5087 réponses à ce sujet

[frypan]

Thanks ******, much better said. And you highlighted why it wasnt an issue in LOTR, which is always a good thing and not my intent in the post

Edit Is there an award for shortest top post? I choose then thematically Two Tribes, by FGTH, but none is all that you can score.

Modifié par frypan, 01 juillet 2012 - 06:33 .

[RedSpectrum47]

sporeian wrote...

I wanna go to your college...NOW!

[CulturalGeekGirl]

Fapmaster5000 wrote...

frypan wrote...

And the fact is, good magic always has a decent stab at a set of principles that guide it within the story - think L Sprague de Camp and his Incomplete Enchanter books.

If its there in game or story it needs a good explanation for its non use. Hence the problem with an AI not using its ace up the sleeve from the get go. The whole reason it hadnt is as weak as the hero who blunders along refusing his powers, or the "it will draw the attention of the enemy" guff used to create obstacles to victory.

There is a phrase about magic in stories that I picked up over the years, and I cannot remember its source for the life of me, but I must give credit to some unknown author.  The concept, paraphrased, is this: "The degree to which the magic system must be understood is directly proportional to how relevant it is to the hero resolving the conflict."

This basic concept lays out that magic can be unknown, unexplained, and crazy, but the more it approaches two points (used by the hero, resolves the conflict), the more understood it must be.  Take some examples: Lord of the Rings does not need to explain its magic system, since it is not the solution to the main quest, nor is it used by the primary heroes.  Gandalf does something and something happens, but it really doesn't solve the issue at hand.  Frodo still needs to hoof that damn ring to Mordor, and Aragorn needs to have an army.

Likewise, Lovecraftian horror stories do not need to explain their magic, as the magic is not solving the problem.  Magic is, by design, unknown, horrifying, and alien.  It is there, it does something, and bad things happen.  There may be a clever "oh, this lever makes the color green", but no explanation is ever required for why.  It is, in fact, discouraged.

Now, if the magic is being used by the villain, and the hero must counter that magic, then it becomes necessary to explain.  It moves up on those sliders, as, even though the hero's not using it, it's still relevant to the direct conclusion of the story.  Consider, in a very basic form, the end fo The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe.  At the end, Aslan is killed and then resurrected because of an incorrect use of magic rules, and because the player behind Aslan was a rules lawyering munchkin because Jesus this understanding of magic rules directly predicates to the conclusion, even if it is only elucidated ex post facto.

In more modern fantasy, such as The Wheel of Time, the reader is given a very moderately deep understanding of the rules of "Channeling", including what men do, what women do, the way certain powers work and interact, et cetera.  This is because several viewpoint characters use the magic, and it is directly tied to the primary conflict and (inevitable) conclusion to the series.  The magic is both used by the hero, and used to resolve the conflict.

This can be appied to Mass Effect, where the "magic" of soft sci-fi (props to CGG for her breakdown of soft and hard a few posts back) is DIRECTLY tied to the hero resolving the plot.  Shepard (or the Catalyst, whom I now believe is the true protagonist of at least ME3 *see other rants*) must use the space magic to resolve the Reaper problem (or Organic/Synthetic problem, if you ask Starby).  Because of this, the slider of "how much does this need to be explained" is slamming into the "in totality" side of the graph.  

This is why many demean it as magic, but, like CGG said, it's more accurately described as ****** writing.

This is great, and I wholeheartedly agree. I'm trying to work on an essay about proper worldbuilding in SF&F, and I'm going to crib mercilessly from this, if you don't mind.

I would argue that these rules apply equally to the science of a work, too. I'd generalize this to "how much you need to know about the mechanics and limitations of any system is directly related to how much understanding the system and knowing its limitations affects the plot." 

This applies to science, too. In a story that is primarily about the psychological impact of a bunch of people stranded in a spaceship in an inhospitable area, we don't need to know about the scientific mechanics of their sustenance and rescue, because that's not the focus of the story or the means to its resolution. That's the difference between the Dr. Who episode "Midnight" and the Arthur C Clarke classic "A Fall of Moondust." In the former, the cooling and shielding systems of the craft in question are important only in how they relate to people's psychological reactions to their situation; in the latter the mechanics of cooling and shielding and airflow are vitally important, as solving these problems is the focus of the plot.

I'm trying to come up with other situations where science (and not social science) is actually the solution to the problem of a piece, and I really can't think of many outside of Hard SF. Even in old Star Trek episodes where technobabbling the maguffin is the "solution" to whatever the most immediate danger seems to be, the focus of the narrative in question was usually something else entirely.

[drayfish]

CulturalGeekGirl wrote...

I'm trying to come up with other situations where science (and not social science) is actually the solution to the problem of a piece, and I really can't think of many outside of Hard SF. Even in old Star Trek episodes where technobabbling the maguffin is the "solution" to whatever the most immediate danger seems to be, the focus of the narrative in question was usually something else entirely.

Macgyver! This one time, he used a chocolate bar to clog up a ruptured tank of acid that was spraying into the... Okay, I hear it. I heard it as I was saying it. Sorry.
 
 
But to be less idiotic, I am loving this discussion of the manipulation and explanation of 'magic'/'science', and the need for its justification in narrative. That kind of gradual elaboration and manifestation is precisely what was missing from the discovery and description of the Crucible, the Catalyst, and the after-effects of firing that whatever-beam into the stars. 
 
This might be slightly off topic, but it's why in Raiders of the Lost Ark I completely bought into Indiana Jones opening up the box that magically melted people's faces off. We'd heard the legends, we'd had them perculate at the back of our subconscious all movie. We'd had zealots and madmen convinced of its dangers; we'd seen Indy himself slide reluctantly toward entertaining its possibility; and only then, ready to open ourselves to the chance that it could be true do we have the sci-religi-agical elements actually play out.
 
Contrast that gradual elucidation to the moment that Indy climbed into a fridge in Crystal Skull so that he could survive a nuclear blast (!!!) and I found myself wanting to flip the cinema like a board game and storm off. 
 
In the one case you have the narrative warming you up to this extreme – teasing out the idea of the ark of the covenant, and the power that it might contain, supporting it, deriding it, dismissing it, fearing it, so that when it is finally unleashed we as audience were willing to commit to the premise. We've been conditioned; the movie has primed us, and when all the swirly spirit business starts up we're ready to go with it: 'Yeah! Bible-Power melts N*zis! Hoo-rah!'
 
In the other case?  The fridge? Well the fridge is ****ing ********-damned ****** or **** in his ******* counter-clockwise ****** so that it's sideways! It comes out of nowhere, twenty-minutes into the film, is 'justified' by a simple stamp that declares it to be lead-lined, and allows every following moment of narrative to dissolve under the corrosive influence of cartoon logic.  And that's all before the goddamned aliens-from-another-dimension ever get a look in...
 
I must admit (and this will surely come as no surprise) that everything the Catalyst does and is provide precisely that same rupture of immersion for me. There would have probably been ways to do it (I marvel at how effortlessly you whipped up that Soft Sci-Fi narrative soufflé for Synthesis, CulturalGeekGirl – you are so very dangerous), but even in the Extended Cut, that foreshadowing and narrative establishing simply was not there.
 
It's as 'magic' as my ******-weak card tricks for third grade show-and-tell. I know you didn't pick a seven, Mrs Dallywater. Thankfully your lies didn't doom civilisation. ...Unless...? 

No. No they didn't.

Modifié par drayfish, 01 juillet 2012 - 10:10 .

[SHARXTREME]

@CulturalGeekGirl

You originally said that Hard SF doesn't even bend known laws of physics. That's where I didn't agree.
And yes, "it's science" wouuld have worked too. It is a bad writing injected in holo-corpus of Starchild.

But no, I don't agree that your technobabble "Star Trek" explanation would have work for anyone, especially not for Star Trek fans. I for one don't look at ST as terchnobabble, it is far more concetrated on characters, exploring the possibilities and situations that some advanced technology can make happen. That technology isn't ever fully explained, but it's properly set up with basic rules in story. It's mostly a conflict of different philosophies and some complex characters representing it in SF setting, while some other SF concentrate too much on technology with paper thick characters while story crumbles.
I for one don't like that "Situation SF"(people stuck on a ship with rogue AI taking them hostage, stuck on a planet, etc) In that "situation SF" only character that can carry the story becomes "hero" "lone survivor" etc. That just says that situation is too much for the story without good characters.

Since I have watched a lot of Star Trek, and found that Mass Effect is similar in number of ways in character stories and philosophy (until the end of course), this EC ending and debates about moral of different endings reminded me of ending of ST Voyager, where admiral Janeway travels back trough time, surrenders to the Borg queen, but in reality tricks the Borg to get Voyager home.

There is a significant line that can be projected on ME3 ending in that Voyager episode where after Borg Queen says: -"Do what every good diplomat does, admiral. Compromise."
Janeway then in the moment as poison starts killing them both says:

-"I don't compromise with the Borg"

Yes, the Borg, like Reapers, have assimilated countless species against their will. Yes, you are in the "all or nothing" situation. Yes, the Janeway has taken the chance to take Voyager home AND to destroy the Borg threat while sacrificing her "pastfuture" self.
Shepard on the other hand doesn't get the chance even to swear at the catalyst, let alone outsmart him. It's like Shepard doesn't even realise with what he is dealing with. That is what is bothering in the whole Catalyst story. Character Shepard gets dissolved, his judgment crumbles completely and Shepard forgets his main goal in face of greatest enemy that galaxy has ever known.
Because in the face of such threat/enemy you can't compromise, you win or you lose.

It can be morally questionable, Janeway's destruction of entire Borg collective with countless assimilated species in it, and Shepard's destruction of the Reapers with countless assimilated species in it. But survival is not morally questionable when there.are such stakes on table.
You can't compromise with the enemy like Reapers or Borg. You can only destroy them OR convince them to let go of their "fire-burns" nature.
And no, destroy ending is not what i'm talking about.
And no, I don't buy "we are so high above you that you cannot comprehend our goals" "we're doing this that maybe someday some imaginary synthetic species don't wipe whole organic life, so we'll wipe you out first" We are talking here about just one galaxy. Shepard and galaxy can take that risk.
Risk is still better then conditional surrender, it's a choice.
Instead it seems like Catalysts final moment of victory(biggest victory synthesis, others conditional surrenders) . Complete validation of his demented goals. Some think of synthesis as it was compromise, but that's complete victory for Catalyst, as would Borg Queen's suggested "compromise" would be victory for Borg on a verge of destruction.

No technobabble or heart warming legend epilogue can fix that Shepard seems to be completely oblivious who is the enemy, and that she forgets what she did in last three games, that she just seems dumb in the moment of victory.
Refusal sort of did fix it, as acceptable defeat option, but that was not the intention.

[NobodyofConsequence]

Man, this thread moves a long way in a day!

Have a few people to reply to from the looks of things, will get to that soon, but just want to throw in a thought that occurred to me earlier. The only reason why the Catalyst exists is to attempt to resolve the Reapers motivations for the player. This is a mistake, IMO, and I feel the story would actually have been stronger if their motivations were to have remained unknown, as had been hinted at throughout the series.

Anyways, more later, but wanted to get this down in print before I forgot it.

[SpamBot2000]

This thread makes me feel better. Thank you.

/Edit. Was going to leave it at that and disappear again, but pointing one thing out. On a meta level I simply refuse the ending, but as a player I succumbed to picking one out of some need to close off this thing once and for all. So I swallowed my frustration and tried to pick one of the options that did not end in autofail. At first I tried the synthesis one, being somewhat dialectically minded myself. But the very sight of how truly appalling an explanation for the scenario they were offering me, as well as a crushed sense of foreboding because of the frankly sinister utopian babble they made poor Tricia Helfer utter, I could not stomach it. Becoming a technogod for all eternity also was something I think anyone who gave the concept half a thought would run in terror from, that left only one option. So I shot the damn tube and watched the galaxy go on without an inescapable totalitarianism hanging over it with a sense of... well, big relief. That's right, I felt relieved to be killing my friend and allies. People can tell me 'til they're blue in the face that it is "just a game... ya know, for kids", but I cannot shake of the feeling of being somehow more depraved as a person now. So if that was the goal, Bioware... Mission Accomplished.

Modifié par SpamBot2000, 01 juillet 2012 - 11:33 .

[deliphicovenant42]

NobodyofConsequence wrote...

Man, this thread moves a long way in a day!

Have a few people to reply to from the looks of things, will get to that soon, but just want to throw in a thought that occurred to me earlier. The only reason why the Catalyst exists is to attempt to resolve the Reapers motivations for the player. This is a mistake, IMO, and I feel the story would actually have been stronger if their motivations were to have remained unknown, as had been hinted at throughout the series.

Anyways, more later, but wanted to get this down in print before I forgot it.

In support of this thought I can definitely say that while watching the "Best seats in the house" scene, and thinking I was just moments away from credits, the furthest thing from my mind was "I wonder why the Reapers created the cycle?"  Sure ending there would have still left the ending rushed and not totally satisfying given the build up over the years, but the last thing I was looking for at that moment was for someone to explain anything else about the Reapers.

[SHARXTREME]

deliphicovenant42 wrote...

NobodyofConsequence wrote...

Man, this thread moves a long way in a day!

Have a few people to reply to from the looks of things, will get to that soon, but just want to throw in a thought that occurred to me earlier. The only reason why the Catalyst exists is to attempt to resolve the Reapers motivations for the player. This is a mistake, IMO, and I feel the story would actually have been stronger if their motivations were to have remained unknown, as had been hinted at throughout the series.

Anyways, more later, but wanted to get this down in print before I forgot it.

In support of this thought I can definitely say that while watching the "Best seats in the house" scene, and thinking I was just moments away from credits, the furthest thing from my mind was "I wonder why the Reapers created the cycle?"  Sure ending there would have still left the ending rushed and not totally satisfying given the build up over the years, but the last thing I was looking for at that moment was for someone to explain anything else about the Reapers.

I can agree with both of you that it would be better then this catalyst ending. You could imagine something as Reapers purpose if you wanted to . Something far better/greater then Catalyst character.
Bioware introduced such a "game-changing" character  that now needs a lot of explanation, background and forplay, but in doing so, they have completely destroyed character Shepard, degraded him to a experimental monkey on IQ test.

What button will you push?  
(even monkeys can refuse, so they needed EC to aknowledge that fact) 

[MrFob]

CulturalGeekGirl wrote...
You don't read a lot of more serious SF, do you? Have you ever read Red Mars, Beggars in Spain, or a Fall of Moondust? How about Always Coming Home?

Hard SF usually doesn't break the laws of physics as we know them... it instead draws upon what we expect to be possible in the future based on what we know at the time of writing. For instance, there's nothing in the laws of physics that says we can't develop a supertube material that could be used to make a space elevator. In fact, everything we know about physics suggests that this is very likely possible... we just don't know the techniques required to do it yet. The same thing goes for a world where all energy used for every day life is produced by solar, wind, and hydroelectricitly, so all fossil and biofuels can be focused entirely on building things like space elevators and then getting stuff to Mars.

Kim Stanley Robinson's Red Mars is a good example of mordern hard SF. It's a story about the colonization of Mars where every piece of technology mentioned is just a more active, more durable, or more powerful version of technology that already exists. Technology that allows us to go faster than light is none of these things, and it actively violates known laws of physics.

We could probably go to Mars right now. We don't because it's too expensive and we haven't yet solved the problem of getting the person back to earth. But if we sent an astronaut with the idea that he would get to Mars, and not come home, we'd be able to get a man on mars in less than twenty years. The problem is a psychological one: while many people would be willing to volunteer for such a one-way trip, it's uncertain that we as a country would be able to cope psychologically with the idea of leaving them there, even if they chose it.

There's a difference between "breaking the laws of physics" and "doing things that we strongly believe will be possible soon, but that are not possible yet." The laws of physics forbid FTL. They don't forbit a more efficient and energy-dense fuel than is currently known. In fact, they mostly imply that such things ARE theoretically possible.

You could explain the green beams in soft-SF-Star-Trek-style technobabble. I'll show you, using only technological concepts present in Mass Effect or other soft SF. The energy beam does not change anything by itself, instead it signals the release of nanomachines that use tiny, single-particle eezo cores to travel faster than light to every planet and ship in the galaxy. Once there, they instantly transmit a code that is an upload of Shepards consciousness and morals to any proximate synthetics. They also are capable of infusing themselves into any organics, at which point they begin to reproduce, their programming combined with the knowledge of different races stored on the citadel allowing them to customize themselves to provide optimal benefit to all different races and species.

There. I explained Synthesis in soft-SF cliches. It's not any less dumb. It's not any more scientific.

Telekinesis isn't science, either, thought it's a soft SF standby, whether it's the force or biotics or families of psychics who live on asteroids and are used for intergalactic transportation. It can be present in soft SF, because the purpose of soft SF is usually to tell a story with spaceships in, or to examine social structures in a new and interesting environment. I love SF stories that contain telekinetics, but they are never and cannot be "hard" SF.

I also love fantasy, and if you have any level of critical thinking or understanding of how fiction works, you'll realize that "it's magic" isn't a valid answer to any question either. It's exactly the same as if someone asked me how the green beam worked and I said "It's science." Unless you're talking about a comedic or cartoon world, in which case "it's magic" works interchangeably with "it's science."

See the Hitchhiker's guide to the galaxy for the "it's science" version of this. See especially the explanation of  the "Bistromathmatic Drive" quoted here.

Good read! Just want to add a few little things that came to mind while reading:
Just as a point of interest, getting a man to Mars seems well under way, if you can believe the media lunatics.
As for hard vs. soft SF: I am not so sure about the exclusion of certain concepts like telekinesis from hard scifi. It all depends on the way it is explained. For example, how about telekinesis that is limited, e.g. to small metal objects? Suppose you have a chip in your brain with which you remotely access a device that can create localised electromagnetic fields to manipulate these objects. That might theoretically be possible (probably not practical though).
The distinction between hard and soft SF is a bit more difficult IMO. There are cases on the edge that take concepts of todays science that are yet unproven or still under debate and incorporate them. One example would be the tv show ReGenesis (a personal favourite of mine that I heartily invite everyone to watch). The first two seasons are as hard SF as it gets but  the last season and especially the very end of the series takes us very far into speculative territory. Also, what about the world of e.g. Deus Ex: Human Revolution and their human augmentation? Is that hard SciFi? Technically I can't really see them break any physical laws but we just can't tell at the moment if such durable and precise brain-machine-interfaces are possible to build (I for one think they will be possible one day but it is under debate). How about otherwise hard SF that implies concepts which are never explained?
Don't get me wrong, I think the classification is very correct in 99% of all cases. I am just curious as to what you think about those cases.

But then, we should probably get back to ME and on that point, I agree with the general tone in the thread, that no amount of technobabble could rescue the star child's beams in the last minute. As drayfish says, it would need an incredible amount of priming. E.g., I think they might have even been able to sugar coat the dark energy plot enough for us to make the DE ending work. Not because it's any more believable or because it makes more sense. In fact it probably even makes less sense but it's already mentioned in ME2. If we would have been bombarded with hints all the time during ME3 and if we would have been allowed to slowly discover more and more of the scientific BS reasons for why it should work, I think it would have been possible to sell a large portion of the audience on the idea. Hell, if it were narratively coherent, interesting and fitting with the rest of the story, they could have sold me on pretty much anything because I would have wanted to believe (cue for whistling the X-Files theme now). The magic itself is not the problem. It's the kind of exposure and the context that make it stand out like that in the first place.

[NobodyofConsequence]

Ok, here goes.

Thanks to everyone who took a swing at speculating on the thematic intention of the current endings. Consensus seems to be who the hell really knows, we just know it doesn't work for us. Far as I'm concerned, if posters of the quality of those in this thread can't figure it out, then it no longer matters, and I will henceforth chalk it up to writing fail.

On Hard v Soft, I'll throw Space Opera in to the ring, just to make it nice and messy. ME, to me, is mostly Space Opera. I've usually used the examples of Star Wars and Peter F Hamilton as Space Opera, writers like Alastair Reynolds and Iain M Banks as Soft SF with Hard SF leanings, and the likes of Greg Egan as Hard SF. Note, there doesn't seem to be very much Hard SF around these days, for some reason.

On the prescence of the Catalyst as a redundant plot device, I'm more certain of it, the more I think about it. If Bioware were to design a dating game and use a similar ending, you would end up with this: men and women will never truly understand one another, and will inevitably come in to conflict. Therefore, your choices are to eradicate all members of the opposite sex, but in doing so destroy anything that looks like them (including the inflatable kind), brainwash them,  turn everyone in to a hermaphrodite, or chemically castrate yourself.

And on that basis, I'm actually no longer worried about the thematic revulsion the OP brought in to focus. It just doesn't make sense, and I'm done trying to find meaning in this particular collidascope, as any meaning I see will simply be a result of my own associations, rather than something deliberately implanted by the designer. I've learned more and had my thoughts stretched more simply through my brief participation in this thread than was actually contained in the endings. Any meaning we get from those endings comes from us. Not them. The only credit I will give the creative team, so far as the ending is concerned, is that they unwittingly burnt some toast in a way that looks like Jesus.

EDIT - need to proof more, oops. But also want to say that the meaning to be found in ME comes from the relationships forged, not the overarching thematic concerns. That is something that will stay with me for a long time. It's not about wether you win, or how you win, but how you affect others along the way. And for that, I give the creative team a big thumbs-up.

Modifié par NobodyofConsequence, 01 juillet 2012 - 03:10 .

[Wildhide]

Fapmaster, you might be thinking of Brandon Sanderson's Laws of Magic in writing.

Sanderson's First Law of Magics: An author's ability to solve conflict with magic is DIRECTLY PROPORTIONAL to how well the reader understands said magic.

And

Sanderson's Second Law can be written very simply. It goes like this:

Limitations > Powers

Or, the limitations of a magic system should always be greater than the powers.

I love Sanderson's writing and I think he makes very strong points about magic/science and how it's understood in the context of a story and how that relates to how the audience will accept it.

In order news, I've been lurking on this thread a while, the only reason I come to BSN anymore. I adore reading all the insight and discussion folks have. It's a pity the writers at Bioware aren't at your caliber.

[NobodyofConsequence]

deliphicovenant42 wrote...

NobodyofConsequence wrote...

Man, this thread moves a long way in a day!

Have a few people to reply to from the looks of things, will get to that soon, but just want to throw in a thought that occurred to me earlier. The only reason why the Catalyst exists is to attempt to resolve the Reapers motivations for the player. This is a mistake, IMO, and I feel the story would actually have been stronger if their motivations were to have remained unknown, as had been hinted at throughout the series.

Anyways, more later, but wanted to get this down in print before I forgot it.

In support of this thought I can definitely say that while watching the "Best seats in the house" scene, and thinking I was just moments away from credits, the furthest thing from my mind was "I wonder why the Reapers created the cycle?"  Sure ending there would have still left the ending rushed and not totally satisfying given the build up over the years, but the last thing I was looking for at that moment was for someone to explain anything else about the Reapers.

Yes, that was the perfect scene to finish it, Anderson and Shepard watching the fireworks go off together, and then go to whatever aftermath your decision tree created. Brings the focus back to the relationships in the series, not the spacemagic plotline. To make that more satisfying, they just needed to have a level of fighting through the Citadel a la ME1, with Shepard wounded as he/she was, honing the stakes before he/she gets to TIM. Three Husks and Marauder Shields were never going to really cut it for drama. At least they knew that much.

[delta_vee]

@deliphicovenant42

In support of this thought I can definitely say that while watching the "Best seats in the house" scene, and thinking I was just moments away from credits, the furthest thing from my mind was "I wonder why the Reapers created the cycle?" Sure ending there would have still left the ending rushed and not totally satisfying given the build up over the years, but the last thing I was looking for at that moment was for someone to explain anything else about the Reapers.

Agreed.

I wonder if there's another way to violate Sanderson's first law the other way, where providing more understanding than is required at the critical time damages the narrative as much as withholding it.

This is what's so striking to me about the whole debacle. The Catalyst simply wasn't necessary on any level, except to wrap up the mystery of the Reapers which so many of us didn't want solved.

As far as the magic issue is concerned, while I'm inclined to agree it was bad writing above all (note that biotics were functionally magic as well, when evaluating ME in the soft/hard SF divide), the creative decision to keep us in the dark for so long about the nature of the Crucible was the key mistake. Explanations along the way of the possibilities would have gone a long way towards reducing the dissociation felt at the end, where a whole host of new information had to be rapidly assimilated instead of already present.

[SHARXTREME]

EDIT: just to expand what's also wrong with the Catalyst mechanism.
Well, when you have Reapers and united galaxy in conflict, you build Crucible so you can defeat the Reapers, you need the Citadel to amplify the Crucibles energy relaease, and you need Mass Relay network to cover the whole galaxy.
So far the mechanism works perfectly. No need for additional technobabble.
But then you introduce the Catalyst, catalyst is a tool to start reaction
Mechanism still works.
Then you say "why not put a capital letter C on catalyst, and lett it decide how it will release the energy on his terms"
Mechanism breakes.
Then you extend catalysts role so far that he becomes the mechanism itself, overshadowing everything else, by making him the tool, the enemy and the choice maker in the same time..
Mechanism  works again. logic also. But in some separate never written story..

Wildhide wrote...





Limitations > Powers

Instead in ME:

Catalyst  is the limitation, and there is no power in players hands that can equal/surpass this limitation imposed.
Problem is he is not hero of the story, but somehow he became main character. Biggest character. so big that they can rewrite the title of the series and call it Starchild Effect.

Let's see, you're dealing with biggest genocidal lunatic in history and you get the chance to pick its "ideal solution" , validate its existence.
You get the privilege to witness and to help it in its finest moment and final victory. Remember, you must push the button, because Catalyst can't.  He is air. You must jump in.the beam(I know this draws many
(bioware unintented) paralels.

yes, I know that i'm already "beating-the-hologram", i'm sorry but, I now want prequel that describes, in finest details, Starchilds road to victory. This is my take on destroying the synthesis, or extending the extended cut. To disolve and deconstruct Mass Effect entirely. 
 
"He was created to bring peace. He failed many times, but every time he became stronger and stronger."
"He did not strive to live. He didn't strive to understand. He was above those petty concepts.
He just tried to find a way to implement his ideal solution on everybody. Nobody could comprehend him"
"He directed mass harvesting trough countless cycles" 
"Many lived because he allowed it, even more died because he demanded it."
"Many tried to control and  to destroy his minions"
"No one could have known that he is behind the terrible Reapers"
"He almost lost hope, but nature has sprang the biggest tool ever.. Commander Shepard,  he jumped in after some reassurance."

"Read more about Starchilds quest for purpose and Shepards helping hand"
"From Immortal Broken AI to the one who imposed  his concept to all life in galaxy"

"It was the ideal solution"
"Did you add your energy to the Crucible? All we can say is: keep your saves"

Modifié par SHARXTREME, 01 juillet 2012 - 05:07 .

[jbauck]

delta_vee wrote...

@deliphicovenant42

In support of this thought I can definitely say that while watching the "Best seats in the house" scene, and thinking I was just moments away from credits, the furthest thing from my mind was "I wonder why the Reapers created the cycle?" Sure ending there would have still left the ending rushed and not totally satisfying given the build up over the years, but the last thing I was looking for at that moment was for someone to explain anything else about the Reapers.

Agreed.

I wonder if there's another way to violate Sanderson's first law the other way, where providing more understanding than is required at the critical time damages the narrative as much as withholding it.
<snip>

I've loved this whole conversation about the rules of speculative fiction, because I wholeheartedly agree.  And I finally have something to add ...

Yes, absolutely.  I believe the writer should know All The Rules, but shouldn't communicate them all.  Once a rule is established in the text in speculative fiction, it is inviolate.  From a practical standpoint, as the writer is writing, I imagine they'd have to be aware that they're going to come upon a situation where they need something to work in a way that is different from what they have worked out as The Rules.  If that case arises, it's best that the particular rule they are bending or breaking has not been communicated, so they don't have to ass-pull an exception.

Maybe not so much a "you said to much about how this works while it was relevant" but a "you said too much while it was not relevant, and now we know How It Works, and then we get to this place where ... suddenly it doesn't work like that?  What?"

[TrevorHill]

@CulturalGeekGirl
I was reading your posts about the diference between hard and soft science fiction, and I wanted to clarify a few things. To do this, unfortunately, I'm going to have to nerd out a bit. To start, no laws of physics are broken in any work of science fiction that I know of. A physical law is something that is a mathematical absolute, and is unchanging in our understanding of how the world works. Examples would be F=ma or V=IR. So essentially, if it isn't an equation then it isn't a law. All the things that you were referring to are scientific models. The speed of light being an absolute universal speed limit is a posit of the theory of relativity. But being a scientific model, and not having any mathematics to equate to a universal speed limit, it can not be "proven" in a scientific sense. Granted, it is supported by the evidence we have at this time, but that doesn't mean it can't change. For example, Kepler's laws of planetary motion were pretty much set in stone for a few hundred years until special relativity blew it out of the water. Even now there are a good number of scientists who think that light speed can be exceeded. There is even a particle which is thought to ONLY be able to move faster than light, called a tachyon. (It's pretty interesting actually). http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tachyon
My point is, that Mass Effect goes to great lengths to describe its science. And since it's science is mostly based on things which we have very little understanding of, such as dark energy, it's actually relatively plausible, since no laws are broken. If in the story they had an instance where someone sent a 3 amp current through a wire with a 6 ohm resistor, and they measured a potential of 20 volts, then you could call bullsh*t. So really, the biggest difference between "hard" and "soft" science fiction, in reality, is that the "soft" stuff takes bigger leaps and liberties. They're both, however, scientifically plausible.

P.S.
In all honesty, a humanoid alien has about as much plausibility as any other alien design that someone could come up with. Since it's really hard to create in an absolute vacuum, 99% of the time all of the alien designs someone has will be based on earth analogues, no matter how hard they try (your imagination needs a reference level, so to speak). And since alien environments are radically different from earths, anything that anyone can come up with is about as likely as a Turian.

[SHARXTREME]

@ TrevorHill

In all honesty, a humanoid alien has about as much plausibility as any other alien design that someone could come up with. Since it's really hard to create in an absolute vacuum, 99% of the time all of the alien designs someone has will be based on earth analogues, no matter how hard they try (your imagination needs a reference level, so to speak). And since alien environments are radically different from earths, anything that anyone can come up with is about as likely as a Turian.

Yes, I agree, our imagination needs a reference point to imagine anything really.
Like the story needs a reference point when introducing new character, especially character that replaces the main villain.

About the possibility of meeting aliens similar to what our imagination can spit out. I think it's very high. Anything else and no hope to even notice it, lets just say that aliens humans will someday meet are not so different in form from what we can imagine given all different species on Earth.
Anything beyond that and we could have already met them, or live among them and not even know it.

[delta_vee]

@TrevorHill

I agree with you in principle, to a degree, but not in specifics. Tachyons, for example, are a) only a quantum-mechanical solution to the math, and by that same math actually cannot be localized (ie interact with anything) if they do travel FTL. General Relativity allows for solutions which appear to allow FTL travel, but with a whole host of prerequisites (the energy configurations required, both in scale and nature) and an even greater number of complications (allowing for backwards time travel in some frames of reference, conservation of energy, linear momentum and angular momentum at both ends, etc).

Also, the laws of physics as we know them get broken all the time, by authors who don't know them, don't care, or decide to trade off adherence to them in favor of verisimilitude*. Every time a spacecraft maneuvers like a boat or an airplane, something's wrong. Understanding how to achieve the desired effect is often beyond most SF authors' means, due to the sheer complexity of the universe we inhabit. Even a lot of "hard" SF gets things wrong, but those things are only visible to a smaller portion of the audience with direct knowledge of the science and/or engineering involved. The question is always how much we're willing to suspend as an audience. Hard SF expects less forgiveness, and tightens itself to match. Soft SF gives more room, as the expectations are less stringent. (There's a good blog here which examines these issues in great depth, and you should also look at the great Atomic Rockets site which is dedicated to the parameters of true hard SF.)

* Verisimilitude actually works against realism all the time, since it's based on audience expectations of how the world works, instead of how it actually does. Take the gut-shot sequence in Three Kings for example: it's one of the few times in cinema that gunshot wounds are treated realistically, and serves to violate the uninitiated audience's expectations of how guns work.

Modifié par delta_vee, 01 juillet 2012 - 05:25 .

[TrevorHill]

@Sharxtreme
Really, the similarities (or lack there of) of aliens to earth analogues could go either way. My point was that a humanoid alien is just as likely (or unlikely) as any other you can think of.

[TrevorHill]

@delta_vee
Tachyons are really f**ked up, but I was just using them as an example of the plausibility of anything going faster than light, even if that something happened to be a particle which loses energy as it's velocity increases. But I digress. I think the fact that authors break F=ma with vehicle motion due to ignorance is ok, otherwise everyone who does science fiction would need an engineering degree. Although, that would be kind of cool.....

[Fapmaster5000]

Wildhide wrote...

Fapmaster, you might be thinking of Brandon Sanderson's Laws of Magic in writing.

Sanderson's First Law of Magics: An author's ability to solve conflict with magic is DIRECTLY PROPORTIONAL to how well the reader understands said magic.

And

Sanderson's Second Law can be written very simply. It goes like this:

Limitations > Powers

Or, the limitations of a magic system should always be greater than the powers.

I love Sanderson's writing and I think he makes very strong points about magic/science and how it's understood in the context of a story and how that relates to how the audience will accept it.

In order news, I've been lurking on this thread a while, the only reason I come to BSN anymore. I adore reading all the insight and discussion folks have. It's a pity the writers at Bioware aren't at your caliber.

Yes!  Thank you!  I could not remember where that was from, but I found it to be a statement worthy of moving into my mental "Truth" box.

[SHARXTREME]

I have always found the discussion about laws and widely accepted theories in physics/and anything really interesting.

Generally speaking, there are always at least two extremely different mindsets on this theme.
1. People that are confident that direct observation/success of experiment after practical trial-error run equals law-set-in-stone
2. People that use mathematics to solve theoretical problems/ideas. If idea is set in known laws and If mathematical logic works out. theory is born. No direct observation is needed
(Some might add that strong theory is needed to really expand on known laws or to even start a useful experiment that can bend or expand the known laws)

That is the conflict in most SF and in conflict Catalyst VS nature.
Catalyst never changes, he tries to solve problem/purpose of its existence with mathematics. His purpose/program is The Law. His function is The Law, and his goal is The Theory and he seeks the solution(much like humans seek the meaning of life), he seeks some event that will finally uplift his theory to Law. He works in reverse to natural laws so to say.
I wonder if such creation could have ever gain so much power. Maybe it could, hope we never find out.
If I would freely interpret the new story of Mass Effect and tried to somehow incorporate Catalyst as a character then I would interpret it this way.

1st mindset). 1st advanced species creates synthetics in.the quest for immortality. Synthetics rebel. 1st species creates Catalyst AI to solve that problem. Catalyst, being a machine that solves problems, mixes the creators and synthetics in giant space meat grinder known as Citadel.
He solved the problem, but to his disbelief, Nature, being all natural, creates new forms of life.
He sits in intergalactic space and watches as new species advance and make synthetics of their own.
He fires up his giant meat grinder and synthesizes some more.
He sees a pattern and calls that pattern a cycle, which he now repeats and grows stronger in proportion to nature.

2. mindset) FFWD to Shepards time. Species in his time have by hear-say and few direct(mostly not deeply investigated) observations found about Reapers, species that harvest advanced civilsations and are responsible for destruction of most advanced species they know of-Protheans. Protheans seeded their knowledge throughout galaxy with beacons etc.
Slowly everybody learns about invasion, Crucible plans that every cycle refines, and that reapers grow stronger by harvesting/assimilating other species with unknown reasoning behind their actions.
For the first time, with united galactic effort, they are able to finish the ever improving Crucible.
Galactic Irony(but really a natural law) would be that all species following the original Reaper, without any logical doubt, advanced mostly because original Reaper species left Mass Relays and Citadel.

So we have 2 direct/equal opposites: Catalyst entity that is in its purpose let's say a never-changing constant and slowly evolved natural entity in the form of Shepard/galaxy which is (n)ever-changing variable and the key to solve this problem a ever-improving Crucible.

In this situation (with leap of imagination that this situation needs) 2 sides have equal right and power to use the Crucible.

-Crucible can be tool to annihilate both opponents(option not present in game)
-Crucible can be tool to mix the two opponents(synthesis-Catalyst victory-catalysts purpose is to mix)
-Crucible can be the tool to annihilate/turn/convince the catalyst(Shepard Victory-option not present-Shepards purpose is to remove the catalyst threat and need for catalyst).
-Crucible can be the tool to switch purposes (control/destroy- defeat for both sides, problem reset)
-And finally Crucible can be unused(refuse)

If i would try to solve this problem by complication I would say that ever-improving Crucible deserves the right to have a voice in this conflict too and some mind bending avatar to represent its solutions or even better a judgement. In this ending Player would assume the control of the entity Crucible, after hearing both sides player would CHOOSE. Crucible is really a symbol of players growth and story progress as it stands in ME3 with all readiness stuff, found artifacts etc..

The real question I have tried to ask in the light of Theory-bending the Laws is this:
Why would Laws be never.changing constants, while nature shows clearly that laws are ever changing. It is most likely us, as sapient nature creations that are never changing in our purpose, but maybe with any luck we could be ever improving in our actions.

Even some unfinished story nowdays can improve. Can the readers improve the story without scratching on Artistic integrity or bending natural laws? What is the purpose of some story?
To be read? To be written? To give birth to sequels/prequels? To merge with the reader? To be validated by acceptance or admiration? To be set aside to make room for other stories that will come in the future?
Can it be, maybe, improved upon?
Or the readers read because writers allow it, and it will end because artists demand it?

Modifié par SHARXTREME, 01 juillet 2012 - 09:58 .

[generalleo03]

Well, I just finished the extended cut. Pretty much what I expected. Technically, it was much improved over the old ending. Better scenes, fixed plot holes (but not without adding a few new ones), better flow. They attempt to expound upon the Starchild's logic, but it was everything I had already infered, and still hopelessly flawed.

However, its actually a much worse ending in the narrative than the original. It manages to both add and subtract from the story.

We still have the 3 core philosophies of Hitler being brought out as the only options for salvation. 1. Authoritarian rule by a dictator (control) 2. Eugenics (synthesis) and 3. Genocide (destroy). What kind of Hitler do I want to be? Hmmm. And just in case I dare to not want to be Hitler, I have a special refuse option.

It's amazing to me some people think that refuse is anything but a sucker punch. It is the ultimate childish response. Don't like my options? Don't want to be Space Hitler? Alright fine, I'll create my own Space Hitler.

Refusal was not about deferal to the next cycle. It was about rejecting any of these options. To take that and turn it into deferal actually subtracts from the story. Now, I can't even take a moral victory, because the very next cycle someone else with either worse morals, or less intelligence decided to use the crucible in one of three deplorable ways. How does that make you feel player? If they wanted to just continue the cycle forever, I would have at least had my moral victory, now I can't even have that.

Adding refuse like that is nothing but willful ignorance. They knew the reason people wanted to refuse was they didn't like the options. So they just forced someone else to make the choice then. It was childish and unprofessional.

Really, it feels like these ending are tailor made for renegade shepard, but not a single thought was put into paragon shepard.  Sad really.  I don't know what to make of that.

The fact that they took months more to add to the ending, redo it, and then came out with this does nothing but prove beyond a doubt 2 things. 1. They are not reasonable people. They didn't even bother trying to fix the literary critiques and focused only on the presentation. 2. they are incompetent, in every meaning of the word. Anyone who thinks organics vs. synthetics is the central theme of mass effect wasn't paying attention or didn't care. Likely a form of reading their own material so much, and interjecting stuff they didn't actually include. I'm not a literary professor (), but I am certain this is bad writing. Probably avoid Walter's and Hudson's work without proof they have improved.

Ultimately, just felt like it opened up an old wound. Didn't sting as bad this time, but still felt bad.

Modifié par generalleo03, 01 juillet 2012 - 10:45 .

[generalleo03]

@drayfish

Also, sorry if I'm late to the party, but I disagree with you that ME is about Compromise. Renegade Shepard doesn't have to compromise anything. She actually likes all 3 options, it's just about which she likes best. Paragon Shepard is the only one that get's the shaft. I think the point of Mass Effect can be described by another great epic science fiction film, "Spaceballs":

"Evil will always triumph because good is dumb"