251 réponses à ce sujet

[a.m.p]

SmokePants wrote...

a.m.p wrote...

The funny thing is, that in the long run there are actually two wildly different endings. The one where everyone and everything is half-robot and the one where they aren't. Unless Bioware decides that the only difference between these scenarios is skin, eye and foliage textures, I don't see how a sequel is possible.

Who even knows what the Synthesis ending even means, though. It copuld be that everything is changed on a DNA level-- like the Geth would be the Geth, they'd just be built upon a different framework. Superficially, they'd be the same.

Reminds me of the BSG finale where it's revealed we're all part Cylon.

Like I said, who even knows what it's supposed to mean. The ME universe pretty much allows for any possibilility.

Even if the fleets are stranded, I'm sure they made it home somehow. I mean, the Crucible came out of nowhere... why not some other problem solving machine?

I don't know what the Synthesis ending is supposed to mean, all I know is it's troll physics and a fractal plot hole. And I was hoping to the very last that the ME universe does not allow for troll physics.

As for how the fleets might make it home - that's pretty much what the thread is about. There is a large number of technical problems that need to be somehow solved for this to happen. I might go through the thread later and make a comprehensive list to add to my original post.

[Beliyaal]

 "Dark age" doesn't have to mean gloom & doom though. It might be decades, or it might be millenia before something similar in effect to the mass relays is built again, but that doesn't mean everybody has to die 

Any step back in technology is going to cause people to die by the hordes, because it removes the technology that allowed them to live in the first place.

The relays allowed trade between colonies that made the difference between feeding a million people and feeding a billion, for example. If you step back to your old "million people" carrying capacity while you still have 500 million kicking around, guess what happens? Repeat the same for living space, medicine, medical technology...

There's no such thing as a totally harmless step backward in tech.

Modifié par Beliyaal, 03 avril 2012 - 07:54 .

[a.m.p]

Sc2mashimaro wrote...

The map seems wrong. There are Terminus systems in the Attican Traverse.....

And Attican systems in the Terminus. I know. I don't think the borders were ever distinctly defined and some of the space that was called the Traverse in ME1 was clearly defined as Terminus in ME2.
I took the latest in-game map as a basis and put the ME1/2 systems on it according to their relative positions to the ME3 systems.

[Sc2mashimaro]

Making that map must have been tricky! Lol. I'll have to go back and look at those other maps then!

[ZLurps]

Something I have been wondering, say if I go against my head canon and say half of the Quarian fleet survived. We don't see any Geth in the battle, but if they were there there might be something they could try.

Many of the ships in Quarian flotilla is hundreds of years old. Some I guess date back to day when they needed to abandon their home worlds. All this time they have maintained their fleet, added new technology, according to codex, they even have Thanix technology. How is that possible? Say mobile shipyard.

ME1 and other pieces of ME products put huge emphasis how good Quarian engineering was. Tali was able to even improve Normandy SR-1's drive core, or something IIRC.

If we have Geth still in the picture things get instantly a lot better. Geth require no oxygen, no clumsy space suits, they don't need rest. Geth can salvage technology and material from ships that were destroyed in the battle, they can also work in mobile dry dock.

What would be chances that they could construct a space arch and a tanker?

[SmokePants]

a.m.p wrote...

I don't know what the Synthesis ending is supposed to mean, all I know is it's troll physics and a fractal plot hole. And I was hoping to the very last that the ME universe does not allow for troll physics.

As for how the fleets might make it home - that's pretty much what the thread is about. There is a large number of technical problems that need to be somehow solved for this to happen. I might go through the thread later and make a comprehensive list to add to my original post.

The ME universe is built on troll physics. There's some magic "element" that reduces mass in a field, supposedly allowing FTL travel. Except that negative mass isn't actually lighter than positive mass -- it's just repelled by it, rather than attracted to it. And we know how fast things with no mass travel.

They don't respect the speed of light when it comes to communication -- everything is lag free. Quantum communication is not possible without a classical information channel and it doesn't respect the relativity of simultaneity. They trot out "dark energy" as a catch-all for anything they can't be bothered to explain.

Maybe I just don't know what you mean by "troll physics", but I'm at peace with the nonsense. The nonsense is what makes everything possible.

I recognize the stranded fleets as a possible implication of the endings (but not necessarily the case). I'm just not concerned about it. I'm much more worried about the Illusive man saying he needs the Crucible to control the Reapers, but doing everything he could to stand in the way of its construction and deployment. Was he that indoctrinated so as to operate in a completely counterproductive manner? You don't need to answer that. It's OT.

[a.m.p]

SmokePants wrote...
The ME universe is built on troll physics. There's some magic "element" that reduces mass in a field, supposedly allowing FTL travel. Except that negative mass isn't actually lighter than positive mass -- it's just repelled by it, rather than attracted to it. And we know how fast things with no mass travel.

They don't respect the speed of light when it comes to communication -- everything is lag free. Quantum communication is not possible without a classical information channel and it doesn't respect the relativity of simultaneity. They trot out "dark energy" as a catch-all for anything they can't be bothered to explain.

Maybe I just don't know what you mean by "troll physics", but I'm at peace with the nonsense. The nonsense is what makes everything possible.

Until synthesis that was your usual sci-fi physics for the most part. A more or less internally coherent set of technobabbly rules about how stuff works. I don't have much problems with FTL travel because to my knowledge real science hasn't yet given a definitive answer on whether it's possible or not (that said I do have some issues with the element zero idea, but that's background lore).

Now synthesis walks in and offers me to merge organics and synthetics (who have been established within the setting to be largely body-independent software) by altering everyone's DNA with a wave of green space magic. That is also the most important event of the whole storyline, thus making me concentrate on it and question it.
We might not understand every little detail on how DNA works but we're pretty sure it doesn't work like that.
That is troll physics.

Modifié par a.m.p, 03 avril 2012 - 08:29 .

[heathxxx]

Interesting discussion...

In an attempt to professionally recreate FTL travel and thereby come to our own conclusions, we conducted the following experiment.

We started by utilising a standard form of transport...



...that being the humble Reliant Robin.

We then decided to make the appropriate changes to ensure that the "vehicle" of choice was capable of correctly emulating high speed, inter-spacial travel. Our enhancements produced this "vehicle".



After extensive testing, beginning with locating a suitable launch location, examining system and planetary movements to establish optimum travel parameters, we then pushed our "vehicle" out of the garage.

Unfortunately, due to unforeseen circumstances (we ran out of beer), we were unable to complete the experiment, thus we must present the only solid conclusions we can muster at this stage...

...lots of speculation, from everyone.

Modifié par heathxxx, 03 avril 2012 - 08:40 .

[StarGateGod]

Beliyaal wrote...

The Angry One wrote...

tobito113 wrote...

The proteans made the conduit with far less then what the current species have now...

The Protheans had: A dedicated underground research and development base intended to last out the Reapers.

Earth has: A pile of rubble.

Also, this maybe isn't the thread for it, but the conduit always bothered me. How the hell did the Ilos team get the other relay onto the citadel?

It was already there, the entire point of illos was a proving ground for building their own relay, so they built one on ilos and put the other on the citadel so that most likely when they finished it could be shown off to the masses

[SmokePants]

a.m.p wrote...

Until synthesis that was your usual sci-fi physics for the most part. A more or less internally coherent set of technobabbly rules about how stuff works. I don't have much problems with FTL travel because to my knowledge real science hasn't yet given a definitive answer on whether it's possible or not (that said I do have some issues with the element zero idea, but that's background lore).

Now synthesis walks in and offers me to merge organics and synthetics (who have been established within the setting to be largely body-independent software) by altering everyone's DNA with a wave of green space magic. That is also the most important event of the whole storyline, thus making me concentrate on it and question it.
We might not understand every little detail on how DNA works but we're pretty sure it doesn't work like that.
That is troll physics.

I'll grant you that Synthesis seems to have come out the business end of a bong. The reality-altering implications are hard to swallow. But I think the idea is that all synthetic and organic life would be based on a common framework that would allow for each possibility -- a replacement for DNA. How would that framework allow for frigging software? You got me there. Maybe it doesn't. Maybe the Geth were the ones that were changed the most.

Personally, I never bought the idea of sentient software.

The thing about FTL is that you can not separate it from time travel and causality violation, which is what pretty much every interstellar science fiction property tries to do. No matter how it's done -- folding space, wormholes, or magic acceleration -- appearing outside of your light cone screws with the continuity of the universe in some rather alarming ways.

We don't know it's not possible (yet), but we're more curious about how the universe would handle FTL travel than its practical benefits.

[Shalewind]

SmokePants wrote...

The thing about FTL is that you can not separate it from time travel and causality violation, which is what pretty much every interstellar science fiction property tries to do. No matter how it's done -- folding space, wormholes, or magic acceleration -- appearing outside of your light cone screws with the continuity of the universe in some rather alarming ways.

We don't know it's not possible (yet), but we're more curious about how the universe would handle FTL travel than its practical benefits.

Not to throw fuel on the fire but can you not ensure causality protection if you assume a special reference frame is possible (I know if violates anther law but hell we have element zero anyway)? It's been a while since I studied this but I thought it was possible to build a model wherein you stuck within your own light-cone respective of other light cones you could keep causlity intact. If all FTL moved tuned to one special reference frame wouldn't that allow for this.

Also isn't light cone violation only possible with TWO actors?

Modifié par Shalewind, 03 avril 2012 - 09:16 .

[a.m.p]

SmokePants wrote...

The thing about FTL is that you can not separate it from time travel and causality violation, which is what pretty much every interstellar science fiction property tries to do. No matter how it's done -- folding space, wormholes, or magic acceleration -- appearing outside of your light cone screws with the continuity of the universe in some rather alarming ways.

Oh. It all makes sense now.
They were flying all over the galaxy in their fancy ships until it finally and irreparably screwed up the continuity. And the starkid is a manifestation of that.

Anyway. I updated the original post with the main points of the discussion.

[Orthodox Infidel]

Bumping this with some additional information that may be of interest.

There was cut content from Lair of the Shadow Broker that described a trip Samara took from Salarian space to the Sol system and back when she was part of a survey ship in her relative youth. The Captain of said voyage said it would be a 4 year trip, and brought provisions for 10.

Content is here: http://masseffect.wi...ossiers:_Samara

I started a thread on it because I couldn't find this one. It's here: http://social.biowar.../index/11094661

[Menalaos1971]

According to this data the distances and FTL travel times at 12 ly/day without any stops

FTL speed of a given ship is determined by three factors. The normal mass of the ship, the size/strength of the Mass Effect Core, and the power of the ship's conventional thrusters. At light speed in real physics an object's mass increases to infinite thus requiring infinite energy to accelerate further. The Mass Effect field lowers the mass of anything within the field, thus raising the maximum possible speed within the field. The Mass Effect field alone, however doesn't make a ship move. It is the ship's conventional thrusters that actually move the ship. So, it is the combination of all three, the Mass of the ship, the strength of the Mass Effect field and its ability to lower that Mass, and the power of the Thrusters used to move that Mass, that determine a given ships maximum speed through space.

The Normandy is a smaller, lighter weight ship with an enormous mass effect core and powerful military grade thrusters, which combined allow it to travel at very high FTL speeds. 12ly/day would be a reasonable speed guess for the Normandy.

On the other hand a massive freighter or a Quarian Live Ship with an average mass effect core and whatever commercially available thrusters it can get (or salvage) will not be able to travel at nearly as high FTL speed.

If you are trying to move an entire fleet, your smallest, lightest ships could "screen" and "scout" for good discharge points and systems to stop in for fuel and other useful resources, but the fleet as a whole can only travel as fast as the slowest ship in the fleet. And with the Rachni as an example of what you could accidentally stumble upon, the fleets would want to stay in tact as they travelled.

So, the 12ly/day is a vastly over-optimistic number.

[Orthodox Infidel]

Menalaos1971 wrote...

So, the 12ly/day is a vastly over-optimistic number.

Please read the thread, this point was discussed. 12 ly/day originally comes from a comment that Ashley made about a trip she made herself to see her sister while on leave and is described as a "common speed" in several places. 

[a.m.p]

Orthodox Infidel wrote...

Bumping this with some additional information that may be of interest.

There was cut content from Lair of the Shadow Broker that described a trip Samara took from Salarian space to the Sol system and back when she was part of a survey ship in her relative youth. The Captain of said voyage said it would be a 4 year trip, and brought provisions for 10.

Content is here: http://masseffect.wi...ossiers:_Samara

I started a thread on it because I couldn't find this one. It's here: http://social.biowar.../index/11094661

That is interesting, going to add it to my first post, if you don't mind. Even though it was cut it means at some point they were thinking about relay-less travel.

[WhiteKnyght]

a.m.p wrote...
----------------------------------------------------------- Here are speculations --------------------------------------------------------------

According to my data the distances and FTL travel times at 12 ly/day without any stops and in a straight line between homeworlds are as follows:

                               Distance from Sol (ly)        FTL travel time (years)
Sur'Kesh                          9504                                    2,2
Tuchanka                       16359                                   3,7
Palaven                           17468                                  4
Thessia                           28167                                  6,4
Rannoch                         64433                                  14,7

Your numbers are off.

FTL ships can go 16 lightyears a day at cruising speeds. At max speed it could be anywhere from 20-25. Twice that for Reaper engines, which can be studied to improve normal FTL, which according to Patrick Weekes, has never been improved on since its discovery.

Also if you're gonna complain over statistics and real world physics, then the Mass Relays are impossible as well. Cause even FTL, which goes past the speed of light would send a person traveling through time according to some physicists.

Just proves that the Mass Relays made people even lazier than the remote control did.

Modifié par The Grey Nayr, 11 avril 2012 - 05:53 .

[Wabajakka]

Space Magic is going to fix everything in the extended cut... Somehow the relays are rebuilt no matter what ending and there is no starvation also somehow there isn't tension between any races as they're stranded waiting for the relays to get built... Shepard somehow is reunited with crew if alive and Complete co-operation and peace... a disturbing thought.

No sort of math required.

Modifié par Orange Tee, 11 avril 2012 - 05:56 .

[a.m.p]

The Grey Nayr wrote...

Your numbers are off.

Of course they are. Because they are based on a map I made by staring at the in-game galaxy map. They are rough estimates and are here to illustrate the order of magnitude.

FTL ships can go 16 lightyears a day at cruising speeds.

That's the first time I hear that number. This thread was made days before Patrick Weekes (whose work I by the way greatly admire) said anything about cruising speeds and before the EC was announced and Bioware started backpadeling on the whole dark age thing.

Thing is speed is not the main problem. The issues listed in my OP are - fuel, supplies, navigation, communication and so on.

Ironically, I originally made the thread to argue that long range FTL is possible and come up with realistic solutions for those issues. And people did come up with solutions. Then Bioware began dropping hints that nobody starves and the relays are going to be rebuilt. Which is great.

And if they make a beautiful bittersweet epilogue how the survivors of the war crawl out of the rubble of their planets, work and solve those problems and rebuild, that would be wonderful.

If however they just retcon everything previously established about conventional FTL and relays and gloss over all these issues, that would not be great at all.

Like this:

Orange Tee wrote...

Space Magic is going to fix everything in the extended cut... Somehow the relays are rebuilt no matter what ending and there is no starvation also somehow there isn't tension between any races as they're stranded waiting for the relays to get built... Shepard somehow is reunited with crew if alive and Complete co-operation and peace... a disturbing thought.

No sort of math required.

This is what I'm afraid will happen.

Modifié par a.m.p, 11 avril 2012 - 06:31 .

[knightnblu]

You forgot to add in the time dilation into the FTL scenarios.

[jsadalia]

Why would they even go to their homeworlds? There are closer Turian colonies for the dextros, plenty of close worlds for the other races. Local settlement and colonization seems by far the more likely option.

[jsadalia]

knightnblu wrote...

You forgot to add in the time dilation into the FTL scenarios.

From the Codex on FTL in mass Effect: "This effectively raises the speed of light within the mass effect field, allowing high speed travel with negligible relativistic time dilation effects."

[a.m.p]

knightnblu wrote...

You forgot to add in the time dilation into the FTL scenarios.

There's been some debate about it.

This is far from hard science, all the speculations are based on a few codex entires and a few offhand mentions, it's not like we can definitely conclude whether this effect applies here or doesn't.

[a.m.p]

jsadalia wrote...

Why would they even go to their homeworlds? There are closer Turian colonies for the dextros, plenty of close worlds for the other races. Local settlement and colonization seems by far the more likely option.

I'd like to be able to eventually restore some semblance of pre-war galactic civilization. The homeworlds are a simple example.

[Precious Roy]

Love this thread. A few points on the fleets over Earth (assuming they're still intact):

1. It's mentioned (I think in ME1's entry on the planet) that Mars was essentially bypassed once the Charon relay was discovered, and only houses the prothean research station plus a smallish colony. There's a lot of space there to start up heavy industry and even further colonization if big chunks of Earth are no longer habitable. I can see the Quarians deploying their mining expertise to produce large amounts of raw materials from the Sol system's numerous moons and asteroids to help make this possible, and to build the infrastructure necessary to salvage and replace their lost ships in preparation for the long journey home, which would have the benefit of aiding the other races in the same way.

2. Galactic civilization will continue to exist but change in nature. Based on the distribution of council races and their homeworlds all being in roughly the same quadrant, it will likely take more the form of something from Star Trek where smaller alliances control areas that are within practical travel time from their seat of government, but crossing the entire galaxy (remember Voyager?) would be monumentally impractical. It would also resemble more the period of colonization on earth from the late 17th to early 19th centuries, before air travel and radio allowed same-day travel and communication. Not a disaster, but definitely different.

3. According to the codex an FTL drive can be operated for an average of 50 hours before it's static buildup needs to be discharged. Call it two days - that's ~24 light years which should be more than enough distance to make finding a large body to discharge into possible.