9962 réponses à ce sujet

[LanceSolous13]

Drussius wrote...

^ That, or lying in wait, like it does for me. When you sit or lay down in the vicinity of its ambush, it will smack you over the head and claim you...

That happened earlier when I was in the Geth Dreadnaut of all times. X_X

[Sweawm]

LanceSolous13 wrote...

Oh my. I decided to continue playing Mass Effect 3 for some research and now its well into the next day.

I need to stop pulling all nighters, I swear I just saw a Geth with wings.

I still wonder why the Geth have no actual air support what so ever, on Rannoch. They didn't even have those annoying Drop Ships! Or their Walkers!
Flying Geth? Cerberus has jet-boots, don't see why Geth can't have jetpacks. 

[Drussius]

Sweawm wrote...

LanceSolous13 wrote...

Oh my. I decided to continue playing Mass Effect 3 for some research and now its well into the next day.

I need to stop pulling all nighters, I swear I just saw a Geth with wings.

I still wonder why the Geth have no actual air support what so ever, on Rannoch. They didn't even have those annoying Drop Ships! Or their Walkers!
Flying Geth? Cerberus has jet-boots, don't see why Geth can't have jetpacks. 

Or those flying drones they used in ME 1.

[PMC65]

Icyflare wrote...

*snip* So... distraction disguised as a question. How do you guys come up with names for your Shepard/OCs in your stories? Do they have some sort of meaning behind them or were you just making it up on the fly?

Some are just names that just appear from nowhere such as August Roux, Manny Castillo & Tait Rickman.

Some are from historical persons such as Elizabeth - Elizabeth I, Michelle Edgar - Edgar Mitchell & Rose Stuart - Stuart Roosa. 

Some are very personal such as Ricky Parks - Ricky Lara & Billy Parks two childhood pals of mine & Sibila - gal pal.

[dpMeggers]

Icyflare wrote...
And I've just shown off my ignorance of hospitals and the medical profession in general. So... distraction disguised as a question. How do you guys come up with names for your Shepard/OCs in your stories? Do they have some sort of meaning behind them or were you just making it up on the fly?

From the Conversation in a Bar Universe: 

Damon Edward Shepard: IRL he's a shout-out to Damon Baird of the Gears of War series (blond, blue eyed engineer) and Baird Shepard sounded bloody stupid. In universe, his adoptive sister Lex read the GoW novels by Karen Traviss and liked the name. Her last name was Edwards, and he took it as a middle name when he enlisted. Out of respect for her, she's the only one allowed to call him by his first name.

Alexandrina (Lexie/Lex) Edwards: Shepard's adoptive sister, I came up with Lexie first. Originally she was going to be Alexis, but Alexandrina was the first name of Queen Victoria, and Shepard wants her to be treated properly, so she got stuck with Alexandrina instead (also if your name was that you'd go by Lexie or Lex too). Edwards was because Queen Vic's father's name was Edward.

McGowan Family
Patrick (Pad) and Andrew (Drew) are Irish/Scots-Irish from Belfast. Pad's wife Marianne is French-Canadian. I picked relatively typical names. For Pad and Marianne's kids, the agreement was that if it was a boy, they'd name him after his father's culture and if it was a girl, they'd name her after her mother's culture. So their kids:

Robert James (Robbie/R.J.) McGowan: Pad was not a particularly original namer, his father's name had been James Robert. IRL my own brother was almost named Robert and R.J. was a good nickname.
Marie Therese (Tess) Charlotte McGowan: Named for a French princess around the time of the Revolution. Napoleon reportedly said of her "She's the only man in her family." Marianne was in the Navy and wanted an equally ballsy daughter. IRL, the real Marie Therese was orphaned and lost her brother before she was 17, and then lived with her uncle, there are some (sort of) parallels.

Various Alliance Officials: Named for people I know, are shout-outs or historical references.

I tend to pick names with meaning to me personally or that are relevant to the character in some way and then incorporate the reasoning into the story if I can.

[Drussius]

Okay, so... I have a question for people who are particularly attentive to lore in their stories. It has become important for me to figure out the general composition of the various alliance fleets for accuracy in my story. I don't need exact figures or anything, because I'm not concentrating too much on the fleet in the scene where I need to mention it, but I've been delving into the codex in all three games and the ME wiki pages, and have come up with the following "facts":

The Alliance Navy is composed of "over 200 ships," and as of the beginning of ME 3, that includes 8 dreadnoughts. Coincidentally, there are 8 fleets... Frigates are organized into wolfpack flotillas of 4-6 ships. And cruisers lead the flotillas in small engagements and support dreadnoughts in larger ones. Carriers deploy large amounts of fighters and then try to stay out of the engagement because the hangar bays are weak points that could be exploited.

So assuming roughly 200 ships total divided into the first to eighth fleets, that would mean about 25 ships per fleet. I'll actually say 26 each for ease of the math below. I'm guessing 1 dreadnought, 1 carrier, 9 cruisers (I picked this number because there were 9 named specifically as part of the fifth fleet at the time of ME1 in the wiki page), and three 5-ship flotillas of frigates (15 frigates total).

Does this strike anyone as being especially out-of-place or lorebreaking for any reason? I did my best to research it with the information at my disposal, but perhaps someone who has read the books and/or comics, none of which I have at present, might have a more specific answer?

[Caligno]

It sounds relatively reasonable to me. Note that those ships would take a LOT of resources to create, and that seems like a very reasonable number of ships to have made in roughly 100-150 years, considering that (this is purely out of my ass from a vague memory) they became truly spaceworthy around 2040 that I remember. It would take a significantly long time to begin making those quality of ships, so it makes sense that it would seem at least a little low.

Take this with a grain of salt regardless, as I didn't back any of this up with facts or evidence, only logic that may or may not be correct.

[Sweawm]

Hey, anybody want to Beta Read the first chapter of a post ME3 story for me? It's a hefty Prologue at almost ten thousands words, set around seven hundred years after the Reaper Wars in a completely new time.
Just want to get some thoughts on it, pick up any errors I missed and get some advice on improvement.

[Spiritwolf1]

Names, Well I named the first one after myself, cause I do strange things like that. Then my only male Shep has my husbands name. Then for Cayle from my story as well, I have a bunch of movie posters hanging up in my basement (We call it Holywood since it's our entertainment mecha) and I saw the name and liked it.

[Caligno]

I'm willing to beta read, but expect me to be relatively picky with details and very wordy.

Modifié par Caligno, 02 juillet 2012 - 07:41 .

[Sweawm]

Caligno wrote...

I'm willing to beta read, but expect me to be relatively picky with details and very wordy.

I sent through a request for DocX connection on Fan Fiction Net, so I'll send the Prolouge as soon as you accept. 

[lillitheris]

Drussius wrote...

Okay, so... I have a question for people who are particularly attentive to lore in their stories. It has become important for me to figure out the general composition of the various alliance fleets for accuracy in my story. I don't need exact figures or anything, because I'm not concentrating too much on the fleet in the scene where I need to mention it, but I've been delving into the codex in all three games and the ME wiki pages, and have come up with the following "facts":

…

Does this strike anyone as being especially out-of-place or lorebreaking for any reason? I did my best to research it with the information at my disposal, but perhaps someone who has read the books and/or comics, none of which I have at present, might have a more specific answer?

It sounds reasonable if you stick to the few numbers we do see.

…

It does not sound reasonable at all if you consider the number of people in the military, and the strength of the Reapers. A fleet of a few hundred would have been wiped out in a matter of days.

I’ve got a thread on the subject somewhere, let’s see…

Edit: http://social.biowar.../index/12033239

Summary is that I couldn’t really make the numbers make sense (3% of humanity serves in the military, that’s ~350 million people), so I had to backtrack from minimum viable number based on there being at least 2000 Reaper capital ships (and tenfold destroyers/others) in existence, and how many allied ships it takes to counter that force…  Calculating back from this, the Alliance would have had 1000-3000 classified ships, and even then that means that only about 0.5% of all military (not people, military) served in the fleets. The number also starts making more sense when you consider that just the US, Russian, and Chinese navies currently have somewhere around 1000 (sea)ships combined.

So I went far from what seems canon on this particular count, but it’s a relatively minor point in the end, so long as you keep the relative strengths of the forces reasonable.

Here’s a report on the surviving human ships at the end of the battle for Earth. Closer to 2/3 of the fleets were lost.

Admiral Lakopoulos cleared his throat and spoke next in his terse staccato. {Humans, 4 dreadnoughts, 360 cruisers, 297 frigates, one carrier, 400 fighters. 305,000 killed, 36,000 wounded.}

Modifié par lillitheris, 02 juillet 2012 - 08:25 .

[Caligno]

You are also Sweawm on FF.net, correct? I'm not exactly sure how the DocX system works or if this helps any, but me sending a request might make the process go faster since it tends to take a while for the invite to go through.

[Sweawm]

Caligno wrote...

You are also Sweawm on FF.net, correct? I'm not exactly sure how the DocX system works or if this helps any, but me sending a request might make the process go faster since it tends to take a while for the invite to go through.

Correct, I do use the same username.

[Drussius]

lillitheris wrote...

Drussius wrote...

Okay, so... I have a question for people who are particularly attentive to lore in their stories. It has become important for me to figure out the general composition of the various alliance fleets for accuracy in my story. I don't need exact figures or anything, because I'm not concentrating too much on the fleet in the scene where I need to mention it, but I've been delving into the codex in all three games and the ME wiki pages, and have come up with the following "facts":

…

Does this strike anyone as being especially out-of-place or lorebreaking for any reason? I did my best to research it with the information at my disposal, but perhaps someone who has read the books and/or comics, none of which I have at present, might have a more specific answer?

It sounds reasonable if you go per codex. It does not sound reasonable at all if you consider the number of people in the military, and the strength of the Reapers. A fleet of a few hundred would have been wiped away in a matter of days.

I’ve got a thread on the subject somewhere, let’s see…

I think you're right about the fleet numbers being too weak against the reapers. But I still think that my figures are about accurate given what we know if you take the majority of game lore as canon. I think that was the whole point of needing to unite the entire galaxy in order to fight them. After all, when the Reapers hit Arcturus Station, they destroyed an entire fleet in a very short time span while the other fleets escaped. I sort of figured that this is why everyone through the entire game (and in other parts of the series if I remember right) kept saying that they "can't beat the reapers conventionally" like it was fact, rather than just opinion.

In the end, the only reason it became important for my story was because I was basing it in a place that I thought the Alliance had no orbital presence. Then someone pointed out to me that one whole fleet was stationed there at the start of the Reaper invasion and quickly retreated after losing some ships rather than be destroyed by Reaper forces. Since events in my story take place in that place at that time, I need to do a minor rewrite on one small section to account for the brief skirmish in space between the Reapers and the Alliance Fleet.

[Icyflare]

It seems like people tend to put a lot of thoughts into their characters' names. I'm pretty bad with making up names. My femshep's name is Colt, because, for some reason, I thought "Shepard of young, male horses" would be fitting. My manshep's name is Commander, because I might as well make play to the character's usage of it.

I have no idea about ship sizes. Sorry ):

[Drussius]

^ Thanks anyway Icy. I'm more just looking for anyone who might go "whoa, whoa, whoa... In Codex X, they say there are 134 ships per fleet, organized like so..." to point out something I missed.

I'm just trying to cover my bases. I don't actually think it will mean much of anything for my story whether there's 100 ships per fleet or 20. I'm not planning to describe every one of them or anything, but I was trying to picture in my head what a Fleet might look like so I can give a somewhat accurate description to set the scene.

[lillitheris]

Drussius wrote...

lillitheris wrote...

Drussius wrote...

Okay, so... I have a question for people who are particularly attentive to lore in their stories. It has become important for me to figure out the general composition of the various alliance fleets for accuracy in my story. I don't need exact figures or anything, because I'm not concentrating too much on the fleet in the scene where I need to mention it, but I've been delving into the codex in all three games and the ME wiki pages, and have come up with the following "facts":

…

Does this strike anyone as being especially out-of-place or lorebreaking for any reason? I did my best to research it with the information at my disposal, but perhaps someone who has read the books and/or comics, none of which I have at present, might have a more specific answer?

It sounds reasonable if you go per codex. It does not sound reasonable at all if you consider the number of people in the military, and the strength of the Reapers. A fleet of a few hundred would have been wiped away in a matter of days.

I’ve got a thread on the subject somewhere, let’s see…

I think you're right about the fleet numbers being too weak against the reapers. But I still think that my figures are about accurate given what we know if you take the majority of game lore as canon. I think that was the whole point of needing to unite the entire galaxy in order to fight them. After all, when the Reapers hit Arcturus Station, they destroyed an entire fleet in a very short time span while the other fleets escaped. I sort of figured that this is why everyone through the entire game (and in other parts of the series if I remember right) kept saying that they "can't beat the reapers conventionally" like it was fact, rather than just opinion.

I added some more info in the earlier post. Yes, I subscribe to the inevitability of defeat, but at the same time, there is a minimum number that is needed to mount any defense.

But, yes, you’re definitely in the ballpark when it comes to the numbers we are given. I don‘t think anyone will fault you for using those.

[Drussius]

@lill: Sorry. I hadn't noticed what you added to your earlier post. I do remember the scene in your story that you highlighted there, and at the time I thought it sounded fine. I just did my research this evening and only then remembered how few ships the Alliance is actually supposed to have. I had forgotten the whole "8 dreadnoughts" thing as part of the Treaty between the various races. In my head I was picturing a half-dozen per fleet for some reason.

However, given that it apparently took the Alliance two years to build two dreadnoughts, since in ME1 the codex said six (with one under construction) and newer codexes say 8, I imagine it would be both time-consuming and expensive to build a whole fleet of ships. I guess it's really about what the reader wants to imagine. And as I said once I thought about it, I don't think it will make much difference to my story regardless of the fleet sizes in question.

But out of curiosity: Was it confirmed somewhere how many capital ships the Reapers had? I hadn't even bothered to look that up.

[Sweawm]

Sweawm wrote...

Caligno wrote...

You are also Sweawm on FF.net, correct? I'm not exactly sure how the DocX system works or if this helps any, but me sending a request might make the process go faster since it tends to take a while for the invite to go through.

Correct, I do use the same username.

Finally sent it. Gah, the DocX messed up a lot of the formatting anyway. 

[Caligno]

I have the document. I'll get to it within a few days and send my notes back.

[lillitheris]

Drussius wrote...

But out of curiosity: Was it confirmed somewhere how many capital ships the Reapers had? I hadn't even bothered to look that up.

1 per cycle for a couple hundred million years. Even with losses, 2000 is around the lower bound.

[Obsidian Gryphon]

lillitheris wrote...

Drussius wrote...

But out of curiosity: Was it confirmed somewhere how many capital ships the Reapers had? I hadn't even bothered to look that up.

1 per cycle for a couple hundred million years. Even with losses, 2000 is around the lower bound.

Capital ships are usually the dominant species of the cycle that's absorbed, right? If so, I'm wondering how many failures there were (Protheans).

[lillitheris]

Obsidian Gryphon wrote...

lillitheris wrote...

Drussius wrote...

But out of curiosity: Was it confirmed somewhere how many capital ships the Reapers had? I hadn't even bothered to look that up.

1 per cycle for a couple hundred million years. Even with losses, 2000 is around the lower bound.

Capital ships are usually the dominant species of the cycle that's absorbed, right? If so, I'm wondering how many failures there were (Protheans).

I’d imagine it would be more common recently, plus they’d also be suffering heavier losses.

[fainmaca]

Icyflare wrote...

*snip* So... distraction disguised as a question. How do you guys come up with names for your Shepard/OCs in your stories? Do they have some sort of meaning behind them or were you just making it up on the fly?

Some are just pulled out of the air, some actually have a meaning behind them. I never name my Shepard, as the point of ITU is to emulate the game as much as possible, and I feel it would somewhat lessen the impact of making your own choices for how the plot works out if you can't imagine that 'this is your Shepard'. For the record, my in-game Shepard's are always ManSheps called Fain Shepard.

As for OCs, people like Etarn Kol'mehk, Urdnot Jorall, Elanie Johanson, Delexia Tanis and Jano'Yorish vas Normandy nar Moreh just have names that I think sound fitting. Falere obviously already had her name when I put her into the party, and I always count Falere as an OC, if I'm honest, because when I introduced her into the party we only had that Shadow Broker file about her, and even after ME3 fleshed her out I've still put a lot of development into my version of the character that has taken her in a different direction to the finished product.

Other OCs have a bit of meaning behind their names, the most prominent example being the Revenant. He represents a dead species, so I felt that that name best suited him. And as for Benjamin Swift, he is the Big Ben sniper from the trailers, so I reflected that in the name Ben. Could have been worse. Revenant could have ended up 'Prothy the Prothean' and Ben could have ended up 'Nigel Fishnchips'.