Optimystic_X wrote...
drewelow wrote...
Science fiction, and all storytelling, assumes a certain latitude at the beginning of a story. Science fiction is about extrapolating the results of that early latitude in a logical and consistent way. Actually, that consistency is a key to all forms of storytelling. Last minute space magic is bad storytelling, and even worse sci-fi. A freshman college class, and probably even a high school class, would tear that to shreds.
The Crucible wasn't "last-minute." It shows up immediately after the tutorial.
drewelow wrote...
As to the starchild lying: he wasn't already winning. Depending on your EMS and readiness, Bioware actually tells you that YOU are winning (hence all of the posts about winning by conventional victory).
That high readiness "winning in key locations" message refers to ground skirmishes/evacuating civilians. In space - the battles that actually matter - you are routinely told that you cannot win conventionally, and the Crucible is your only chance, by a variety of very credible sources.
drewelow wrote...
But you dodged my question. Is your Shepard in the habit of putting absolute trust in strangers who make claims of galactic genocide?
My Shepard believes that AI acts according to logic. Starchild might have arrived at a faulty conclusion, but an outright fabrication does not compute, especially not when his goal would have been more easily obtained by not speaking to me at all. In short, he has no reason to lie; he could certainly be wrong, but even that is irrelevant since I need his help to activate the Crucible.
OK, your first 2 responses didn't address what we were talking about, but I"ll provide context and see if that works better (maybe I should have quoted everything).
Your 2nd response is regarding the starchild lying (or not):
First, if the starchild thinks that it has a chance of losing, lying is a perfectly logical strategy.
But, there are other issues that highlight the fact that the starchild is
seriously untrustworthy, such as its use of the term "ascendance" to describe civilizations that have been destroyed and turned into its slaves for a billion years. Control + ascendance = utter breakdown of the integrity of the starchild, and in the synthesis ending. (Granted, you could argue that the writers meant well, and just screwed up, but that's a big, big screw up.)
My general point: Shepard had reason to believe he/she was about to win, at the point the starchild appears. Then the starchild spouts a lot of bad dialog that implies that the starchild is either an idiot, or lying. (Or the writers weren't up to writing that ending.)
Quick summary of issues with dialog: DNA doesn't work like that, evolution doesn't work like that, ascendance doesn't work like that, etc.
Back to my first point:
You said:
And again, you continually blind yourself to the two key possibilities here:
(a) Whichever species decided to incorporate the Catalyst could have deduced the Star-AI's presence on the Citadel:
(

Nobody deduced it, and this was just a random side effect of hooking the thing up without knowing there was an AI installed.
Either of those easily explain the Catalyst behaving the way it does...
I said:
Not easily explained, except by space magic. To provide more detail:
(a) Assuming that anybody deduced the starchilds presence is silly. The protheans would have done a lot more than just messing with the keepers, they probably would have tried to destroy the Citadel. Also, even if a previous race had in some ridiculous manner (other than space magic) guessed at this, they'd need a lot of details to be able to develop an interface... unless we're talking space magic.
(

random side effect = DEEP space magic
...then I went on to explain why space magic is generally accepted at the beginning, but not at the end of a story.