913 réponses à ce sujet

[Clayless]

Ingvarr Stormbird wrote...

Our_Last_Scene wrote...
You have to remember that from what we know of every other cylce, the relays were turned off and the governments were destroyed.

... and it still took them several centuries to finish the cycle.
Keep digging.

Because the Reapers were slow, not because the other cycles put up a decent fight.

[Elyiia]

You can't claim 20,000 capital ships seeing as we're told in the game that cycles do not necessarily have species that can be used to create a capital ship. We're told that they couldn't make a capital ship from the Prothean cycle. It obviously requires some special condition that isn't apparent in every cycle.

[Ingvarr Stormbird]

Our_Last_Scene wrote...

Because the Reapers were slow, not because the other cycles put up a decent fight.

That's just your speculation.

[Clayless]

Elyiia wrote...

You can't claim 20,000 capital ships seeing as we're told in the game that cycles do not necessarily have species that can be used to create a capital ship. We're told that they couldn't make a capital ship from the Prothean cycle. It obviously requires some special condition that isn't apparent in every cycle.

Indeed.

We also know that not every race reproduces like the humans. 1 Krogan female for example can lay 1000 eggs in 1 year, if another genetically viable species from a previous cycle had a birth rate like that the Reapers could've dramatically increased their numbers off them, offsetting the cycles where there was no one available.

Averaging it out it's still most likely be FAR higher than 20,000 Sovereign class ships.

[Bizbag]

Your poll excludes my preferred choice, which is to eliminate the whole Catalyst-starchild sequence, have the Crucible fire while you sit next to Anderson, and the Reapers all go kablooie - if you have sufficient EMS, otherwise you might kill EDI and the Geth, or also destroy Earth, or it may misfire and the Respers win. Just cut the Starkid.

[Clayless]

Ingvarr Stormbird wrote...

Our_Last_Scene wrote...

Because the Reapers were slow, not because the other cycles put up a decent fight.

That's just your speculation.

No it's not, the Protheans were defeated pretty quickly, yet it still took them hundreds of years. All canon points towards the Protheans doing much worse than this cycle is now.

[Rabid Rooster]

To be honest as much as i hate the ending, This is all I want, to be able to tell the starchild to go f*** himself with his failed logic and preceed to blow the reapers to hell, with your EMS determining success or not. Want your "happy" ending go in with your EMS as high as possible, want your dark ending going in with low EMS and fail or choose ABC. Win WIn as i see it for fans and BioWare.

[Little Princess Peach]

a.m.p wrote...

tomcplotts wrote...

yes, he's god, he outranks you... but he explicitly tells you that red solution also gets him and his minions out of galactic life forever, which might be his solution, but hey, it's also probably shepard's, too. yes, they are his propositions, but shep's not in a position to be too choosy here. it's contrived and constraining, I agree, but it *does* meet the OPs standards of rejecting the child's logic even if it's an option he gives you instead of one you somehow take for yourself.

one thing we'll definitely agree on, analyzing the muddled symbolism is confusing...  I could cry when I think of what I could have done with this ending if I had written it. But I'm sure half the fans here are saying the same thing.

Actually, I am the OP, and I insist that it doesn't meet my standards.
See, I don't see a valid reason why saying no and relying on your fleets is not an option.
But whatever, let's say picking destroy is rejecting his logic. Then why does he even offer it as a choice?
If he's god and his sole purpose is to solve this problem why does he allow me to kill him?

I belive it's called free will and If I recall the Bible says that god gives us free will do to lardy da
now if you belive in IT....Its a whole other story

[Ingvarr Stormbird]

Our_Last_Scene wrote...

Ingvarr Stormbird wrote...

Our_Last_Scene wrote...

Because the Reapers were slow, not because the other cycles put up a decent fight.

That's just your speculation.

No it's not, the Protheans were defeated pretty quickly, yet it still took them hundreds of years. All canon points towards the Protheans doing much worse than this cycle is now.

 
What "all canon", references? Javik states that citadel was captured long before he was born, still they were putting up a lot of fight when he was adult.

Also, care to prove your claim about "all other cycles" with canon?

Modifié par Ingvarr Stormbird, 12 avril 2012 - 08:40 .

[a.m.p]

Bizbag wrote...

Your poll excludes my preferred choice, which is to eliminate the whole Catalyst-starchild sequence, have the Crucible fire while you sit next to Anderson, and the Reapers all go kablooie - if you have sufficient EMS, otherwise you might kill EDI and the Geth, or also destroy Earth, or it may misfire and the Respers win. Just cut the Starkid.

That's option two for you.

[Clayless]

Ingvarr Stormbird wrote...

Our_Last_Scene wrote...
No it's not, the Protheans were defeated pretty quickly, yet it still took them hundreds of years. All canon points towards the Protheans doing much worse than this cycle is now.

What "all canon", references? Javik states that citadel was captured long before he was born, still they were putting up a lot of fight when he was adult.

Also, care to prove your claim about "all other cycles" with canon?

The Keeper signal has been going on for every cycle. It's reasonable to assume that, seeing as though the Reapers created the Citadel, Keepers and the relays, they've been doing this trick since the begining.

Javik states the Citadel was captured before he was born and that the Protheans were still fighting, but they weren't putting up a fight, the Reapers were walking all over them. No where in the game is it stated that the other cycles challenged the Reapers effectively, in fact the game goes out of it's way to show that the countless other races beforehand got stomped all over and at best took out an incredibly small number of Reapers. It tells you that this cycle has the biggest advantage ever, yet it's still getting shredded.

[Elyiia]

Our_Last_Scene wrote...

Elyiia wrote...

You can't claim 20,000 capital ships seeing as we're told in the game that cycles do not necessarily have species that can be used to create a capital ship. We're told that they couldn't make a capital ship from the Prothean cycle. It obviously requires some special condition that isn't apparent in every cycle.

Indeed.

We also know that not every race reproduces like the humans. 1 Krogan female for example can lay 1000 eggs in 1 year, if another genetically viable species from a previous cycle had a birth rate like that the Reapers could've dramatically increased their numbers off them, offsetting the cycles where there was no one available.

Averaging it out it's still most likely be FAR higher than 20,000 Sovereign class ships.

And what are the chances of a race that reproduces like a Krogan AND has the genetic diversity needed to make a Reaper? We don't know and without it you can't use math to claim any number of Reapers beyond what can be seen in the cinematic.

[Ingvarr Stormbird]

As I said - we could speculate until end of the world, until game states straight "There are about X reaper cap ships estimated in total", it can never neither be proven nor disproven.

[Clayless]

Elyiia wrote...

Our_Last_Scene wrote...

Elyiia wrote...

You can't claim 20,000 capital ships seeing as we're told in the game that cycles do not necessarily have species that can be used to create a capital ship. We're told that they couldn't make a capital ship from the Prothean cycle. It obviously requires some special condition that isn't apparent in every cycle.

Indeed.

We also know that not every race reproduces like the humans. 1 Krogan female for example can lay 1000 eggs in 1 year, if another genetically viable species from a previous cycle had a birth rate like that the Reapers could've dramatically increased their numbers off them, offsetting the cycles where there was no one available.

Averaging it out it's still most likely be FAR higher than 20,000 Sovereign class ships.

And what are the chances of a race that reproduces like a Krogan AND has the genetic diversity needed to make a Reaper? We don't know and without it you can't use math to claim any number of Reapers beyond what can be seen in the cinematic.

What are the chances that for 9/10 races there is no Sovereign class Reaper making species? You see, you can't make a claim like that and argue against the math. All I'm showing is that, even being incredibly tight, there could be anywhere around 20,000 to 50 billion Sovereign class Reapers alone. Possibly even more.

And what? I can't use math to claim any number of Reapers? That is the worst defense ever, we only see 300 Reapers in the cinematic yet it's clear by the amount of space they take, and the way they spread without fear of losses, and the fact that they don't retreat, that there must be thousands of them, heck even tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands.

300 Reapers wouldn't be able to do the damage they do in ME3 and spread so well.

[Elyiia]

Our_Last_Scene wrote...

Elyiia wrote...

Our_Last_Scene wrote...

Elyiia wrote...

You can't claim 20,000 capital ships seeing as we're told in the game that cycles do not necessarily have species that can be used to create a capital ship. We're told that they couldn't make a capital ship from the Prothean cycle. It obviously requires some special condition that isn't apparent in every cycle.

Indeed.

We also know that not every race reproduces like the humans. 1 Krogan female for example can lay 1000 eggs in 1 year, if another genetically viable species from a previous cycle had a birth rate like that the Reapers could've dramatically increased their numbers off them, offsetting the cycles where there was no one available.

Averaging it out it's still most likely be FAR higher than 20,000 Sovereign class ships.

And what are the chances of a race that reproduces like a Krogan AND has the genetic diversity needed to make a Reaper? We don't know and without it you can't use math to claim any number of Reapers beyond what can be seen in the cinematic.

What are the chances that for 9/10 races there is no Sovereign class Reaper making species? You see, you can't make a claim like that and argue against the math. All I'm showing is that, even being incredibly tight, there could be anywhere around 20,000 to 50 billion Sovereign class Reapers alone. Possibly even more.

And what? I can't use math to claim any number of Reapers? That is the worst defense ever, we only see 300 Reapers in the cinematic yet it's clear by the amount of space they take, and the way they spread without fear of losses, and the fact that they don't retreat, that there must be thousands of them, heck even tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands.

300 Reapers wouldn't be able to do the damage they do in ME3 and spread so well.

Out of the two cycles we have information on, there's only one species that is a viable resource for making capital ships. We don't even know how many species there were in the Protheans cycle. You're trying to solve an equation with like 50 unknowns.

You don't even know if the Reapers do retreat, they've never had to in the past. Not to mention in the cinematic there's no opposition there, there's no reason to spread.

I didn't say there weren't more than 300 Reapers, I said there's no substantional proof that says there's 20,000. The only number we know is from the cinematics.

Modifié par Elyiia, 12 avril 2012 - 09:17 .

[Ingvarr Stormbird]

Our_Last_Scene wrote...

And what? I can't use math to claim any number of Reapers? 

Well, you can, but as long as your math will be based on speculation, it will be speculation itself.
- It was never proven the Leviathan was "proper" reaper that already took part in the standard cycle. All we know it had indoctrination tech. This weakens the whole premise of "how many billions years ago cycles started"
- It was never proven that cycles run by the clock, 50000 years each. This also weakens the whole premise of how many cycles were in total
- We have no idea what is the ratio of successful cap ship production to their losses. This throws the whole oversimplistic formula out the window

[ScriptDiver]

Well, even Deus Ex had a 4th ending outside of the choices. Seeing as ME is entierly copied from Deus Ex there really should be a fourth ending too

[Clayless]

Ingvarr Stormbird wrote...

Our_Last_Scene wrote...

And what? I can't use math to claim any number of Reapers? 

Well, you can, but as long as your math will be based on speculation, it will be speculation itself.
- It was never proven the Leviathan was "proper" reaper that already took part in the standard cycle. All we know it had indoctrination tech. This weakens the whole premise of "how many billions years ago cycles started"
- It was never proven that cycles run by the clock, 50000 years each. This also weakens the whole premise of how many cycles were in total
- We have no idea what is the ratio of successful cap ship production to their losses. This throws the whole oversimplistic formula out the window

Wait, you can't just dismiss game canon because it doesn't suit you.

The Levianthan of Dis was a Reaper. There's is no evidence to claim it wasn't a "proper" Reaper, in fact you just pulled that out of thin air right now.

It doesn't throw the formula out the window. If you think there's exactly 20,000 ships then you are oversimplifying it. There could be 12,694 Sovereign class ships, or if 50 billion is the base number, maybe only 26 million Sovereign class ships.

Try as you might, you can't argue against the math. Not only that but remember all the Destroyers, and we know for a fact they get tons of them a cycle, not only are the smaller but any race works. Think about how much they'll get from the Krogan alone.

[a.m.p]

WARNING: Another wall of text incoming. Take cover, people.

@ Solmanian

[quote]It's called propoganda. A talented reporter on your side can be just as valuable as a tank division. Morale is very importent, in war it can mean if a unit will fight to the end or run without firinig a shot. [/quote]Absolutely. But that is comparing oranges to paintings of apples. For these numbers to have any meaning the war assets should have been classified by their nature, not by which species they belong to. And different categories should have affected different things, instead of the sum of a number of fleets, Kahlee Sanders, Diana Allers’ cleavage and Jacob’s new girlfriend determining whether Earth burns or not.

[quote]My final comment on the matter: (final space battle), look up 3:26. Can we atleast agree that there's a butload of reapers? and maybe that it was more than a match for the allied forces, as evident by the soveriegn class that was crippled from multiple dread fire and was still able to oneshot the alliance dreadnaught with is... matching their numbers just wouldn't be enough. [/quote]We definitely agree on the buttload part. I think at this point we can agree to disagree about whether or not that’s a match.
[quote]And I'm sorry if I'm too pigheaded to accept an ending that involves pushing the "off" button on the reaper shields. [/quote]Yet you support the off button for all the reapers.

[quote]You have to remember that javik also say that this cycle is much more primitive and less technologically advanced. This is evidenced by their use of particle weaponry, which is similar to a reaper main gun (to prevent confusion: according to ME3 codex the hydromagnetic doohiky that the thanix is based off were the secondery guns situated in soveriegn's "arms". not sure if its a retcon or simply a clarification), while most warships in shepard time are still using slugthrowers. meaning a prothean warship would've been more of a match to a reaper, because their firepower was 5-10 times more powerfull than modern ships (the codex is kinda fuzzy with vast numbers variance regarding the firepower of a particle gun), hich means they could actualy penetrate the reaper barriar with relative "ease" (no need to gang up your ships on a single reaper to have an effect). Liara, and every other Npc with varied knowledge of the protheans, tells you that they haven't even scratched the surface of the prothean data caches (which are the basis for modern MEverse technology). Anderson even implies in ME1 that no significant weapon tech was extracted from the prothean data caches. [/quote] Point taken. However the point on the protheans being scattered and isolated still stands. It’s a much bigger problem than lack of firepower. No matter how good your guns are, if you are on your own and your enemies can freely bring in reinforcements, you’re dead. If you still manage to keep fighting for decades, this puts up a question of how powerful your enemies really are.

[quote]*on wartime industry* [/quote]The reapers for whatever reason advanced relatively slowly. They started in batarian space, got to Earth fast, then relatively fast got to Palaven. Thessia wasn’t attacked for months (I’m assuming that is how long ME3 takes.)

Here is what the galaxy map looks like right after we rescue the primarch:



Not even the majority of citadel space is occupied. We still have intact infrastructure there. That’s our advantage compared to the prothenas.

[quote]Also, the writers made some reasonable explainations as to why the "everyone starves, but not before the krogan conquer the sol system" is not the most probable result. But you don't realy care about that. [/quote]  Beg to differ. Second link in my signature is my old thread dealing specifically with the post-relay situation and how to not regress into the stone age. I don’t specifically follow everything they say on twitter so I might have missed those reasonable explanations, because so far I’ve only heard that 12ly/day is the average FTL speed and ships can go faster. And relays can be rebuilt. I’m afraid they are going to just gloss over the dozen issues that first need to be resolved before any of that is possible. Which would be an asspull. And possibly a retcon. I’m saying that reintroducing the idea that no, everyone had not been an idiot and knew what they were doing after all would be no more of an asspull that this.

[quote]Well if everyone in the galaxy, including shepard and all his friends, believe that conventional warfare is not realy an option, maybe they know what they're talking about? I could tell you I don't think the mexican army can defeat the U.S. army, because the latter has the largest defense budget in the world, is better equipped, more technologicaly advanced and more exprienced. It will be the same. [/quote] No it won’t. Because I can go to the internet and find tons of information about how exactly equipped, advanced and experienced the US army is.

What you’re saying is that the only thing that the option for conventional (or semi-conventional) victory would directly contradict is dialogue. Because everything else (including the codex entries on reapers) is speculation either on our part as palyers, or on the in-universe experts’ part.

And I agree. Here’s what I think happened: when during development the decision to go with the ancient mcguffin plot was made the dev team was told to explain to the players that they can never defeat the reapers. So they wrote the dialogue and came up with that codex entry that rejects the most obvious reaper-fighting lore.

But there is still room to add more options and the only thing these options would contradict is dialogue.

[quote]I'll just say this: the game's moto and theme is "take earth back". Though I fully expected at the time that the choice that'll end the trilogy will be something along choosing between humanity and the alians, blowing up earth seems to defeat the game theme. Can you even imagine the convo with anderson, telling him you're sacrificing earth for an edge. Not even a definite war winning edge? [/quote]While it should have been “take the galaxy back”. “Take earth back” is marketing to new audiences who don’t give a damn about the galaxy yet. We aren’t fighting for Earth. As much as we care about Earth, it’s just one planet. If sacrificing Earth eventually allows to win back the galaxy – it’s worth it.

[quote]They assured that the maximum speed of a supernova explosion can be no more than 10% of the speed of light. There were a bunch of equations, but I'm more of a mechanical engineer (not the kind in a garage) and this realy isn't my field. [/quote]It’s an explosion of a giant eezo core, not a supernova. We can write in any kind of funny effects here, because it is no more real-word physics than the mass effect concept itself. As long as we don’t say that it produces large amounts of pink unicorns flying through space and kicking reapers with their hoofs, we should be fine.

[quote]I think a more appropriate example would be Europe in the period between WWI and WWII. WWI was so traumatic, thats the common mindplace was: anything but another world war. Any concerns about the expansion of the third reich, and suggestions to oppose it were dissmissed as warmongering. Appeasement was the only appraoch. With every country hitler conquered, europe leaders hoped it will sate his hunger. Churchil was ridiculed, I imagined he didn't enjoy saying "I told you so" more than shepard.

You've met the council... What do you think are the chances of them declaring: yay, the reapers are gone, and they are NEVER coming back! time to go back to normal everybody, and concentrate on the rebuilding effort. Good thing that whole mess is behind us...  [/quote]
Overthrow council, make Hackett president of the galaxy. (All right, all right, kidding).

Hitler isn’t really comparable to reapers. While in hindsight the appeasement strategy is obviously stupid, at the time the situation was unclear and confusing with dozens of colliding interests and influences. It could have played out dozens of different ways depending on a hundreds of little details that could have gone differently.

Reapers on the other hand are simple. They want to kill you. Period. The council rejecting the possibility of them returning is a whole other level of stupidity. Which brings us back to overthrow council.


[quote]I don't think they need something special, since the collectors were allready half done with theirs. Who knows where their production facilities are? Underground? In dark space? Just because we don't know where their production facilities are located, certaily doesn't mean they only begin producing new ships after the reaping of the galaxy is over. You your self said replacing destroyed vessles is a priority of every military. In this case replacing the numerous detroyers that are lost daily in the fight against the turians. [/quote]
Meaning no information whatsoever. How exactly does Bioware propose we speculate if they give us no information?

I’m thinking a few more of these walls of text and we can start writing a book. Something like “Solmanian’s and a.m.p’s complete guide to defeating the reapers… or not.”

Modifié par a.m.p, 12 avril 2012 - 10:34 .

[Ingvarr Stormbird]

Our_Last_Scene wrote...

Try as you might, you can't argue against the math.

Let's say there is probability of 30% that they will find sutable race in given cycle to make a capital ship. Not too small.
Let's say there is also only 30% probability that they lose even single capital ship in given cycle. Not too big. Probably even too small.

Oops, with stuff like this their numbers won't be increasing at all?! Regardless of how many cycles there were?

[Solmanian]

Ingvarr Stormbird wrote...

Our_Last_Scene wrote...

But you would lose.

If you said no to the kid, the galaxy would be doomed, they hit that point over our head again and again.

I think it was this thread where I pointed out the possible numbers of the Reapers? Even at a ridiculous understatement there would still be 20,000 Sovereign class ones.

If you did read proper responses, you'd understand that in fact your claim about Reaper numbers sound ridiculous.
With 20000 cap ships (and assuming we still need about 4 dreads to take cap ship down), remember about 100 dreads in total for all galaxy.
This is 800:1 superiority! Why Reapers would encounter any trouble at all with superiority like that, you don't need Saren, you don't need Conduit or Alpha Relay or whatever. You just arrive and squash them like an ant, in several hours.
Reapers numbers were never confirmed in canon and I think because of that writers didn't tie all loose ends, therefore lore contradicts what we observe in game events.
In every cutscene I've seen, there were observable lower numbers of Cap Ships than allied forces. Where this 800:1 superiority again?

It's explained repeatadly throut the series. The 20K capitals is a real number, deal with it. The reason the reapers use all kind of schemes like saren, collector and cerberus, is to weaken galactic ability to organize a resistance. Not because they can't steamroll the combined galactic might, but it's an effective way to minimise their losses, and it costs them basically nothing. The reapers aren't concerned they can't overcome galactic forces, but for a force that is locked in a protracted military campaign, very protracted (billion years plus), with no end in sight (as long as organic keep evolving, the reapers will never be finished), minimising their losses is paramount. If they'll lose more ships than they make each cycle (allready pretty much happened for this cycle) they'll be destroyed by attrition (even thoguh it might take bilion of years). That is precisely why everyone in the galaxy, shepard included, try to hammer it in from day 1: you can't beat the reapers in a conventional war.

[Elyiia]

Solmanian wrote...

Ingvarr Stormbird wrote...

Our_Last_Scene wrote...

But you would lose.

If you said no to the kid, the galaxy would be doomed, they hit that point over our head again and again.

I think it was this thread where I pointed out the possible numbers of the Reapers? Even at a ridiculous understatement there would still be 20,000 Sovereign class ones.

If you did read proper responses, you'd understand that in fact your claim about Reaper numbers sound ridiculous.
With 20000 cap ships (and assuming we still need about 4 dreads to take cap ship down), remember about 100 dreads in total for all galaxy.
This is 800:1 superiority! Why Reapers would encounter any trouble at all with superiority like that, you don't need Saren, you don't need Conduit or Alpha Relay or whatever. You just arrive and squash them like an ant, in several hours.
Reapers numbers were never confirmed in canon and I think because of that writers didn't tie all loose ends, therefore lore contradicts what we observe in game events.
In every cutscene I've seen, there were observable lower numbers of Cap Ships than allied forces. Where this 800:1 superiority again?

It's explained repeatadly throut the series. The 20K capitals is a real number, deal with it. The reason the reapers use all kind of schemes like saren, collector and cerberus, is to weaken galactic ability to organize a resistance. Not because they can't steamroll the combined galactic might, but it's an effective way to minimise their losses, and it costs them basically nothing. The reapers aren't concerned they can't overcome galactic forces, but for a force that is locked in a protracted military campaign, very protracted (billion years plus), with no end in sight (as long as organic keep evolving, the reapers will never be finished), minimising their losses is paramount. If they'll lose more ships than they make each cycle (allready pretty much happened for this cycle) they'll be destroyed by attrition (even thoguh it might take bilion of years). That is precisely why everyone in the galaxy, shepard included, try to hammer it in from day 1: you can't beat the reapers in a conventional war.

20,000 is a real number. If you don't take into account:

1) Not every cycle has a species that can be processed.
2) Reapers can be destroyed.

Of the two cycles we have information about, only one species has the potentional to be a capital ship.
Of the two cycles we have information about, both have destroyed capital ships.

[Vigil_N7]

What, then, would be the point in picking control/destroy/synthesis if you can beat them conventionally?

It cheapens the idea of the actual choices we make if we can just beat them anyway

[Ingvarr Stormbird]

Sorry, i can not comprehend ™ how can be _any losses at all _ when you outgun enemy 800:1

[Ingvarr Stormbird]

Vigil_N7 wrote...

What, then, would be the point in picking control/destroy/synthesis if you can beat them conventionally?

It cheapens the idea of the actual choices we make if we can just beat them anyway

first of all, there is no point to trust starkid at all.

the proper solution is to re-write whole ending sequence, but OP wants compromise with BW artistic integrity by salvaging as much as possible

Modifié par Ingvarr Stormbird, 12 avril 2012 - 10:57 .