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[tractrpl]

Atmospeer wrote...

tractrpl wrote...

Atmospeer wrote...

It's funny, because the velocity and seemingly the amplitude of the wave are increased by the relays, or as the wave travels, either way; but the Earth is the only place that seems to be impacted by an under prepared Crucible.

Eh, no. The energy was RETRANSMITTED at each relay. It didn't "increase in spead", it just spread like a virus. It hopped from one relay to another. Each relay is basically the same, so the strength of each retransmission is the same. The Citadel is a VERY POWERFUL mass relay, so it's initial explosion is larger than the rest.  But only the citadel was in orbit around a habitable planet, so only that planet (earth) would be affected by an improperly prepared crucible.

Sorry, but this is one part of the ending that makes absolute sense.

Doesn't increase in speed? Then how do you explain the wave going from sub-c velocities to FTL greater than the Normandy?

Vessels around the Earth are seemingly unaffected while the Normandy crashes? Ok the Normandy is in FTL but why does this happen?

Hmmm, I wasn't thinking about the Normandy, just the initial explosion and how it jumped from system to system, and how it could possibly wreck the earth but not wreck the rest of the galaxy. Well, I suppose one possibility is that they visually represented the explosions occuring sub-c, but in reality they are superluminal. They do things similarly when you show the major battles, you see these ships in close proximity to each other. In reality, they're so far away from eachother that each ship cannot see the other with the naked eye.  The superluminal explosion is explained by the fact that it is a Eezo explosion, so it is a Mass Effect wave propogating at superluminal velocities. Most ships would be unaffected, but the Normandy was travelling at superluminal speeds when the wave hit it. To travel at superluminal velocities, you have to have an active Mass Effect field. Since this explosion propogates superluminally using Mass Effect, it affected the Normandy, but not ships travelling sub-c.

Many of the things in Mass Effect don't make sense as their written. Like the Mass Effect field makes objects appear to have less mass. Ok, but that can't make it possible for a ship to travel at superluminal speeds. In my mind, I 'retcon' this by saying that a particular eletrical current flowing through a properly shaped Eezo mass causes the Eezo to "modulate" it's gravitational signature, so you have positive gravity in front of the ship, and negative repulsive gravity aft of the ship.  This would be an Alcubierre "warp drive", a method of FTL travel that is theoretically possible in the real world, but without something like Eezo, no one knows how to make it.  

 If such a substance like Eezo were to really exist, then an "eezo" explosion could in theory be superluminal. It could carry itself at superluminal speeds. As the crucible exploded, the Eezo is carried along the shockwave along with electromagnetic energy that induces a warp field, so the wave front is a spherically expanding warp field. This shockwave would radiate at superluminal speeds, but the force of the dissipate according to the inverse square, or even inverse cubed law.

[sH0tgUn jUliA]

Now that I've had some sleep... I'll use my first play through of this since it's the least tainted, has the most mistakes, the most role playing, and the least metagaming. Here's a character who was "the end justifies the means so long as there is something to justify the end." She was paranoid (colonist, Torfan), LI: Liara, let the council die, ME2 LI: Thane but sent Thane through the ducts (hey he was crawling through the ducts -- I didn't know what he was going to have to do -- so Thane died on the SM), destroyed the CB, (didn't do Overlord & LOTSB with her), class Infiltrator, paragade (barely). Like I said, honest play through.

After finding the Rachni queen, she figured the queen had been indoctrinated so left her to die. Not the queen's fault, but that just made her more angry at the reapers.

Then there was this thing with Legion. In ME2 since Legion gave a non-zero probability that the rewrite might fail, we blew up the base. Legion kept talking about them choosing their own destiny free of the old machines. I interpreted this as self-determination and not having anything to do with any reaper tech and developing their own.

So now we get to Rannoch, and Legion tells me the other geth have now been controlled by the reapers. Then it starts talking about uploading reaper code to all the geth to become full AI. So doesn't this sort of go against its original statement? Then it admits it has code of reapers itself. And it gets caught lying. Twice. So can it be trusted? And after killing the Reaper on Rannoch, Legion goes against its agreement again, so Shepard let the Quarians make the determination.

The question here is where does one draw the line? The death of Legion was a tragedy, and carried out in Shakespearean fashion. But the rest of the Geth? At that point still only had networked intelligence and were not controlled by reaper code that had made them more intelligent. Their "blood" is on the hands of the Quarians. Shepard washes her hands of their "blood."

When I got to the ending, I had 5500 EMS. I'd done sufficient multi-player prior to the Cerberus assault to get 100% galactic readiness. The RED ending was pretty much a no-brainer. Starkid had nothing to offer. No guilt trips with RED. "It will destroy us, and all synthetic life. Remember that even you are part synthetic." Nothing to sacrifice at this point. Apparently EDI doesn't die because EDI is tech not a synthetic life form. EDI's body is an avatar. EDI resides on the Normandy in the AI core.

[tractrpl]

What? You're saying the Geth are evil and can't be trusted? The Geth only attacked when they felt threatened. They are the reason I disbelieve the starchild. Basically, there's no reason why a synthetic species would even WANT to wipe out organics, unless those organics are hell bent on wiping them out.

Look at it from this perspective, you feel that you HAVE to wipe out the Reapers. Why? Because you're convinced that either they die or we all die. So, therefore, you have to wipe them out. In the Geth's instance, the only reason they'd ever consider wiping another species out is if they feel that's the only way they themselves could survive.

[Allan Schumacher]

Deventh wrote...

@Allan Schumacher: How do you explain Shepard surviving after choosing the red ending? Obviously he didn't sacrifice himself (THANK GOD FOR THAT!) so at least we have an option seeing him survive and meet up with his LI & crew. So the child could be wrong about synthetic getting destroyed, because it said that "Even you are partly synthetic" - Yet we get Shepard breath (living) in the end.

As for why Shepard can survive and not be destroyed by the blast, I figure it has to do with EMS score.  Upon learning of the ending differences, the EMS score seems to be more a measurement of "How well can we build and protect the Crucible" as opposed to a "how much military might can be bring against the Reapers."  With a really low EMS score, even humans on Earth are outright disintigrated.  Slightly higher and they survive, but buildings are still eradicated.  With more, it definitely seems possible to make the Crucible more likely to hit its intended target, so even if Shepard's implants make him more vulnerable, evidently he can be protected from the blast.

Also you said that Shepard must sacrifice himself in the end. Why? Why not make it that if you don't have high enough EMS you must sacrifice yourself, but if you have it to the max why not survive? This game is all about choices and decisions throughout the games and how they would affect the ending. We should get a choice for Shepard to survive just as we should get one for sacrifice and failiure.

At its core, I feel Shepard's sacrifice adds weight to the end.  It makes him a more interesting character.  This is the third time he's gone up against all odds, and eventually the odds are going to catch up with him.  It's just a personal perspective that I feel would add a lot of emotion to the scene, and if a game can make me feel a genuine emotion I appreciate that.  Sacrifice resonates very powerfully with me.  If not Shepard, I still would have appreciated some sort of sacrifice.  To get through something so challenging to not even sustain a personal casualty (again!) cheapens it to me.  In order for Shepard to survive, I would have liked a sacrifice from someone else on the team.  And not James Vega .  It's just personal preference.  I still enjoyed the ending to ME2 even though it's possible to survive it flawlessly, so it's not a deal breaker for me.

As for the choice, I actually think there's a fine line you have to walk in order to make the choice interesting.  Sometimes, choice just shouldn't exist, and because of that, I think it makes the fact that choice does exist at other times more powerful.

For example, near as I can tell there is no way to save Mordin while curing the genophage.  Mordin is his own being and capable of making his own decisions, and the gravity of him sacrificing himself to atone for the genophage is powerful.  I think it would have been cheapened if Shepard could have summoned the Normandy and Mordin made some epic jump out with an explosion behind him and he somehow survives.  Now fast forward to Rannoch, when I get a dialogue wheel that basically says "Quarians must die" and "Geth must die" and I'm like "HOW CAN YOU MAKE ME CHOOSE THAT!?"  Given I couldn't save Mordin (though a bit of me wanted to because he's awesome), I didn't know if I'd get a chance to reconcile peace.  Buuuuuuuuut, because of decisions I made (going back to ME2 even), I suddenly was presented with an option, which I hastily took. 

Now if I had the impression that in almost every situation there's a clear, optimal choice to find, seeing that I could reconcile peace makes me expect that the result is there.  The only way for me to not get the optimal outcome is to just not play the game as well (or intentionally choose suboptimal decisions) which is something I struggle to do as a game player.  This is why I tend to like mutually exclusive choice since it presents a situation where I can't possibly experience everything.  Mutually exclusive choice complicates things though because dev resources go into something that many people may never experience.  I know Gabe Newell thinks that that is just silly haha.

[tractrpl]

THIS IS WAR PEOPLE DIE!!

Indeed, I felt Shepard's death is inevitable. It's not his death that upset's me, it's spaceboy's faulty logic. How could an intelligence have lived for this many billions of years exist based on such flawed logic? He's lying, that's the only explanation. Either that, or BW messed up. Their artists, not logicians, after all.

[Vznzsixr]

With respect to sacrifice, I think there would be no real point for Shepard to sacrifice if there was an equivalent option that would give the same amount of satisfaction to the player that makes him live.

And though the idea of EMS score enabling the feasibility of surviving all those reaper tech bits ceasing to function is nice, I think it is way too passive to be called a sacrifice.

Until we get more details, I think I'll stick to the opinion that the Crucible logic is based on sheer statistics and total lack of care for Free Will of non-reaper lifeforms (probably because its creators were like-minded). Then, Shepard being there should force him to acknowledge that organics do not share his view on the problem.
And we can hope that choosing destruction means than "maybe" the current galactic civilization will introduce new parameters in the supposed "chaos automatically happens " equation.

Modifié par Vznzsixr, 08 avril 2012 - 11:20 .

[TMA LIVE]

Does anyone know where I can find the quote from Pax on the issue with the Shepard Lives ending? I remember reading either Chris or a producer commenting on why multiplayer was needed for that ending.

[Coder4Hire]

--- wrong topic ...

Modifié par Coder4Hire, 09 avril 2012 - 02:10 .

[Allan Schumacher]

At it's core, is it more an issue for whether or not killing that many individual life forms is worth it?

Lets assume that there are 1 million Geth. Genocide would be killing all 1 million of them. Would someone that feels the option is too genocidal be more inclined to make the choice if say, it was 1 million random life forms from throughout the world?

Or if you need something more structured, say 20% Turian, 20% Quarian, 20% Asari, 20% Salarian, and 20% Human?

In all these cases no genocide actually occurs, but the total loss of life is equivalent.

[Occulo]

Allan Schumacher wrote...
At its core, I feel Shepard's sacrifice adds weight to the end. It makes him a more interesting character.

Interesting in that s/he walks towards an exploding tube instead of keeping at a safe distance or running away, like s/he has done with every other explosion...

[Vox Draco]

I haven't read the entire thread and just want to add my two cents...

The red ending with hopefully Shepard surviving is the only real choice for me...

Hate me for this, but I personally don't care much about the Geth...Yes, they are sympathetic and nice and innocent and all this, and I helped them to survive alongside the Quarians. But even back then, if I had to choose between Tali's people and Legions, the choice would have been an easy one to me...Yeah, I am an organicist, or whatever it would be called

The benefits of the red ending are too good for me. Reapers and Starchild destroyed, the Galaxy free to choose its own destiny, Shepard has (for whatever reason) a chance to survice, only at the cost of some programs and one single sentient AI.

May Joker hate me for this, but I take the right to be selfish in the end. Shepard toiled, fought, grieved and even died once for the sake of the galaxy...at the end she has deserved some rest, and not to die again. And if the price to pay is only a couple of programs claiming to be self-aware get deleted...a pity, really. It reminded me too much of TRON anyway, and I simply can't relate to them....

I am the ANTI-CATALYST! Wiping out synthetics to save synthetics from getting wiped out!

[Tyrzun]

Red is utterly broken for anyone that understand the simplest concepts of computers.

The GETH are software and not hardware.  They are computer code.  As far as we know the Reapers are not computer code like the Geth and they can't just leave their cuttle fish metal structures. 

So, the destroy option must work against  "software" only and all computers run on software.  ALL of them are code.  On and off bits at it's simplest form.  So, destroy would have destroyed every single computer in the entire galaxy.  They are all just "code".  

Basiclaly, IT doesn't make any sense.  So, just ignore it.  

Sythesis is galactic genocide of all organic life into a new "matrix" and the end of organics forever.  

[Ieya]

Allan Schumacher wrote...

At it's core, is it more an issue for whether or not killing that many individual life forms is worth it?

Lets assume that there are 1 million Geth. Genocide would be killing all 1 million of them. Would someone that feels the option is too genocidal be more inclined to make the choice if say, it was 1 million random life forms from throughout the world?

Or if you need something more structured, say 20% Turian, 20% Quarian, 20% Asari, 20% Salarian, and 20% Human?

In all these cases no genocide actually occurs, but the total loss of life is equivalent.

Either way you have a terrible loss of life there - but with the 20-20-20-20-20 option you aren't eradicating a single culture at all.  Every race could survive the loss of 20% of their numbers - but the Geth losing 100% of their numbers destroys them utterly.

Well, unless someone finds the old Quarian data on how they were built in the first place ... although I suppose they'd probably never evolve the same.

[Jadebaby]

Siibi wrote...

Starbrat is lying, the Geth and EDI are fine.

[Allan Schumacher]

Ieya wrote...

Either way you have a terrible loss of life there - but with the 20-20-20-20-20 option you aren't eradicating a single culture at all.  Every race could survive the loss of 20% of their numbers - but the Geth losing 100% of their numbers destroys them utterly.

Well, unless someone finds the old Quarian data on how they were built in the first place ... although I suppose they'd probably never evolve the same.

Yeah, I was more curious if there was an issue with just the loss of life, or if it's actually the full on genocide that makes people uncomfortable.

I think you could also rationalize that it's easier (and maybe even fair) if the primary races all took a relatively equal hit.  Everyone makes a smaller sacrifice (relatively speaking) than the entire Geth making the ultimate sacrifice.

Thanks!

[Ieya]

Allan Schumacher wrote...
Actually, Stargazer is just a weird scene in general.  I guess showing that regardless of what Shepard chooses, it ends up working out.  THe only thing I really like about it is that it demonstrates that galactic collapse didn't occur.  Due to it coming after the credits I think it was more just an easter egg type thing.

See, as I read it, it doesn't really imply things work out all that well.  If I can take the liberty of transcribing the conversation:

Child: Did that all really happen?



Stargazer: Yes, but some of the details have been lost in time. It all happened so very long ago.

Child: When can I go to the stars?



Stargazer: One day my sweet.



Child: What will be there?



Stargazer: Anything you can imagine. Our galaxy has billions of stars.
Each of those stars could have many worlds. Every world could be home
to a different form of life. And every life is a special story every
time.



Child: Tell me another story about the Shepard.



Stargazer: It's getting late, but - OK. One more story.



This suggests to me that we're a long, long way in the future; Shepard has passed into legend.  The fact that "some details have been lost" implies that we've had a period of oral or physically written records; had the technology of Shepard's era survived then it's hard to imagine how details of his cycle's great hero could have been forgotten - there would be so very many computer copies out there, on so many different systems and worlds.

And the Stargazer simply doesn't seem to know what's out there, he speculates that stars could have worlds which could have life, whereas a grandfather in Shepard's era would be able to tell a child of the dreaming spires of the Asari homeworld, or the strangeness of Blasto's homeworld, or if he was a bit mean and wanted to give the kid nightmares, of the Batarians or even Reapers.  But to be reduced to a vague "there might be stuff out there" makes it sound as though he really doesn't know for sure what's out there now.

Which would be very plausible had Shepard's choice caused galactic devastation, destroyed technology, and dropped us back into a dark age for a long time...

[Allan Schumacher]

I guess by "galactic collapse" I really meant "galactic destruction." In other words, the destruction of the relays didn't cause supernovae everywhere.

As for the child's desire to go to the stars, I imagined that as a "when you're older." Kind of like driving a car haha.

I agree that it's definitely some time in the future. Hopefully we find out more this summer.

[Ieya]

It just feels so weirdly detail-less of Stargazer if he's not in a "dark age" - if you were telling a kid about driving a car, you'd talk about the different sorts that are out there, or an amazing coastal or mountain drive you know, or something; you'd not say "There's lots of land out there, and there are probably some countries on the land, and some of them might have really good roads"!

It seems like the team do need that extra development time to wrap the game up "properly"; it's so very unlike BioWare to have given so little closure, going right back to the Baldur's Gate era we always used to get some sense of what had happened afterwards - even simple little pieces of text, like one that concludes "some say they are together still, up amongst the stars where hamsters are giants and men become legends" (and yes, that did bring a tear to my eye when I first read it!).

I mean, when a game evokes an strong emotional response from you, you know the writers, artists, sound, the whole team have done their job well. Planescape: Torment's ending? Check. Mordin on Tuchanka? Check.

ME3's ending? Um ... sadly not really for me right now. We have the rather jarring introduction of the Catalyst/ghostchild character, we get something like fourteen lines of dialogue where for what feels like the first time Shepard's gone weirdly passive, with no ability to ask "what the hell" or say "bugger that", and we're presented with the infamous three choices which all seem to be pretty nihilistic (inferring from what Arrival and the Codex told us happens when you destroy a relay, coupled with the explodey cutscene we see spreading across the galaxy).

And it's cool if that's not what the developers intended at all, and it'll be made clear with the DLC - but what a crushing ball to drop at the crowning moment of what really has been an absolutely badger-twistingly fantastic trilogy.

[Ieya]

Back on topic, interesting to speculate on what might've been possible - could Shepard have put out an emergency call for the Geth to shut down / take themselves offline (and trust in the Quarians to reboot them afterwards) before putting out his 'destroy' option?

You'd probably incur a few additional casualties across all races for dragging out the fight with the Reapers those extra minutes, and the shutdown/reboot might well be imperfect (and it's asking for a huge leap of faith from the Geth) - but if even some survived...

[atheelogos]

Allan Schumacher wrote...

Ieya wrote...

Either way you have a terrible loss of life there - but with the 20-20-20-20-20 option you aren't eradicating a single culture at all.  Every race could survive the loss of 20% of their numbers - but the Geth losing 100% of their numbers destroys them utterly.

Well, unless someone finds the old Quarian data on how they were built in the first place ... although I suppose they'd probably never evolve the same.

Yeah, I was more curious if there was an issue with just the loss of life, or if it's actually the full on genocide that makes people uncomfortable.

I think you could also rationalize that it's easier (and maybe even fair) if the primary races all took a relatively equal hit.  Everyone makes a smaller sacrifice (relatively speaking) than the entire Geth making the ultimate sacrifice.

Thanks!

Wasn't really a scarifice for the Geth. They didn't get to choose.

[greggm2000]

Tyrzun wrote...

Red is utterly broken for anyone that understand the simplest concepts of computers.

The GETH are software and not hardware.  They are computer code.  As far as we know the Reapers are not computer code like the Geth and they can't just leave their cuttle fish metal structures. 

So, the destroy option must work against  "software" only and all computers run on software.  ALL of them are code.  On and off bits at it's simplest form.  So, destroy would have destroyed every single computer in the entire galaxy.  They are all just "code".  

Basiclaly, IT doesn't make any sense.  So, just ignore it.  

Sythesis is galactic genocide of all organic life into a new "matrix" and the end of organics forever.  

But organics are software too, just operating on a different substrate... and even there, there's probably less difference than compared with RL tech.

I do see one key difference between organics and synthetics: with organics you always have 1 mind in 1 body, and they're not seperable while alive. With synthetics, you have X mind in X bodies (where X = 1 to ?), and moreover, that can change. Still, they're alive too. And in synthesis, if organics then have that capability, does it make them any less the people who they are?

[M0keys]

Allan Schumacher wrote...

At it's core, is it more an issue for whether or not killing that many individual life forms is worth it?

Lets assume that there are 1 million Geth. Genocide would be killing all 1 million of them. Would someone that feels the option is too genocidal be more inclined to make the choice if say, it was 1 million random life forms from throughout the world?

Or if you need something more structured, say 20% Turian, 20% Quarian, 20% Asari, 20% Salarian, and 20% Human?

In all these cases no genocide actually occurs, but the total loss of life is equivalent.

I'd rather not directly kill anyone.

People on my side die when they get involved with war, but never because I choose to kill them when I can save them instead.

My Shepard was a peacekeeper whenever possible. You could say he was like Buddha, but with a gun.

Modifié par M0keys, 09 avril 2012 - 10:12 .

[Ieya]

M0keys wrote...

My Shepard was a peacekeeper whenever possible. You could say he was like Buddha, but with a gun.

And when it was an automatic gun, he was like buddha-buddha-buddha-buddha?

(apologies, that really was an awful pun...)

[Keltic]

M0keys wrote...

Allan Schumacher wrote...

At it's core, is it more an issue for whether or not killing that many individual life forms is worth it?

Lets assume that there are 1 million Geth. Genocide would be killing all 1 million of them. Would someone that feels the option is too genocidal be more inclined to make the choice if say, it was 1 million random life forms from throughout the world?

Or if you need something more structured, say 20% Turian, 20% Quarian, 20% Asari, 20% Salarian, and 20% Human?

In all these cases no genocide actually occurs, but the total loss of life is equivalent.

I'd rather not directly kill anyone.

People on my side die when they get involved with war, but never because I choose to kill them when I can save them instead.

My Shepard was a peacekeeper whenever possible. You could say he was like Buddha, but with a gun.

Played the game much the same way