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[Noelemahc]

My thread on a cut quest that was obviously cut because it was a step towards conventional victory. Short read (unless you're into people saying "WTH was this cut?"), marginally sad.

[a.m.p]

Noelemahc wrote...

My thread on a cut quest that was obviously cut because it was a step towards conventional victory. Short read (unless you're into people saying "WTH was this cut?"), marginally sad.

Sad, yes.
Dropped into the list.

Am thinking on the next topic to tackle. The issue with the relay control mechanism or the vast unknown of the actual strength of the allied fleets?

[Flextt]

Due to encourgement by Noelemahc, I will repost my thoughts on the
strength of Allied Thanix weaponry in conventional warfare against
Reaper forces:

I haven't seen this brought up by anyone
but it just hit me while eating lunch, so bear with me. I am not quick
to jump on the "MOAR THANIX!"-bandwagon, but it is so obvious to me how
superior they are, I wanted to share this.

Everyone remember ME 2? Good. Anyone remember the very first villain we are presented by the

game?
The Collector Cruiser, mark the emphasis. The ME universe knows 4
classes of ships, though one of them is never seen in-game and not
important to my hypothesis: Frigate, Cruiser, Dreadnought (and Carrier).



-
The Destiny Ascension is a dreadnought. They are large vessels with
tons of armor and powerful shields. Reaper capital ships fall in this
category and their amount is currently why crunching Reaper numbers
makes both no fun and shows we are vastly outnumbered.



- The
Collector Cruiser is a cruiser. They are somewhere in between. Actually,
the Codex seems to suggest they have a somewhat problematic role in the
war against Reapers.

Cruisers cannot land on medium or
high-gravity worlds, but do possess the ability to land on low-gravity
planets. Cruisers are ideal in any planetary assault.

So
Reapers are best fought when they are in a planet's atmosphere, because
they have to significantly lower their mass which in return reduces the
stopping power of their armor, but we cannot really fight them on the
surface on a planet, because we end up scorching our homes. So as you
can see, while cruisers pack a punch and are probably more numerous than
dreadnoughts, their role is somewhat problematic.



- The Normandy
is a frigate. They usually fight in wolf-packs, are manueverable and
make up the bulk of forces. Their role is also problematic, because
their firepower is likely too low to inflict serious damage with
conventional weaponry against Reaper shielding and armor, but kinetic
shielding is susceptible to sustained fire rather than strong, singular
bursts. While they are unlikely to damage a capital ship because of a
Reaper's GARDIAN systems, they can probably weaken its shields.



Now
that sizes are established, I want you all to remember the ME 2 Suicide
Mission. The Normandy's Thanix deals minor damage on the frontal side,
but the second volley fully penetrates the cruiser's broadside. Since

armor
is likely thickest at the front due to the kind of warfare we witness
during the galatic fleet battle, this isn't a weakness inherent to
Thanix. The full penetration is something remarkable. The Normandy is
several times smaller than the Collector Cruiser and likely, cruisers in
general. The thing that is fighting a Reaper on Earth is actually a
cruiser (delivered to you by Cpt. Twitter Retcon) to get a sense of the
size of an Alliance cruiser and an Alliance frigate like the Normandy.
Yet through superior manueverability it is able to line up a perfect
shot in destroy the enemy vessel in a single blow in a 1v1 fight.

That
is why I think Thanix are vastly underestimated. Frigates equipped with
Thanix could be able to outmanuever Reaper vessels and inflict serious
damage, though I am unsure, if GARDIAN systems only affect fighters or

also frigates.



Update:
The main battery Thanix guns seem to be fairly compact from what we see
ingame. It is likely that bigger vessels could support bigger batteries
(4 barrels instead of two? longer? heavier metal?)



Update 2:
Because the Collectors serve as the Reaper's vanguard force after
Sovereign, it is likely their technology is only slightly lower, if not
actually on par with current Reaper tech. We know this is the case with
the Cruiser, because it's main weapon beam looks like a yellow-colored
Reaper Thanix, with their processing

technology and their access to
huskifying technology. They even go beyond regular husks and further
combined them, implying they my have advanced in that field. Hence it is
possible, the lesson on Alliance Thanix and the Collector Cruiser can
serve as a field study.

http://social.biowar...5285/1#11835666

[gmboy902]

I liked how BioWare made a bad ending for ME2 (though in all honesty it was probably mostly just to force the player to go back and actually care about their playthrough).

They made an ending that was just as lengthy, but you knew the whole time that you had failed. Shepard had a death that wasn't forced, and the Illusive Man seemed prepared for whatever he was going to do next. The only living character that cared much about (other than Liara) was Joker, who had his life stripped away from him along with the Normandy.

[incinerator950]

a.m.p wrote...

Noelemahc wrote...

My thread on a cut quest that was obviously cut because it was a step towards conventional victory. Short read (unless you're into people saying "WTH was this cut?"), marginally sad.

Sad, yes.
Dropped into the list.

Am thinking on the next topic to tackle. The issue with the relay control mechanism or the vast unknown of the actual strength of the allied fleets?

I don't see a reason to tackle the Relay Control.  If the Reapers actually utilized that option, there wouldn't be a ME 3 to win unless they took it half way or towards the end.  Even then, how is that any better then what we got?

Also, its been shown the Council Races still don't understand the Citadel, even though it should have been abandoned or destroyed at the start of the War. 

Unknown of Allied Fleet Strengths isn't that difficult, but I guess a new topic would be able to help.  In all honesty it's Bioware saying add random ships because it look cool.  However, the Alliance military will be the easiest.  They have Eight Dreadnoughts, they had Eight Fleets.  You can guess and round numbers based off the Fourth Fleet protecting Earth, and then tally numbers from the Battle of the Citadel.

[a.m.p]

@Flextt
Thanks a lot for posting this. I am in complete agreement that what had been established about the Thanix in ME2 allowed to make just them that one crucial factor that tipped the balance, and instead we're supposed to forget about it.

One question about Cpt. Twitter Retcon.
Do you by chance have a link to that? Having some sort of proof that it was not a dreadnaught would really make my life easier.

Also, I'm totally adding your thread to the big list on page 1.

Modifié par a.m.p, 03 mai 2012 - 03:47 .

[a.m.p]

incinerator950 wrote...

I don't see a reason to tackle the Relay Control.  If the Reapers actually utilized that option, there wouldn't be a ME 3 to win unless they took it half way or towards the end.  Even then, how is that any better then what we got?

Also, its been shown the Council Races still don't understand the Citadel, even though it should have been abandoned or destroyed at the start of the War. 

Unknown of Allied Fleet Strengths isn't that difficult, but I guess a new topic would be able to help.  In all honesty it's Bioware saying add random ships because it look cool.  However, the Alliance military will be the easiest.  They have Eight Dreadnoughts, they had Eight Fleets.  You can guess and round numbers based off the Fourth Fleet protecting Earth, and then tally numbers from the Battle of the Citadel.

I've had some ideas about the relay control mechanism and what could be done with it. I'm also very slowly playing through ME1 again so I'm in a good position for fact finding. And since I obviously have nothing better to do than write long nerdy essays on how to fight imaginary space squids in an imaginary universe, I might as well. Besides discussing that stuff makes for good company.

[Noelemahc]

And since I obviously have nothing better to do than write long nerdy essays on how to fight imaginary space squids in an imaginary universe, I might as well

I'd feel sorry for you, but seeing how I'm in the same boat (except that I'm spending time on writing fan ****** endings to after the space squids are defeated)... Well, I still do. Sorry.

In any case, outside of Raynulf's idea about applying the relay control to divide-and-conquer, what other applications could it have? Rerouting relays so they'd lead elsewhere is impossible, IIRC their physical direction matters most about that. Making them into the Omega-4 relay that hurls stuff into the Black Hole of Doom is feasible, but, again, runs headfirst into the wall of targeting issues.

Really intrigued, in other words =)

[a.m.p]

@Noelemahc
Not so much different uses, more like summarise what excatly we know about how that works. And see what can be done with that.

And if we don't regularly write new walls of text then we'll be stuck discussing the same three topics: how many ships did it take to shoot down the ranncoh reaper, why cains kill hades cannons and how Hackett needs a new speechwriter.

[Raynulf]

incinerator950 wrote...
I don't see a reason to tackle the Relay Control.  If the Reapers actually utilized that option, there wouldn't be a ME 3 to win unless they took it half way or towards the end.  Even then, how is that any better then what we got?

On the contrary: Competent writing necessitates the Relay Control being addressed.

If the writing team didn't want it to be there, they needed to not introduce it in Mass Effect 1. But they did, letting the cat out of the bag, so to speak.

Don't get me wrong - ignoring prior established technology or plot devices is commonplace - even standard in serial TV shows such as Andromeda... but that's because they're just soap in a different setting with generally ****** poor writing. They churn out literally hundreds of episodes and no one really expects much of them.

Part of good writing is maintaining internal consistency in the story universe, and so in a three-part science fiction epic, if you introduce Faction A with Ability X, your story must be consistent with that. It's not even hard to write it out if you no longer wish to use it: 

<Shepard> "I'm just glad the Council listened to me for once and disabled the Citadel's relay control systems. Must be why the Reaper's aren't focusing their efforts on claiming the Citadel." - DONE!

What you should not do as a writer is sweep it under the rug and pretend it didn't happen. It's part of the story and it must be dealt with. And no, head-cannon doesn't work. If the audience is required to make up justification for plot holes, the writer failed at delivering a coherent and consistent story.

The writer's job is delivering their story and message to the audience in a manner that maintains audience attention. If the overall reception of the audience is different than what the writers intended, that is their failing.

Modifié par Raynulf, 04 mai 2012 - 12:27 .

[Noelemahc]

Okay, seriously, dude, you're awesome.

<Shepard> "I'm just glad the Council listened to me for once and disabled the Citadel's relay control systems. Must be why the Reaper's aren't focusing their efforts on claiming the Citadel." - DONE!

This reminds me why Farscape is so legendary. In all the many years of its existance, the only plot device they introduced and then ignored was the Delvians' (of whom the asari are a clear-cut expy except for the part where Delvians are intelligent plants and are not monogendered) ability to camouflage themselves in a jungle -- and one could argue that it wasn't so much ignored as unused because save for the one episode where it was introduced, the heroes usually traipsed in cities, military bases and ancient ruins and deserts and by the time they got to a jungle again, the character in question was long dead.

And no, head-cannon doesn't work. If the audience is required to make up justification for plot holes, the writer failed at delivering a coherent and consistent story.

And that brings us to what we're doing here now, heh? Seriously, most of the horror of fan outcry wouldn't've happened if BioWare said "Dammit, where did we fail as storytellers? We're sorry, guys!" on day one instead of going "You clearly have misunderstood the ending, let's hear what more people have to say when they finish the game" for the first week and then going quiet.

If the writing team didn't want it to be there, they needed to not introduce it in Mass Effect 1. But they did, letting the cat out of the bag, so to speak.

The common excuse is that the writing team of ME3 is nothing like the team of ME1, and it shows.

But it's not a good excuse for sloppy work, because when you get handed an already-constructed universe, you either continuity-porn the heck out of it (I am constantly reminded of Warren Ellis's ability to bring up some long-forgoten minor Marvel character to the fore in a mini-series which then, due to fan demand, makes said character one of the leads in a major crossover Ellis had nothing to do with -- look how Nextwave suddenly bumped the interest in Machine Man and Photon to the point where they were major players in the Civil War in their Nextwave uniforms despite Nextwave happening OUT OF CONTINUITY) or tailor it to your needs, WRITING OUT EVERYTHING THAT GETS IN THE WAY, and hope the audience accepts it (like the eternal back-and-forth on whether Magneto is a villain, a misguided hero, a horrible monster, or someone out to prevent a new Holocaust -- his canonical real name got changed five or six times, for crying out loud! -- until they finally settled on "Magneto was RIGHT ALL ALONG" and "Eric, no real last name known", last I checked).

Modifié par Noelemahc, 04 mai 2012 - 05:37 .

[a.m.p]

*Warning: Wild speculations about relays, reapers and radiation incoming*

I have a question.
Suppose we do have full control of the relays through the citadel.
What happens if we try to shut one down while a bunch of reapers are travelling through it?

One of the reasons the Normandy crash scene makes no sense is this:

If the field collapses while the ship is moving at faster-than-light speeds, the effects are catastrophic. The ship is snapped back to sublight velocity, the enormous excess energy shed in the form of lethal Cherenkov radiation.

So can we do that to reapers?


Second question.
Do the relays move? As in do they have some propulsion means on them? If they do, how is it controlled (by the relay control system aka citadel? by reapers?)
The citadel obviously has some sort of propulsion. For the relays (being indestructible objects that can survive supernovas by being thrown away from them) it would make sense to have some means to navigate back to where they are supposed to be in case they get lost in a cosmic catastrophe. Or to a new location, should the reapers wish to rearrange the relay network, for example to make sure every arising civilization has a relay in their home system. Or do they build a new one each time a monkey picks up a stone?

Anyway, no information on that, not to my knowledge.
Suppose they do move and we figure a way to move them within a solar system.
They "are protected by a quantum shield that renders them nearly impervious to damage by locking their structure in place at the subatomic level. They are even capable of surviving a supernova's wake without being damaged." (masseffect.wikia.com/wiki/Mass_Relay).

Great. Can we put one in a really low orbit around a star? And then lure a bunch of reapers into the system with some tasty bait? Because reapers don't have those quantum shields and are very much affected by heat and radiation.
Probably not a repeatable event, still would mean minus several reapers with zero casualties.

Modifié par a.m.p, 05 mai 2012 - 05:46 .

[Noelemahc]

I assume they can still be pushed. Enough rocket thrusters to get it moving, arrange a Colony Drop a-la BtDS, you get traumatic consequences. You can even recover the thrusters once you got it moving, because in space, nothing can stop you from inertial movement unless you run into something =)

And no, if they would return to their old place without external involvement, the whole shebang with the Mu Relay in ME1 wouldn't've happened, I think. Unless of course it was waiting for an opportune moment, maybe it was still in its comfort zone? XD

[a.m.p]

Noelemahc wrote...

I assume they can still be pushed. Enough rocket thrusters to get it moving, arrange a Colony Drop a-la BtDS, you get traumatic consequences. You can even recover the thrusters once you got it moving, because in space, nothing can stop you from inertial movement unless you run into something =)

And no, if they would return to their old place without external involvement, the whole shebang with the Mu Relay in ME1 wouldn't've happened, I think. Unless of course it was waiting for an opportune moment, maybe it was still in its comfort zone? XD

Well, that's the thing. If it (Mu) could fly back without external command, it probably would. But it didn't. So if they move they need some external direction which brought me to the original question.

Anyway, that's just wild speculations. I just really, really want to be able to burn them in packs.

[incinerator950]

Speculations abound.

Ampy, make a group for this stuff.

[a.m.p]

The whole forum is in speculations mode anyway.
Achievement unlocked: Speculations From Everyone

[Bill Casey]

Has it been brought up that if you could make the Catalyst/Reapers re-evaluate their stance on Synthetic life, they would then have no reason to do what they do?

And they would probably just, you know... leave?


You know, like how Mordin was super duper mega smart, but he met some Krogan females that altered his perspective and changed his stance on the necessity of the Genophage...

Modifié par Bill Casey, 06 mai 2012 - 08:01 .

[Sisterofshane]

a.m.p wrote...

The whole forum is in speculations mode anyway.
Achievement unlocked: Speculations From Everyone

Yeah, I think they expected everyone to be speculating about the game.

However, I don't think they expected everyone to be speculating about whether they got their College Degrees from Crackerjack University.

[a.m.p]

@Bill Casey
Yep, I have a subsection in my list specifically about arguing reapers away. Samuel_Valkyrie's interrupts specifically are a good take on the idea. If it was the fourth option I would obviously take it, however there are some problems with it.
Namely - reapers just leave, no further consequences. This makes it the automatic best option, and I've been arguing for weeks with people who say that even a long continued war with countless more dead is too small a price for beating the reapers without the crucible and would undermine the existing endings.

[a.m.p]

Sisterofshane wrote...

a.m.p wrote...

The whole forum is in speculations mode anyway.
Achievement unlocked: Speculations From Everyone

Yeah, I think they expected everyone to be speculating about the game.

However, I don't think they expected everyone to be speculating about whether they got their College Degrees from Crackerjack University.

I am also particularly fond of how wild speculations, logical gymnastics and other spectacular ***-pulls justifing why the current endings aren't the end of all galactic civilization forever are apparently encouraged (I did some of those too) and equally or less wild speculations about how the current endings might not be necessary are dismissed as being impossible.

[Eterna]

Conventional victory isn't possible. It would be more ridiculous then the ending we have now.

[Raynulf]

a.m.p wrote...

@Bill Casey
Yep, I have a subsection in my list specifically about arguing reapers away. Samuel_Valkyrie's interrupts specifically are a good take on the idea. If it was the fourth option I would obviously take it, however there are some problems with it.
Namely - reapers just leave, no further consequences. This makes it the automatic best option, and I've been arguing for weeks with people who say that even a long continued war with countless more dead is too small a price for beating the reapers without the crucible and would undermine the existing endings.

You can't undermine the current endings. They're on bedrock and even diamond pickaxes don't go through that.

More seriously: Even if 90% of the reaper fleet (including almost all the capital ships) were at Earth and the "use the Crucible as a giant bomb" trick blew up 100% of them, you'd still have 10% of the Reaper fleet kicking around the galaxy, and even if they were mostly destroyers with a mere handful of cap ships, they'd be slaughtering colonies, indoctrinating entire races and causing untold devastation for decades to come.

This isn't a "lesser cost" than losing the relays (and having the now-pacified reapers rebuild them).

[a.m.p]

Eterna5 wrote...

Conventional victory isn't possible. It would be more ridiculous then the ending we have now.

Why? No, seriously, apart from contradicting Hackett's statements, why? Considering the current endings contradict almost everything everyone in the game ever said about the subject.

Raynulf wrote...

More seriously: Even if 90% of the reaper fleet (including almost all the capital ships) were at Earth and the "use the Crucible as a giant bomb" trick blew up 100% of them, you'd still have 10% of the Reaper fleet kicking around the galaxy, and even if they were mostly destroyers with a mere handful of cap ships, they'd be slaughtering colonies, indoctrinating entire races and causing untold devastation for decades to come.

This isn't a "lesser cost" than losing the relays (and having the now-pacified reapers rebuild them).

I so much wish people would think more about consequences such as that. I really can't understand why a potential conventional victory is so often considered the "easy" way out.

[Noelemahc]

Has it been brought up that if you could make the Catalyst/Reapers re-evaluate their stance on Synthetic life, they would then have no reason to do what they do?

And they would probably just, you know... leave?

Yes, there have been joke posts, serious posts, wall-of-text posts... Pro-enders dismiss these as "Reapers are unknowable, shoo, you philistine" (with varying levels of rudeness and wall-of-textitude) ragardless of the arguments you use. As a.m.p. said,

I am also particularly fond of how wild speculations, logical gymnastics and other spectacular ***-pulls justifing why the current endings aren't the end of all galactic civilization forever are apparently encouraged (I did some of those too) and equally or less wild speculations about how the current endings might not be necessary are dismissed as being impossible.

I am also glad to see that while I was going internet-less, nothing major changed anywhere, means less catching up to do =)

I so much wish people would think more about consequences such as that. I really can't understand why a potential conventional victory is so often considered the "easy" way out.

Most automagically assume you mean "well, we shoot, they die, we yay". Nobody bothers to think about the implications. Consider this: if these people find the multicoloured galactic holocaust of the existing ending a "good and acceptable" ending because they cannot SEE the implied holocaust, would they be willing (and/or able?) to follow the chain of consequences of attempting a conventional victory? When I wrote out a theory on how seven new ending options can be added if we spend all EC DLC time on making new endings instead of clarifications, and add them with the same level of thought-throughness and detail as the existing ending has, I've been accused of trolling =) BTW, lemme go dig those up before the FTL forums eat them...

Here's one, and here's two.

Modifié par Noelemahc, 07 mai 2012 - 07:00 .

[a.m.p]

Noelemahc wrote...
Most automagically assume you mean "well, we shoot, they die, we yay". Nobody bothers to think about the implications. Consider this: if these people find the multicoloured galactic holocaust of the existing ending a "good and acceptable" ending because they cannot SEE the implied holocaust, would they be willing (and/or able?) to follow the chain of consequences of attempting a conventional victory?

To that I say - if such an option would be included into the EC, they woudln’t have to deduce the effects on their own. With a little bit of talent and effort all these devastating consequences can be shown in a few cutscenes in a profoundly  tear-jerking bittersweet way so that nobody would ever complain the galaxy got away easy.

And for the time being endlessly explaining this to people who think "we shoot, they die, we yay" keeps the conventional threads afloat. Good enough for me.

When I wrote out a theory on how seven new ending options can be added if we spend all EC DLC time on making new endings instead of clarifications, and add them with the same level of thought-throughness and detail as the existing ending has, I've been accused of trolling =) BTW, lemme go dig those up before the FTL forums eat them...

Here's one, and here's two.

I really like option 6.

There really are so many things that can be done with the endgame situation, aren't there? Two fleets and a space station in orbit of a planet... Where's the Mass shadow generator, when you need one?