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[sp0ck 06]

 The Relay in Arrival was destroyed by smashing a freaking asteroid into it, creating a supernova-like explosion that annihilated the system.  At the end of ME3, the Relays are presumably destroyed by the energy surge released by the Crucible.  

So why does everyone assume the same reaction would occur?  It seems plausible that the Relays being destroyed by the Crucible would not necessarily have the same effect as smashing a giant asteroid traveling at tremendous speed.

I'm not a nuclear physicist, so correct me if I'm wrong, but couldn't you "destroy" a brick of plutonium by burning or melting it, as opposed to squirting tritium and blasting it with a projectile to create a nuclear detonation?

Modifié par sp0ck 06, 04 avril 2012 - 04:28 .

[JShepppp]

That's definitely a possibility which Bioware I think imagined us making that leap of logic. But we're not given enough information to tell. Obviously the explosions on the galaxy map are fictitious; you can't create an explosion that expands that visibly fast within a few seconds. The max speed the explosion can travel is the speed of light.

[BurtieBee]

We weren't given any information to tell us otherwise. The only information we do have says relays destroyed=supernova.

I think it's clear we're supposed to assume this isn't the case, given the fact that Joker and crew (and the planet they landed on) weren't vaporized by the blast.

But still.. bad show, Bioware.

[Alent]

First of all, both constitute immediately releasing the energy stored inside the relays, as a matter of fact, at the ending of ME3 it seems like they were supercharged before they were destroyed, so it might have been even worse than Arrival. Secondly, I'm fairly certain burning or melting plutonium would still leave you with radioactive material and or vapor / smoke, but thats sort of besides the point - plutonium doesn't seem to have anything to do with the relays at all so I'm not sure what point you were trying to make.

Finally, everyone took what happened in Arrival along with comments of one of the writers saying the post ending DLC would be not much other than staring at a wasteland, seeming to imply that the relays did basically destroy most everything. Even if they didn't, with civilizations built around their presence, many colonies and especially Earth would be essentially doomed.

[BobbyDylan]

sp0ck 06 wrote...
Why is it assumed the Relays destroyed everything??

Because the game tells us it will. In Arrival and in the Codex. Why do you assume the Reapers are killing everyone and not just thowing a fancy dress party?

[IntrepidDeath]

I think the bigger question is "Why would you assume that the relays wouldn't destroy everything?" The only time in the series previously that a relay has been destroyed, it destroyed the system it was in. Is it possible that they didn't destroy everything? I guess. But we don't know. There wasn't even a throw away line or question in the dialogue with Star Jar Binks that could have assuaged our obvious concerns.

[Chuloos]

sp0ck 06 wrote...

 The Relay in Arrival was destroyed by smashing a freaking asteroid into it, creating a supernova-like explosion that annihilated the system.  At the end of ME3, the Relays are presumably destroyed by the energy surge released by the Crucible.  

So why does everyone assume the same reaction would occur?  It seems plausible that the Relays being destroyed by the Crucible would not necessarily have the same effect as smashing a giant asteroid traveling at tremendous speed.

I'm not a nuclear physicist, so correct me if I'm wrong, but couldn't you "destroy" a brick of plutonium by burning or melting it, as opposed to squirting tritium and blasting it with a projectile to create a nuclear detonation?

Well.. it is a thought.. but the wrong thought.. read some of the post game codexes regarding the reapers and the war.. the council and all the races determined that even a damaged relay would cause a solar system to be destroyed.

no way to minimize it.

[DarkBladeX98]

the star-system spanning shockwaves still look the same as they did in Arrival.

[Vhalkyrie]

You do not want to be anywhere near uncontained uranium whether detonated or not. Going with your nuclear analogy, dismantling a nuclear device is handled very, very, carefully.  The eezo core on Mass Relays has enough energy to rival a supernova, which is about 1-2x10^44 J.  TNT is about 4x10^9 J.  The first atomic bomb detonated in New Mexico was about 80x10^12 J.

Modifié par Vhalkyrie, 04 avril 2012 - 04:44 .

[Avissel]

Well, in all but the control ending you see the relay violently blow apart.

"Destroy" has pretty strong implications. Could have gone with "deactivate"

[Swordfishtrombone]

Well, the cutscenes don't imply that the relays are being gently dismantled - a massive surge of energy capable of exploding a relay, versus a massive object slammed into a relay to explode it.... I really don't see an obvious difference.

The point is that if there IS some difference, it should have been made explicit in the ending. Shepard should, at the very least have had the option to ask about the consequences of destroying a relay this way to the star systems they reside in. This wouldn't have been such a problem if there was such a dialogue option, and the space-boy were to explain how this destruction is different from the asteroid-caused destruction.

Without such explanation, we can only go by the only precident in the game - the ONLY reason not to think that the relay explosions would destroy the star systems they are in is because we generally find that outcome too undesireable to swallow.

It is pretty obvious to me that in making that starchild scene, they simply didn't think of this. Which fits with the general theme of the ending - there were many things that clearly weren't thought through, and that people are now trying to fill in with... SPECULATIONS on the internets.

[sp0ck 06]

Alent wrote...

First of all, both constitute immediately releasing the energy stored inside the relays, as a matter of fact, at the ending of ME3 it seems like they were supercharged before they were destroyed, so it might have been even worse than Arrival. Secondly, I'm fairly certain burning or melting plutonium would still leave you with radioactive material and or vapor / smoke, but thats sort of besides the point - plutonium doesn't seem to have anything to do with the relays at all so I'm not sure what point you were trying to make.

Finally, everyone took what happened in Arrival along with comments of one of the writers saying the post ending DLC would be not much other than staring at a wasteland, seeming to imply that the relays did basically destroy most everything. Even if they didn't, with civilizations built around their presence, many colonies and especially Earth would be essentially doomed.

The point about the plutonium is the potential energy within it might be released in the form of a massive detonation (arrival) or it might be dispersed in a less violent manner (relays destroyed by Crucible).

I agree we shouldn't have to make that leap of faith about the relays at the end.  At the very least you'd expect Shepard to question the Catalyst: "wait, so you mean all systems with a relay are going to be destroyed?"  But it seems reasonable.  I haven't read the post game codex, but presumably the council wouldn't really know the answers anyway.

[Creston918]

Smashing an asteroid into an object the size of a gate would not release enough energy to super nova a solar system, especially not since the asteroid wasn't travelling all that fast to begin with.

Ergo, Latin, the energy came from the gate being shattered and losing containment. So it doesn't matter HOW that gate is shattered and containment is lost, the energy is still released. The codex in ME3 itself basically says so.

Now, I've seen tons of people say "Well, the gates sent the energy forward so it was diverted away from the solar system itself."

Ignoring the fact that energy has no mass, and therefore logically could not be affected by Mass Effect travel (which is also why the explosion overtaking Joker when the Normandy is going FTL is absolute crap), even if that were true, the energy would continue to build until it reached the final gate, then it has to be released. And then you're talking about enough pure radiation that it would sterilize a quarter of the galaxy of all life. A single super nova is already a threat to every living things within thousands of light years around it. Now imagine several hundreds / thousands of super novas (no idea how many gates there are) all concentrated in one place.

Whoever lived behind that final gate is having a Seriously Bad Day if that energy transferrence theory were true.

[MPSai]

Why does it matter how they're made to explode when just the fact a relay explodes is enough force to wipe out a star system? Not to mention you can see the space magic explosions from thousands or even millions of lightyears outside of the galaxy. It must have been devastating.

[thinicer]

The shockwave from the blast results in the Normandy being downed on some deserted planet.

[Xandurpein]

It's certainly possible that the relays somehow released the energy in a non-supernovalike explosion. It's Science-Fiction after all. But it's very bad narrative to first plant the notion that destroying a Mass relay is an event that shatters a whole star system and then blow up all mass relays without even touching on the subject if the same happens then or not. As with most complaints about the ending it's simply very bad narrative.

[Mims]

I don't actually assume it destroyed everything. But I do wonder why Bioware would devote an entire DLC to the concept and then not drop at least one line explaining what happened.

[Hudathan]

The destructive force of a relay comes from the massive energy core. In 'Arrival' you can clearly see that the energy became disturbed after its physical container was already destroyed, causing the energy to go out of control and then explode AFTER the relay was broken. In the ending to ME3, the relay charges up instead and releases all the energy in the form of the beam BEFORE breaking up, causing a completely different type of explosion instead. The beam itself then becomes whatever color energy needed for the control/synthesis/destroy, none of which is physically destructive as seen when the first wave washes over Earth in endings with good EMS.

The game gives us plenty of information, we just have to use our eyes. Of course there will still be people who hang on to 'but the codex said that one time'.

Modifié par Hudathan, 04 avril 2012 - 04:48 .

[Sajuukcor76]

An energy wave capable of crippling the Normandy at several hundred AUs out is surely going to ruin a solar systems day.

[Ariq]

sp0ck 06 wrote...

 So why does everyone assume the same reaction would occur? 

It isn't an assumption. Arrival shows us that destroying a Relay will result in a supernova. The Codex states it outright. Bioware repeats the idea throughout ME3, using narrative foreshadowing to demonstrate that destroying a Relay is a catastrophic event with system-wide repurcussions. We know for a fact that the blast from the Charon Relay is destructive: the Normandy is damaged by it. These are not assumptions, but clearly stated facts in canon. We infer that the result of the Charon Relays destruction is the same; if it were not, there is a narrative compulsion to have shown or, at minimum, told us different.
 
On a meta-level, we see that Bioware chose to tell us Mass Relay destruction is system destroying -- not once, but several times via Arrival, the DLC and in-game references to the Bahak system. They chose not to change that foreshadowing or correct the inference even through a contrivance of dialogue.

Now, you can speculate anything you'd like. Perhaps when Shepard shoots Anderson under the Illusive Man's direction it didn't really hurt him, because his pistol was loaded with jelly beans. Nothing says otherwise. But normal inference would lead you to believe being shot with a pistol does, in fact, hurt. 

[Skyblade012]

JShepppp wrote...

That's definitely a possibility which Bioware I think imagined us making that leap of logic. But we're not given enough information to tell. Obviously the explosions on the galaxy map are fictitious; you can't create an explosion that expands that visibly fast within a few seconds. The max speed the explosion can travel is the speed of light.

Not true, when Mass Effect fields come into play.   If the overloading of the eezo core results in a dark energy pulse (which we can assume that it does, as that is how the Crucible supposedly works), the destructive wave could be propogated far faster than light.

Modifié par Skyblade012, 04 avril 2012 - 04:46 .

[GFOX7]

 No information is given to us to suggest that anything different would happen when a relay explodes, regardless of the method.

This is why I think that when BW says "We're going to provide clarity", they'll put in some off handed comment by a character in one of the DLCs saying something along the lines of "Well the only reason that relay you blew up killed a system was because you did it with such a crude method Shepard. Our research suggests that if an energy surge tore it apart from the inside, that wouldn't happen.." or something like that.

[Xenbus]

JShepppp wrote...

That's definitely a possibility which Bioware I think imagined us making that leap of logic. But we're not given enough information to tell. Obviously the explosions on the galaxy map are fictitious; you can't create an explosion that expands that visibly fast within a few seconds. The max speed the explosion can travel is the speed of light.

You ssay this but joker moving at FTL speeds still got caught by the explosion, so ya........ that doesn't hold water either.

They violated all their own rules at the end, so anything can happen. We went from sci-fi to pure fantasy in the last 10 minutes.

And the codex states an release of energy when a relay is destroyed will make a supernova type explosion, because the energy is contained, and when containment fails it releases it energy (IE. it explodes)

Basically think of it like a nuclear reactor melting down, rather then a nuclear warhead being detonated, the energy is running and active and contained, not in a stable solid form and inert.

[Vhalkyrie]

Hudathan wrote...

The destructive force of a relay comes from the massive energy core. In 'Arrival' you can clearly see that the energy became disturbed after its physical container was destroyed, causing the energy to go out of control and then explode AFTER the relay was broken. In the ending to ME3, the relay charges up instead and releases the energy in the form of the beam BEFORE breaking up, causing a completely different type of explosion instead.

The game gives us plenty of information, we just have to use our eyes. Of course there will still be people who hang on to 'but the codex said that one time'.

I think this is possible, but it needs to be expanded.  The whole Arrival DLC establishes destruction of mass relays causes a supernova like effect.  We are given no indication otherwise except a 10 seconds visual open to interpretation at the end.

[Vormaerin]

I would assume otherwise because things can explode in different ways depending on circumstances.

An uncontrolled rupture due to asteroid impact releases all the energy in a nova like explosion. This does not mean that is the only way the energy could be released. For all we know, the galaxy map graphic could be showing us that the Relays fired off like shaped charges and hurled their energy towards the next relay.

Fact is, no one except the writers knows what happened there beyond the fact the relays are gone. Mass Effect fields and the relays are massive space magic anyway. The Arrival example doesn't establish anything, any more than my getting run over while jaywalking establishes that jaywalking always leads to getting run over.