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[Xilizhra]

The planet description in the game itself states the fact that the Reapers brought "overwhelming force" to the homeworld and bombared each and every city on the surface.

So what would you say the state of Thessia is?

[Tyrannosaurus Rex]

Xilizhra wrote...

The planet description in the game itself states the fact that the Reapers brought "overwhelming force" to the homeworld and bombared each and every city on the surface.

So what would you say the state of Thessia is?

As mentioned, it took a hit, but nowhere as bad as Palaven.

[Xilizhra]

Lizardviking wrote...

Xilizhra wrote...

The planet description in the game itself states the fact that the Reapers brought "overwhelming force" to the homeworld and bombared each and every city on the surface.

So what would you say the state of Thessia is?

As mentioned, it took a hit, but nowhere as bad as Palaven.

Which seems to be contradicted by the narrative saying that Thessia's been irrevocably lost, although that might be because the narrative is stupid. In any event, I'm willing to bump Palaven's priority up to the level of the other two.

[Ieldra]

RiouHotaru wrote...
Honestly, if I wasn't quite as selfish about my FemShep and Garrus getting that beach-front property I would be ALL over Synthesis.

Retreating to somewhere nice and tropical to live off the royalty of the vids? You know, I really love that image.

And since the EC Synthesis epilogue gives me a subtle little hint that dead people can come back with a little help from their friends, I'm using the freedom the writers gave me when leaving so much open for interpretation to make Shepard's mind re-coalesce and make them come back to their LI. Feel free do so the same.

[Ieldra]

Taboo-XX wrote...
Of of the things that stands out to me about the endings is that they don't rely on the emotional...bias that surrounds most of the other choices. There is no right or wrong answer.

And that's what I like about them. And that's what some people hate - that there is no emotionally comfortable ending.

They are all solutions and all have an ethically dubious aura about them. No Paragon bias. No Renegade...****-edness.

Well, Destroy does rely on Renegade reasoning. But at the same time, it shows that Renegade reasoning isn't necessarily wrong.

In that regard, slighty OT Ieldra, how do you feel about drawing up concepts for our much lauded space station in the group?

You wouldn't ask that had you ever seen one of my drawings. My roleplayers joke about that. Descriptions....sure. 

Edit @all:
As for that organization Taboo mentioned: I had a different name: "The Prometheus Foundation". "Stealing fire from the gods" is its objective. Goes well in spirit with Synthesis, but post-EC also fits the other high-EMS endings. It takes what was good in Cerberus - pushing the envelope in science and technology - while discarding the bad stuff. Anyway - different names, similar objectives. We all have our self-contained ME universe. All things fit somewhere.

Modifié par Ieldra2, 10 octobre 2012 - 04:58 .

[Taboo]

In this instance however the bias looks reversed. Shepard survives and accomplishes the goal. It's the harshness of the action that makes people assign Renegade to it. And that's correct.

If you'll prepare yourself Ieldra:

In Art (cough) colors have assigned meanings.

Red -> Harsh tone. Passionate.

Blue-> Calming tone. Used to settle.

Green-> Neutral tone. You use it as a balancing color in paintings and films.

/rant

You don't even need to understand the morality system here. You need only look at the color tone.

I play as a neutral Shepard. All choices are valid here.

And by drawing up I didn't mean physically drawing. We can do that in our heads via descriptions.

[Ieldra]

jtav wrote...
I think it's because a bunch of Miranda fans came up with the idea. Human advancement is her thing.

Indeed. Given that even post-Synthesis, there will always be factions in the galaxy, there will always be competition, and that nobody is ever truly impartial (except maybe Control-Shepard), it is feasible to work from a philosophy of "X will benefit first, then the rest". Of course, anyone can decide that a faction doesn't deserve the prime support anymore and switch to another. But I'd say giving the species you were born to the opportunity first is somewhat natural.

Or Synthesis can change the variables in that regard and things may be completely different. I can see factions emerging based more on different lifestyles and the ways to use the "integrating technology" ability the Synthesis has engendered. In that case, such an organization may start out based on the old factions, but soon change its priorities. There are infinite possibilities. They're just weird to imagine. 

Edit:
While we're at weird futures: I recommend reading "The Quantum Thief" and "The Fractal Prince" by Hannu Rajaniemi for a look into a posthuman future. Also The Orion's Arm Universe Project.

Modifié par Ieldra2, 10 octobre 2012 - 05:14 .

[Ieldra]

This is a little OT, but I'll put this in about Thessia:

Sure, what the asari did was hypocritical. But anyone else would've done the same given the opportunity. I actually like that this way the asari are presented as a less perfect species, and don't hold it against them. In fact, I admire them in a way for having fooled the galaxy for so long, even while I'm glad it's now all out in the open. I find it much more acceptable that a species gets a place of influence through ingenious politics and selective distribution of knowledge than "inherent ethical superiority".

The only thing I really hold against them is that they apparently didn't examine the beacon closely enough to find out about the Reapers. But that goes well with the Alliance not looking deep enough into the Mars archive to find the plans for the Crucible. TIM has had a point there...

Modifié par Ieldra2, 10 octobre 2012 - 05:32 .

[Taboo]

That's something to keep in mind. Hiding everything like that wasn't a good idea. The hypocrisy is rather funny.

Even worse is learning they really do have an "Ancient Aliens" thing going on.

[DirtyPhoenix]

Lmao

[Xilizhra]

I find it much more acceptable that a species gets a place of influence through ingenious politics and selective distribution of knowledge than "inherent ethical superiority".

Quite frankly, I find it irritating, mostly because it pulled the speciesist whiners out of the woodwork to condemn the entire asari species as being evil/frauds. They were bad enough when the asari looked as though they'd advanced so far entirely of their own accord.

Of course, what ME3 seems to have completely forgotten is that the asari couldn't have used the beacon at all without the Cipher, and since the beacon was quite explicit about the Reaper threat, with Vendetta, I very much doubt the asari actually got anything out of it (especially since there was a huge statue built over it). After the Protheans saved the asari a couple of times from impending disaster and gave a couple of knowledge boosts, I suspect the asari did, in fact, build up their own technology level purely on their own, and kept the beacon as a source of potential knowledge to be cracked once they had the potential.

[Taboo]

That's the thing about Cerberus though. It attracts people like Miranda who want to be the best for humanity.

And then you get people like Kai Leng who are openly racist and poor examples of how things should be. The fact that TIM let that moron run around unchecked for so long is a great example of how to mess things up.

Miranda certainly isn't a goody goody but she openly states that being xenophobic is a poor reason for joining Cerberus. People need to there for the right reasons. That's why the SM was so important. That's the kind of thing Cerberus should have done.

That's important.

[fiendishchicken]

^ Agreed.

[Heimdall]

Xilizhra wrote...

I find it much more acceptable that a species gets a place of influence through ingenious politics and selective distribution of knowledge than "inherent ethical superiority".

Quite frankly, I find it irritating, mostly because it pulled the speciesist whiners out of the woodwork to condemn the entire asari species as being evil/frauds. They were bad enough when the asari looked as though they'd advanced so far entirely of their own accord.

Of course, what ME3 seems to have completely forgotten is that the asari couldn't have used the beacon at all without the Cipher, and since the beacon was quite explicit about the Reaper threat, with Vendetta, I very much doubt the asari actually got anything out of it (especially since there was a huge statue built over it). After the Protheans saved the asari a couple of times from impending disaster and gave a couple of knowledge boosts, I suspect the asari did, in fact, build up their own technology level purely on their own, and kept the beacon as a source of potential knowledge to be cracked once they had the potential.

They did get something, I think.  I mean, they couldn't activate the beacon but I suspect they found some way to mine some data from it, even if only snippets of less important information.

Just enough to give their technology a little boost.

[fiendishchicken]

BringBackNihlus wrote...

Taboo-XX wrote...

That's the thing about Cerberus though. It attracts people like Miranda who want to be the best for humanity.

And then you get people like Kai Leng who are openly racist and poor examples of how things should be. The fact that TIM let that moron run around unchecked for so long is a great example of how to mess things up.

Miranda certainly isn't a goody goody but she openly states that being xenophobic is a poor reason for joining Cerberus. People need to there for the right reasons. That's why the SM was so important. That's the kind of thing Cerberus should have done.

That's important.

I know it's stupid to constantly blame indoctrination, but that's what I do blame for Cerberus failings in ME3.

[Ieldra]

Taboo-XX wrote...
That's the thing about Cerberus though. It attracts people like Miranda who want to be the best for humanity.

And then you get people like Kai Leng who are openly racist and poor examples of how things should be. The fact that TIM let that moron run around unchecked for so long is a great example of how to mess things up.

Miranda certainly isn't a goody goody but she openly states that being xenophobic is a poor reason for joining Cerberus. People need to there for the right reasons. That's why the SM was so important. That's the kind of thing Cerberus should have done.

That's important.

I fully agree, and I'd really like to explore this topic more, but may I mention that it's just so slightly OT here...

....or we may start to talk about what such an organization would do post-Synthesis. Actually, I'm having a great deal of trouble imagining the post-Synthesis galaxy in detail because it's so strange. There are aspects of Reaper technology which become rather interesting when they're not used to forcibly upload people and destroy their bodies.  

[Taboo]

Ieldra2 wrote...


I fully agree, and I'd really like to explore this topic more, but may I mention that it's just so slightly OT here...

Just so everyone knows no pigs flew by my window. I just checked. Ieldra and I agreed on something. I've alerted the media and it'll be on the ten o' clock news. 

....or we may start to talk about what such an organization would do post-Synthesis. Actually, I'm having a great deal of trouble imagining the post-Synthesis galaxy in detail because it's so strange. There are aspects of Reaper technology which become rather interesting when they're not used to forcibly upload people and destroy their bodies.  

That all depends on how fast people are going to develop. If they develop at "Super MAC" speed you're not going to have much of a story.

Now if the change is gradual, balanced you might have chance from a story telling perspective.

Of the many things that frustrate me about this ending how fast people develop is a big one. Are they uber-cool right off the bat or do they have to take some time to do so? Seeing how EDI is teary eyes I'd say we see some serious progress right away.

But how long until Tuchanka is rebuilt fully? Rannoch? Earth?

[Ieldra]

As I see it, Synthesis gives a boost as galactic civilization integrates the legacy of past cycles, but those civilizations can't have been that much more advanced because of the cycle. It's more that many different perspectives will be integrated and that will give rise to more creativity. The knowledge bound up the makeup of the Reapers will be more significant and easily deciphered, but people will be very wary of those things.

Have you read Kahlee's speech in Siduri's Synthesis epilogue? It's pre-EC, but it gives a rather good impression I agree with. As an immediate effect we have that mental networking. What comes after is complete speculation, and the physical aspects aren't that relevant compare to the mental as human minds gain the ability to integrate themselves with technology. I'd also speculate that only a very small minority will transform themselves significantly away from a baseline organic for quite some time, just because it makes for a better story.

As for the rebuilding.... the epilogue slides are said to be set 20 to 200 years in the future.

Edit:
And yeah, I was rather surprised not to see any pigs flying by. But as you observed at one time, we don't actually disagree as much as it sometimes appears.

Modifié par Ieldra2, 10 octobre 2012 - 08:25 .

[DirtyPhoenix]

Taboo-XX wrote...

Just so everyone knows no pigs flew by my window. I just checked. Ieldra and I agreed on something. I've alerted the media and it'll be on the ten o' clock news. 

:lol:

[CosmicGnosis]

I like the Prometheus concept. Ieldra and I actually briefly discussed the concept of "stealing fire from the gods", and incorporated the created vs. creator theme into it. I presented the final choices like this:

Destroy - Kill the gods and forge your own path.
Control - Become (replace) the gods and shape the galaxy's destiny.
Synthesis - Join the gods and become their equals.

I think Control is the least appealing choice in this interpretation because it suggests profound arrogance, and it's basically a continuation of the legacy of the Leviathans and the Catalyst. Destroy and Synthesis are the revolutionary choices, although Destroy denies synthetic participation in that revolution, at least for a while.

So is it better to kill the gods, or to join them?

Modifié par CosmicGnosis, 11 octobre 2012 - 03:53 .

[His Name was HYR!!]

CosmicGnosis wrote...

I think Control is the least appealing choice in this interpretation because it suggests profound arrogance, and it's basically a continuation of the legacy of the Leviathans and the Catalyst. Destroy and Synthesis are the revolutionary choices, although Destroy denies synthetic participation in that revolution, at least for a while.

I wouldn't write off Control. This trilogy puts Shepard in positions of power from the start. Spectehood is not clean business and has it's share of bad examples. Ditto Cerberus, even the Alliance if you think about it. On one hand, power can corrupt an individual. On the other, there's "civic-duty" involved in it ~ you didn't ask to be put in charge, but they asked you.

It's a risk I would take, with the caveat that I'm going to off the Reapers once I've fulfilled my initial good intentions. It would be an unfortunate loss of civilizations past, knowing what I know now, but the only way to be safe long-term.

[Xilizhra]

I myself would free the Reapers at some point under Control, when it was safe.

[DirtyPhoenix]

I think controllers and synthesizers get along with each other.. most of the time.