extension of your Iran analogy is pretty accurate, I think ... if the only 100% way of being sure that humanity doesn't die is to nuke Iran, what do you do? Do you do it, just to be 100% sure, or do you take a chance that other, less extreme methods will work?

The Starchild chose nuking. That's what makes it so delicious. It's logical, but morally void.

[Arkitekt]

Farbautisonn wrote...

-If there is one thing a peek at our history books tells us, its that nothing is impossible. We just have to create an invironment where it is possible. We have slowed down light to what... 60km/h... So why cant we "speed it up"?

LOL

Don't show this sentence to a physics professor unless you mean it as a joke.

Light is never "slowed down". What happens in that particular phenomenon is that light has to travel inside a medium which is "very crowded", and has to pinball its way out of there. The pinball is so great that it "seems" you slowed it down.

Didnt they once claim that breaking the sound barrier would cause your plane to violently explode or  something?

Don't quote Star Trek V. Please, ME3 endings are enough of general badness as they are, let's just not bring another failed miserable story into the discussion.

[chester013]

JBONE27 wrote...

D.I.Y_Death wrote...

I'd consider Stalin to be on par with Pol Pot even though STalin's idealology wasn't so broken it was stupid, he was just absurdly oppressive on a massive scale. Other than that I can't think of anyone who comes close to being as bad as Pol Pot. Please don't say Hitler, the guy was a racist somewhat genocidal maniac but without the genocide he'd probably be a German war hero since you know...he ended the German economic collapse, is responsible for leaps and strides in medical technology and even built the world's first anti-matter generator.

A bit off topic but it's related. I want your oponions on this too guys! But please, keep it civil or I report. If you find yourself getting anygry just walk away, thanks in advance.

I was going to say Thomas De Torquematta.  He was the archetect of the Inquestion, and unlike Hitler, Stalin, and Pol Pot, he didn't kill them efficiantly, he delighted in torturing them to death for being accused of being Jewish, Muslim, Wiccan, gay, etc.

Fascinating, and gruesome, museum on the subject if you ever find yourself in Toledo

[kbct]

Arkitekt wrote...

What debris? Where did you get this debris? Charon is 9 billion kms away. Its "debris" would be reduced to nothing in a sphere of that radius size. What the frak are you talking about?

Radiation would destroy Earth's atmosphere. We have to assume away dangerous radiation in a blast that disperses acrosss the galaxy.

[Mylia Stenetch]

Farbautisonn wrote...

-If there is one thing a peek at our history books tells us, its that nothing is impossible. We just have to create an invironment where it is possible. We have slowed down light to what... 60km/h... So why cant we "speed it up"? 

Um...the speed of light/what light travels at is a physical constant. There is no way for anyone to alter the velocity in which light travels. This has been a standard and accepted in physics for years. Hell I learned about that in High School physics.

[Farbautisonn]

Arkitekt wrote...


Even if you assume that the relay explosion is equal to the Citadel one, the Citadel is hovering Earth by a few hundred kms, perhaps a couple thousand. Earth measures 12k km of diameter. This blast would reach, say, the moon, which is 400k km away around a thousand times less intensive. And that's the moon.

If we are to "calculate" the effects on Mars, and put an arbitrary number on its distance, say 200 million kms (orbits, etc.), some 250 million times fainter.

You sure you are making calculations here?

-Fine. Im making "assumptions" here. But the problem remains. We do not know the energy output of the explosions so whilst you might be rigth, I might too. We know that the explosion in arrival wipes out a system. We know that the relays explode in two ot three endings.

What debris? Where did you get this debris? Charon is 9 billion kms away. Its "debris" would be reduced to nothing in a sphere of that radius size. What the frak are you talking about?

 So a massive shockwave in or near the Kuiper belt wouldnt lob all kinds of crap toward the center of the solar center. And thats assuming its a tiny explosion. If its a nova esqe explosion akin to an arrival explosion It might very well desturb planetary orbits. And whats with the "Frak" thing? Curse if you must, youre not in "Battlestar: Galactica" where someone has to invent words to circumvent censorship.

Joker's problem was that the relay was being shutdown while he was still in it.

-Really? You know this how? 

[Farbautisonn]

Arkitekt wrote...
Don't show this sentence to a physics professor unless you mean it as a joke.

Light is never "slowed down". What happens in that particular phenomenon is that light has to travel inside a medium which is "very crowded", and has to pinball its way out of there. The pinball is so great that it "seems" you slowed it down.

-My speciality IRL is rhetoric, spin, history, and politics. We cant all be physics professors. I just dont see why people are so quick to deem something "impossible" due to a mathematical formula. Those do have a tendency to get revisited now and again. What was "impossibru" 300 years ago, is now in our phones and our toasters.

Don't quote Star Trek V. Please, ME3 endings are enough of general badness as they are, let's just not bring another failed miserable story into the discussion.

-And yet you were there with the "frak" bit of another failed Sci-Fi franchise.

Modifié par Farbautisonn, 03 avril 2012 - 03:58 .

[kbct]

Farbautisonn wrote...

So a massive shockwave in or near the Kuiper belt wouldnt lob all kinds of crap toward the center of the solar center. And thats assuming its a tiny explosion. If its a nova esqe explosion akin to an arrival explosion It might very well desturb planetary orbits.

Or even an asteroid 10 miles across. That would do a sh!t-ton of damage. For a very long time.

[redplague]

Any children in games are annoying, though this one wasn't as annoying as the children in Skyrim.

[Farbautisonn]

Mylia Stenetch wrote...
Um...the speed of light/what light travels at is a physical constant. There is no way for anyone to alter the velocity in which light travels. This has been a standard and accepted in physics for years. Hell I learned about that in High School physics.

-So did I. And then I heard about particles and light being emitted from black holes and quasars that apparently are emitted at FTL speed. I read the "not going faster than light too" but I generally trust human Enginuity more than I trust dogmatic souls. I just dont see why it should be impossible to create circumstances under which FTL travel or propulsion should be impossible.

Modifié par Farbautisonn, 03 avril 2012 - 04:03 .

[redplague]

The comparison to Hitler is ridiculous. The Catalyst never did any good at all whereas a lot of people overlook a lot of the good things Hitler did for humanity. Without the Na zis for example there would have been no Moon landing or NASA space program and no Hiroshima, as most of the technology was stolen from Germany.

Modifié par redplague, 03 avril 2012 - 04:04 .

[aksoileau]

Anyone else think of dead kennedy's holiday in Cambodia?

[The Razman]

Farbautisonn wrote...

You presume that there has to be a dilemma. I dont see why there has to be one. Is there a law somewhere I can look that up?

The law of dramatics, maybe?

They chose for there to be a dilemma. Because dilemmas in drama are interesting. What's the problem with that?

-Thats not "going down a road". Thats called relying on historical evidence, empirical fact. What are you relying on? You are relying on a "wave" not being as harmfull as an explosion. Because godchild told you. You do realize what a shockwave is? I dont know what the hell youre trying to argue here, but you are making my case for me. That "big ass explosion" you refer to is actually what we see. Shockwaves eminating from the Relay epicenter.

It baffles me how you can make attacks on me "making assumptions", and then make a massive, humungous, groundless assumption that the wave is a shockwave. Shockwave requires an explosion. Do you see any explosion to start off that initial wave? No, it just emanates out of the Crucible like an electromagnetic wave.

All you're relying on is "I saw a relay explode once and it resulted in a big-ass explosion". That's your empirical evidence, without taking into account the information we're given on what caused that big-ass explosion. Release of energy from the relay. Those waves in the ME3 ending? Those require energy, they do. Energy from the mass relays. Hence, the energy is used, no explosions.

-Oh... Im sorry. So the colour of the explosion matters now. My bad. Magnets... how do they work? Seriously. There is a significant relase of energy in a shockwave. Or perhaps you are assuming that the relays release their energy in a specific wavelength... Whats your assumption here?

Big, white, humungous supernova explosion versus visibly tiny regular exothermic explosion. It doesn't take a genius. You can see the explosions for yourself.

I seem to be the one drawing conclusions from stuff you can actually see in the game. I don't know what you're drawing your assumptions from, exactly. They don't hold up under the lore of the game if you go into it in any depth.

-Wrong. I didnt know he existed. I just wanted to remove the threat to my galaxy. And youre using circular logic. He cant because he wont. Allright then. Why should I trust him again?

You did, though. The entire game is based around the fact that you don't know what the Crucible is or does, what the Catalyst is or does, or how it can help you against the Reapers. Everyone's assumed it's a weapon without any basis for it, they say this many times. The whole plan going in is "activate the Crucible, and hope it does something". Why does the fact that the something happens to be the Starchild change anything? You did all this hoping for a way of stopping the Reapers, and you got one.

Why shouldn't you trust him? If the Starchild didn't intend to help, it'd just let you die and let the cycles carry on just the way they were instead of offering you anything. What's your logic behind looking the gift-horse in the mouth?

-Ermn... He lets shephard die. Cease to exist as he is... in all scenarios. Solutions? Sure. His solutions. Solutions that make zero sense to me in the context of "pull back your damned ships and lets talk this over". Nope. Instead we are forced to make a choise he dictates. How do you know that there are no alternatives? Godkid himself says he controlls the reapers. The reapers do obey orders as we see from the endings. They CAN pull back. So why doesnt godkid offer this choise ? Thats an alternative right there.

poppycock. The whole reason Sheperd is standing there in the first place is that the whole of galactic civilisation has tried to come up with a solution to stopping the Reapers and they've come up with diddly squat. Yes, you're taking his solutions ... because you've managed to come up with nothing yourself to stop the Reapers. This is your only shot. Beggers/choosers.

-I gave you plenty. Stop the reapers, pull back. If godkid must, keep them in holding whilst we find a way to solve this issue. If you godkid refuses, find the HAL2000 fusebox and start pulling out the databoards. Find the "disable" button. Find the reaper IFF and the Relay mechanism for firering beams of energy so you can nuke any incomming reaper. Weaponize the relays in other fashions. Plenty of "better ideas" than what we got. 

Again ... why should he pull them back? He still believes in the Reaper Cycle system, you haven't convinced him of anything. Hell, you don't know enough about the situation to even convince anyone of anything. The only reason he's talking to you is because you've proved you've reached a level where the cycles are going to be stopped forcibly at some point.

He's not there to help you out, like some saviour. He's just giving you the responsibility.

[kbct]

Farbautisonn wrote...

Mylia Stenetch wrote...
Um...the speed of light/what light travels at is a physical constant. There is no way for anyone to alter the velocity in which light travels. This has been a standard and accepted in physics for years. Hell I learned about that in High School physics.

-So did I. And then I heard about particles and light being emitted from black holes and quasars that apparently are emitted at FTL speed. I read the "not going faster than light too" but I generally trust human Enginuity more than I trust dogmatic souls. I just dont see why it should be impossible to create circumstances under which FTL travel or propulsion should be impossible.

It's interesting that the Standard Model still has a number of missing pieces. No unifying theory. We're still speculating about the unknowns and calling them things like the Higgs boson. You can take a meter and go twenty orders of magnitude in either direction from the incredibly small to the incredibly big, and our understanding breaks down. Hell, we can't even detect gravity at the atomic level.

[Mylia Stenetch]

Farbautisonn wrote...

Mylia Stenetch wrote...
Um...the speed of light/what light travels at is a physical constant. There is no way for anyone to alter the velocity in which light travels. This has been a standard and accepted in physics for years. Hell I learned about that in High School physics.

-So did I. And then I heard about particles and light being emitted from black holes and quasars that apparently are emitted at FTL speed. I read the "not going faster than light too" but I generally trust human Enginuity more than I trust dogmatic souls. I just dont see why it should be impossible to create circumstances under which FTL travel or propulsion should be impossible.

To me that reads all hypothesis, nothing fully confirmed by us...yet. While I have noticed and read some articles on the idea of FTL travel, it is still a pie in the sky idea. While the future or near future may hold some validity of this, we are not there yet and due to that the constant of light is what we have.

[Arkitekt]

kbct wrote...

Arkitekt wrote...

What debris? Where did you get this debris? Charon is 9 billion kms away. Its "debris" would be reduced to nothing in a sphere of that radius size. What the frak are you talking about?

Radiation would destroy Earth's atmosphere. We have to assume away dangerous radiation in a blast that disperses acrosss the galaxy.

Again, I do not agree with you on your numbers. I do not see any of such amazing amount of radiation in those cutscenes. The Arrival cutscene does a much better job at that.

[kbct]

The Razman wrote...

No, it just emanates out of the Crucible like an electromagnetic wave.

Radiation can do massive amount of damage to organics and planets. That is, unless the electromagnetic wave is only space magic.

[Arkitekt]

Farbautisonn wrote...

-Fine. Im making "assumptions" here. But the problem remains. We do not know the energy output of the explosions so whilst you might be rigth, I might too. We know that the explosion in arrival wipes out a system. We know that the relays explode in two ot three endings.

No, the problem does not remain. You assume that the explosion is supernovae type and conclude it's dangerous. And it's not. The cutscenes make this clear.

So a massive shockwave in or near the Kuiper belt wouldnt lob all kinds of crap toward the center of the solar center.

Please don't go there. Are you sure you want to calculate that? Or are you just throwing all sorts of non-problems into the discussion in order to deviate the subject? I will assume that this is not the intent. These are not problems a 22nd century civilization wouldn't be able to solve. (And stop seeing the Kuiper belt as some Star Wars type of asteroid field. It's not! Asteroids are spread out and millions of kms away from each other).

And whats with the "Frak" thing? Curse if you must, youre not in "Battlestar: Galactica" where someone has to invent words to circumvent censorship.

Actually that's exactly what the agreement you signed to post here states. It refuses to accept the common term we use to describe fornication as acceptable but they actually name "frak" as acceptable. I go with it. Sue me.

-Really? You know this how?

The cutscene shows you this. The ship is being porsued linearly, not by a spherical shockwave.

[Arkitekt]

Farbautisonn wrote...

-My speciality IRL is rhetoric, spin, history, and politics. We cant all be physics professors. I just dont see why people are so quick to deem something "impossible" due to a mathematical formula. Those do have a tendency to get revisited now and again. What was "impossibru" 300 years ago, is now in our phones and our toasters.

Sure. But you can believe this: FTL is impossible, and all of our theories agree with this. FTL would create all sorts of paradoxes that would shatter everything we know about the universe (for instance, it would make it possible for you to go back in time and kill your father).

-And yet you were there with the "frak" bit of another failed Sci-Fi franchise.

BSG ended badly but no way I'm gonna let ya say it was a "failed Sci FI franchise"!

Anyways, as I've said before, it was "gently" suggested by BW staff themselves on the regulations here.

[wright1978]

Farbautisonn wrote...

Pol pot is actually a pretty good bid. He was trying to build his "workers/proletariate paradise" by eradicating everyone who wasnt a worker/proletarian. Insane and absurd logic sure, it was popular enough to let him get a following.


What bothers me about the catalyst is that he is presented some sort of "god", that has the ability to force you into doing his bidding. He takes the shape of a human child to present himself as the least threateningly possible entity, and yet every single action he proposes for Shep is the equivalentof mass genocide.

The reapers are a  tool for this entity. They do what they are supposed to and nothing more. But for the supposed omnipotence and omniscience of this "god" his tools stll employ "rayguns" and mass effect propelled projectiles. if one observes the kardashev scale, it just seems as if they arent that advanced... and thusly that reflects on their makers. The reapers do not evolve. Like crocodiles or sharks they have adapted themselves to the environment to the point where they are the evolutionary top. So they are stagnant. 37 million years would have caused a biological civilisation (if one survived and thrived that long) to be extremely high on the kardashev scale. If not a hypothetical type four or even beyond, then certainly a type 3 civilization.

The reason why the "civilisation level" of the reapers becomes interesting is because people say that because Clarkes third law has been invoked, spacemagic is ok. However I dont see the reapers as going much beyond a type one civilization. They aren't that advanced. And their implementation of their project certainly isnt beyond a type one civilization. If I didnt know any better Id say that some advanced HAL2000 created by a biological race who ascended to a greater state of existance forgot about their tool, and that HAL2000 now commands the biomechanical version of Vogons. Spacehal got pissed that his creators abandoned him and tries to take it out on ever biological race. For all of this "spacehals" supposed omniscience his logic is so flawed it hurts, and he seems to be impotent without his reaper tools. A type three civillization would employ tech that was so advanced it would be indistinguishable from the forces of nature as we know them and would furthermore be so far beyond our comprehension it would likely try to teach goldfish theorhetical physics. Any desire or wish of a type 3 civilisation would likely manifest itself just by sheer thought. If they so desired, they could "wish" the reapers away. They could also "wish" for synthetics to act a certain way, thusly never becomming a problem.

That leads me to believe that spacekid here is nothing more than a petty machine dictator, revelling in his own power, causing destruction for the sake of destruction, but has the perverse desire to repeat this holocaust ad nauseam, which causes him to leave biological life alone on some planets, so he can wipe it out when it comes of age. He has no curiosity, no wish to expand his "empire" beyond this galaxy, and indeed seems totally uninterested in what other galaxies and indeed the universe has to offer. He lacks the very essential curiosity that would propel biological races into going beyond their planets, and beyond their galaxy. And the vastness of the universe means that a biological race could stay curious forever, The curiosity which in my opinion is the "divine trait" of humanity/biological races escapes him completely. He just does the same over and over and over again and has been doing it apparenlty for 37 million years. And yet he does it because its his "job". Which makes him a Vogon too.

Very good post.