419 réponses à ce sujet

[rev1976]

UFGSpot wrote...

This. He keeps throwing out the term like I don't understand it, when clearly he doesn't himself as it applies to the situation presented in the game.

your assumption is that I dont understand it
that, and that i get my information from wikipedia because the wiki page on asymmetric warfare mentions hoplites

my level of understanding has nothing to do with wikipedia but with 3 years of officer training for the royal irish regiment, training which involved classes and lectures specificly on forms of asymmetric and guerilla warfare as they were directly relevent to the "troubles" in northern ireland. sure its true i never completed my training but i assure you that was only due to the eviscriation of british forces due to some rather stupid ideas on defence cuts from politicians wanting to fill their own pockets.
from where im sitting right now i can see 4 books on the shelf across the room which i have read numerous times on the subject
puncturing the counterinsurgency myth: britain and irregular warfare in the past, present, and future (a damn good read that shows both the mistakes and breakthroughs in this area)
beating goliath: why insurgancies win (not as good but still informative)
counterinsugency warfare: theory and practice (shows exactly how various problems of insurgency and guerilla warfare from the authors own experience 50 years agoin vietnam and africa directly corrolate to todays warfare in the middle east)
treatise on partisan warfare (very good for stuff on using light infantry against heavy formations, lot of insight into the american war for independance)

so yeah, i do have something of a clue as to what im talking about, no i dont rely on wikipedia,  and yes i do recommend googling this stuff yourself (or better yet reading the above books) because you will learn something and the subject is genuinly interesting.

[Malditor]

savionen wrote...

Ground forces don't really matter in a space battle.

Creating a new Reaper requires hundreds of millions or perhaps billions of "samples". After culling EVERYONE they only create 1-6 Reapers per cycle.

Ground forces do matter in this battle because all the fighting isn't done in space. Ground forces can wipe out resistance as well as manufacturing facilities and all other forms of support that the space fleet needs in order to survive and win. They were well on the way to making a reaper in ME2 from just the humans they collected which is much fewer than they can collect from Earth, hard to say they can't restart doing that with the much larger numbers available during an all out war. Only creating 1-6 Reapers per cycle doesn't mean that is the maximum they can make.

[Quething]

ArchDuck wrote...

If we are going to be all "Nu uh you can't do that because its not realistic!". Then please explain the "realism" in shooting a tube to turn something on one way, electrocuting yourself to turn it on another way and jumping into a disintegrating beam of energy to turn it on a third way. And while your at it explain how these long lost plans have been the only piece of information successfully passed down from one cycle to the next. Then explain the "realism" in the effects on the galaxy when those magic buttons on the magic machine are used.

To illustrate my previous post's point:

Hackett: No, no, of course you can't destroy Reapers with tactics and technology like we have already seen. You must use the magic boomstick that we are building and do not understand.

Scientist #1: Are you sure we should be investing all of our resources into building this? Imagine the amount of destroyer class thanix weapons we could produce. And I think I can see a way to use the plans to provide enough power to even smaller ships so they can fire those class of weapons.

Military Guy #2: Yeah and the turian tactics sound like something we could definitely exploit. They managed to take out some of the large Reapers with no losses!

Former Cerberus Operative #3: And TIM was working on a way to scramble Reaper communications and even subvert it in the case of the husks.

Military Guy #2: Oh really? Man that would be useful. They wouldn't be coordinated in space battles and we would nullify there primary ground forces!

Scientist #1: We could really win this!

Hackett: No it is impossible.

Former Cerberus Operative #3: No I think they are right, we can do it!

Hackett: SO BE IT! *shoots them all*

I'm Commander Shepard, and this is my favorite post on the BSN.

[Aquilas]

I'll boil down my earlier post into the salient points:

(1) There are too many Reapers.  They've been built for aeons. Doesn't matter if you don't buy aeon=a billion years. An aeon is longer than 50K years for certain-sure, or 100K, or 1,000,000 years. Could the Catalyst be lying about the timeline? Sure. But all available evidence, including the Crucible construction timeline over many Cycles, indicates there are an ass-load of Reapers. Look at the final scene in ME2, look at the "Take Earth Back" trailer, look at the galaxy map just prior to the final ME3 battle: there are just too many Reapers.

(2) The allies can destroy single Reapers via the focused fire of several dreadnoughts; maybe they need an entire fleet, but a Reaper can be destroyed. OK. But Reaper capital ships can run kamikaze missions with impunity, can crush ships in their "tentacles," can one-shot allied capital ships with their death rays. That's each and every Reaper capital ship, and there are lots and lots of 'em.

(3) The Reapers need no bases, logistical lines of communication, food, fuel, water, etc. They are completely self-sufficient. They manufacture new ground forces with every planet they conquer and deny the allies those planets for resource replenishment.

(4) Want to play hide and seek with the Reapers? Big galaxy, right? Except the Reapers are immortal, implacable, relentless, and have eternity to complete each Cycle. And they destroy potential refuges with every system they conquer. The allies don't have enough time and space to run from the Reapers and survive.

And Hackett isn't some pogue. He's a front-line commander, highly respected by his peers and subordinates, with a spectacular success record. He knows what he's talking about. The reason no-one challenges him is because they they'd look like dumbasses if they did, and because they trust his judgment.

But the real bottom line--as I and others have said--is that the true gods of the ME universe, the writers, have ordained conventional victory over the Reapers is impossible. They've created insurmountable obstacles the allies simply cannot overcome. Could they have made it so? Sure they could have. But they didn't. So that's that.

Modifié par Aquilas, 28 juin 2012 - 05:54 .

[Warbuckaz]

Oransel wrote...

arkonite167 wrote...

According to the catalyst, 1 reaper gets created with every cycle and there have been countless cycles. That means there are countless reapers. Also, the reapers have potentially millions upon millions of years of advanced research for their ships. Another thing, the milky way inhabitants spent all their resources on building the crucible.

I'm not sure if you play starcraft, but the difference in resources is often a black and white deciding factor for the victor.

We have no reason to believe starkid. He may be lying. Seriously, why people trust their hated enemy on the face value?

Research, yes, agree. But we have that research too. A lot of basic Reaper technology is already in our disposal.

Resources is strongest argument, but I am not talking about 1 battle = victory. Conventional victory in the long run war is possible, we have enough resources, especially if those bright minds will start working on actual firepower.

Well...in any encounter we've seen in direct communication with  reaper..i've never seen one lie.. they have no reason to. They are, for lack of a better phrase, the pound for pound champions of taking out advanced species and they are beyond confident your going to fall to the same fate as every other species that came before.   So i have no problem believing the catalyst or reapers word.

[Neothanos]

It would have been a better game if it was but they are admant about the Catalyst only way idea.

[Jat371]

DMWW wrote...

Jat371 wrote...

Everyone is forgetting that being unable to defeat the Reapers is inconsistent with the Mass Effect series.

Mass Effect has always been about doing the impossible. 

It has also always been about the return of thousands of gigantic robotic killing machines with superadvanced technology that are overwhelmingly stronger than the Galaxy's conventional forces. It's been pretty obvious ever since the chat with Sovereign on Virmire that we've been living on borrowed time.

That's the bloody plot, not the theme and overarching moral/lesson/whatever.

[RiouHotaru]

Jat371 wrote...

Everyone is forgetting that being unable to defeat the Reapers is inconsistent with the Mass Effect series.

Mass Effect has always been about doing the impossible. Throughout ME1 and 2 you are told by many different people, many of them your friends, that what you're trying to do is beyond you or simply impossible. Everyone tells you how Saren is such a slippery bastard and how the Alliance is totally outmatched by the Geth but you win. Everyone tells you that the Mu Relay has been totally lost to time but you find it. You orchestrate the defeat of a Reaper, something almost no one in the universe comprehends.

In Mass Effect 2 it's hammered into your head that getting through the Omega 4 Relay is impossible, no one has come back, and it's a suicide mission. But then you go and do it. Not only do you get through the relay but you survive all the Oculi, a damned Collector ship, a baby Reaper, and then neutralize a base full of unimaginable horrors. Everyone tells you the Collectors have vastly superior technology and are highly dangerous and yet you plow through scores of them.

Hackett telling you that the Reapers are impossible to defeat by conventional means is no different from being told getting through the Omega 4 Relay is impossible.

You're told all these times that the Reapers are insanely strong and everyone who isn't a Krogan is full of doubts about defeating them. This is a classic Mass Effect setup for beating impossible odds.... then it just falls flat.

The thing is, Sovereign was only defeated because you killed it's Avatar.  He was utterly decimating two whole fleets.  And that's just ONE reaper.  Yes, they DO show Sovereign-class Reapers being destroyed in ME3, but usually Allied casualties FAR outstrip Reaper losses.

Also, people have this weird idea that "beating impossible odds" means defeating the Reapers the old-fashioned way.  That's not what ME3 was about.  ME3 was about doing the "impossible" by uniting the entire galaxy through a series of seemingly miraculous events (Tuchanka, Rannoch, etc) and constructing a super-weapon that had the potential to stop the Reapers.  THAT right there, was "beating impossible odds".

Not fighting the reapers head-on.

[richard_rider]

ArchDuck wrote...

To illustrate my previous post's point:

Hackett: No, no, of course you can't destroy Reapers with tactics and technology like we have already seen. You must use the magic boomstick that we are building and do not understand.

Scientist #1: Are you sure we should be investing all of our resources into building this? Imagine the amount of destroyer class thanix weapons we could produce. And I think I can see a way to use the plans to provide enough power to even smaller ships so they can fire those class of weapons.

Military Guy #2: Yeah and the turian tactics sound like something we could definitely exploit. They managed to take out some of the large Reapers with no losses!

Former Cerberus Operative #3: And TIM was working on a way to scramble Reaper communications and even subvert it in the case of the husks.

Military Guy #2: Oh really? Man that would be useful. They wouldn't be coordinated in space battles and we would nullify there primary ground forces!

Scientist #1: We could really win this!

Hackett: No it is impossible.

Former Cerberus Operative #3: No I think they are right, we can do it!

Hackett: SO BE IT! *shoots them all*

Bravo sir, bravo !!!


All it takes is a slight change, listen to this, crucible is a signal emitter that:

takes down reaper shields
scrambles reaper com
disorients them
makes them weaker
etc. etc. etc.

What about "conventional" victory then, why couldn't the cruicible be something like this? Could we win then, or are we still hanging onto the notion that without space brat, we are all lost.

[DMWW]

RiouHotaru wrote...
Also, people have this weird idea that "beating impossible odds" means defeating the Reapers the old-fashioned way.  That's not what ME3 was about.  ME3 was about doing the "impossible" by uniting the entire galaxy through a series of seemingly miraculous events (Tuchanka, Rannoch, etc) and constructing a super-weapon that had the potential to stop the Reapers.  THAT right there, was "beating impossible odds".

Not fighting the reapers head-on.

Quite.

Similarly, in ME1 you achieve victory through the unconventional means of following Saren through the conduit and then defeating Sovereign via its avatar. You don't beat Sovereign - far less wait for the reapers to come through the Citadel and beat them - in a straight fight. And in ME2 you avoid the collector swarms through the unconventional method of recruiting a superscientist to build a countermeasure.

Jat371 wrote...

DMWW wrote...

Jat371 wrote...

Everyone is forgetting that being unable to defeat the Reapers is inconsistent with the Mass Effect series.

Mass Effect has always been about doing the impossible. 

It has also always been about the return of thousands of gigantic robotic killing machines with superadvanced technology that are overwhelmingly stronger than the Galaxy's conventional forces. It's been pretty obvious ever since the chat with Sovereign on Virmire that we've been living on borrowed time.

That's the bloody plot, not the theme and overarching moral/lesson/whatever.

 

I'd say it's been a pretty consistent theme right the way through that the reapers are an unstoppable force. Certainly I was totally unsurprised at how decisively they do in conventional warfare in ME3. It wasn't hard to predict in advance that some kind of deus ex machina was going to be needed.

Modifié par DMWW, 28 juin 2012 - 05:43 .

[Izhalezan]

Aren't the Reaper at least 37 million years old, and with harvesting every 50,000 years their number of ships is at minimum 740.

[sp0ck 06]

Izhalezan wrote...

Aren't the Reaper at least 37 million years old, and with harvesting every 50,000 years their number of ships is at minimum 740.

From the codex:

At the end of ME1, the turians have 37 dreadnaughts, the asari have 21, the salarians have 16, and humanity has 6 with 1 under construction.

So even if a few more are built between ME1 and ME3, you're talking about HUNDREDS of Reaper dreadnaughts vs less then 100 allied dreadnaughts.  Reaper ships are roughly 4:1 times as powerful as allied dreadnaughts.

Conventional victory is IMPOSSIBLE.  END OF LINE.

[BCMakoto]

If we go by realism in the current Mass Effect series, we could as well say this:

Commander Shepard: So, you are the Catalyst?
Catalyst: Yes.
Commander Shepard: And...you are the collective consciousness of the Reapers?
Catalyst: That is correct.
Commander Shepard to Hackett via Com: "Destroy the Citadel!"

Or, with high enough EMS, the crucible isn't damaged and with the Leviathans knowledge, we can implement a jamming device that connects to the Citadel and stops the Reaper consciousness, giving us a small advantage by disabling their shields and confusing them by catching them in surprise.

If we have space magic already, what would it matter? That would be something people could understand best in terms of physicall terms. If the collective consciousness goes boom, it could result in three possible things:

1. It does not work at all, the Reapers are really pissed and anihilate us even faster and more gruesome.
2. The Catalyst is not the answer, which results in the Catalyst beeing destroyed but the Reapers somewhat intact.
3. It actually has an impact, the collective consciousness fades, every Reaper now is it's own beeing. It would either fight alone, which would cause a huge fuss since they can't communicate by normal means, giving humans the advantage. It could be aware of what it does and the souls of a trillion dead people, since mind has also been stored, suddenly can't help themselves and either the Reaper shuts down, or some Reapers become utterly confused and/or start to go on a rampage and don't seperate from their own kind since they don't have a collective consciousness anymore, a whole new way of living. Or, like the Leviathan of Dis, some decide to go against the creators which forced them into this horrible form and some start shooting at their own kind.

Now really, that is more scientifical soundproof then Shepard throwing himself into a beam and suddenly everyone overcomes those boundaries and we got the Garden of Eden.

sp0ck 06 wrote...

Conventional victory is IMPOSSIBLE.  END OF LINE.

The great sp0ck has spoken, for we can't argue with him at all. Seriously, do you think because of this sentence we stop arguing?

Modifié par LPKerberos, 28 juin 2012 - 06:08 .

[grey_wind]

I feel that had ME3 been written differently, and certain plot points from ME1 and 2 not been outright ignored, then ME3 could have not only had a conventional victory be possible but believable as well.
Unfortunately, by the time you get to Priority: Earth, the plot has been running and relying so much on Idiot-Fuel, that a conventional victory seems implausible.

[Father_Jerusalem]

 Well no. It shouldn't have been. You wanted it to be. There's a difference there.

Adding in a conventional victory goes against everything we've been told, by numerous sources, for 2.5 games. It goes directly against the lore of the story, and would make no sense whatsoever. 

A conventional victory is simply impossible and it's really, to be honest, about time people started understanding facts and not just keep carping on about wish fulfillment.

[IanPolaris]

Father_Jerusalem wrote...

 Well no. It shouldn't have been. You wanted it to be. There's a difference there.

Adding in a conventional victory goes against everything we've been told, by numerous sources, for 2.5 games. It goes directly against the lore of the story, and would make no sense whatsoever. 

A conventional victory is simply impossible and it's really, to be honest, about time people started understanding facts and not just keep carping on about wish fulfillment.

In otherwords we should be like Saren and give up.  Saren thought defeating the Reapers was impossible too....

-Polaris

[RiouHotaru]

Missing the point as usual Ian. Conventional victory isn't thematic to Mass Effect, as I stated. "Beating impossible odds" was fulfilled when Shepard allied the galaxy behind him/her and took the Crucible to Earth, a plan that was incredibly shaky at best.

"Beating impossible odds" has nothing to do with a head-on confrontation.

[IanPolaris]

RiouHotaru wrote...

Missing the point as usual Ian. Conventional victory isn't thematic to Mass Effect, as I stated. "Beating impossible odds" was fulfilled when Shepard allied the galaxy behind him/her and took the Crucible to Earth, a plan that was incredibly shaky at best.

"Beating impossible odds" has nothing to do with a head-on confrontation.

Who said anything about a "head on" confrontation.  All I'm saying is that to be true to the series the Reapers should have been beatable without an obvious posterior pull.  Not easily and definately not certainly, but POSSIBLE.  The fact that the reject ending doesn't even CHECK your EMS and at least have your EMS matter for the next cycle is an insult especially when it's the only ending that it true to the spirit of the overall series.

-Polaris

[RiouHotaru]

To say that the Reject ending is "true to the spirit of the overall series" is entirely subjective.

I'd say the spirit of the series has to do with cooperation and convincing different people to come together against a common and seemingly implacable foe is the "spirit of the series", since that occurs in every game.

Regardless of it's presentation, a conventional victory in any form would've been a worse ass-pull than what we got.

[Aquilas]

LPKerberos wrote...

If we go by realism in the current Mass Effect series, we could as well say this:

Commander Shepard: So, you are the Catalyst?
Catalyst: Yes.
Commander Shepard: And...you are the collective consciousness of the Reapers?
Catalyst: That is correct.
Commander Shepard to Hackett via Com: "Destroy the Citadel!"

Or, with high enough EMS, the crucible isn't damaged and with the Leviathans knowledge, we can implement a jamming device that connects to the Citadel and stops the Reaper consciousness, giving us a small advantage by disabling their shields and confusing them by catching them in surprise.

If we have space magic already, what would it matter? That would be something people could understand best in terms of physicall terms. If the collective consciousness goes boom, it could result in three possible things:

1. It does not work at all, the Reapers are really pissed and anihilate us even faster and more gruesome.
2. The Catalyst is not the answer, which results in the Catalyst beeing destroyed but the Reapers somewhat intact.
3. It actually has an impact, the collective consciousness fades, every Reaper now is it's own beeing. It would either fight alone, which would cause a huge fuss since they can't communicate by normal means, giving humans the advantage. It could be aware of what it does and the souls of a trillion dead people, since mind has also been stored, suddenly can't help themselves and either the Reaper shuts down, or some Reapers become utterly confused and/or start to go on a rampage and don't seperate from their own kind since they don't have a collective consciousness anymore, a whole new way of living. Or, like the Leviathan of Dis, some decide to go against the creators which forced them into this horrible form and some start shooting at their own kind.

Now really, that is more scientifical soundproof then Shepard throwing himself into a beam and suddenly everyone overcomes those boundaries and we got the Garden of Eden.

sp0ck 06 wrote...

Conventional victory is IMPOSSIBLE.  END OF LINE.

The great sp0ck has spoken, for we can't argue with him at all. Seriously, do you think because of this sentence we stop arguing?

Of course not.  I certainly don't.  There's plenty of discussion in this thread that ignores all evidence to the contrary, evidence provided by the ME writers over three games, and postulates a conventional victory.  

Do I wish there'd been a winning option that didn't require Shep to wave the Magic Crucible Wand and then "Poof!  Problem solved!"?  You betcha.  But the writers have precluded it.  It's great to construct alternate scenarios, but wishing they were true and actually having them fit the narrative as-written are two very different things.

Modifié par Aquilas, 28 juin 2012 - 08:17 .

[Druzgot]

No, this shouldnt be possible. Man it required whole alliance fleet to kill suveren and alliance lost in this fight 1/3 of their ships. There were at least 10 capital ships + neverending destroyers line.

[Father_Jerusalem]

IanPolaris wrote...

Father_Jerusalem wrote...

 Well no. It shouldn't have been. You wanted it to be. There's a difference there.

Adding in a conventional victory goes against everything we've been told, by numerous sources, for 2.5 games. It goes directly against the lore of the story, and would make no sense whatsoever. 

A conventional victory is simply impossible and it's really, to be honest, about time people started understanding facts and not just keep carping on about wish fulfillment.

In otherwords we should be like Saren and give up.  Saren thought defeating the Reapers was impossible too....

-Polaris

Giving up? You mean, by pushing a button and winning? That's your definition of giving up now?

The simplest fact is this: You don't want to believe the Starbrat and push a button, feel free not to. Go ahead, fight conventionally. See what happ... oh, you lose. Well I'm sure that the last thought that goes through everyone in your crew's mind is "Boy, I'm sure glad Shepard didn't end this war forever and stood up for his morals and us all get slaughtered horribly."

People will sit there and say "Destroy is a war crime!" or "Control is a war crime!" or "Synthesis is a war crime!" but the truth of the matter is, Refusal is the biggest war crime of all... or it would be, if there were anyone alive left to prosecute you for it. You're damning TRILLIONS of beings to horrible horrible deaths because YOU think the Starbrat is trying to trick you for some reason that's never really quite explained.

It's not so much the sheer wrongness and inability to understand math and logic that irritate me so much, it's the unbridled arrogance that goes with it.

Modifié par Father_Jerusalem, 28 juin 2012 - 08:31 .

[Jat371]

RiouHotaru wrote...

Missing the point as usual Ian. Conventional victory isn't thematic to Mass Effect, as I stated. "Beating impossible odds" was fulfilled when Shepard allied the galaxy behind him/her and took the Crucible to Earth, a plan that was incredibly shaky at best.

"Beating impossible odds" has nothing to do with a head-on confrontation.

You remember how in Mass Effect 2 the Normandy just gets crushed by some debris and gutted by a couple oculi after you jumped through the Omega 4 relay? No wait, that would be stupid. Getting through the relay was the big impossibility of Mass Effect 2 but wow you also beat stuff after that. And your success was determined by your choices, (woah). It's almost like Mass Effect 3 falls totally short.

[Grifman1]

sp0ck 06 wrote...

Izhalezan wrote...

Aren't the Reaper at least 37 million years old, and with harvesting every 50,000 years their number of ships is at minimum 740.

From the codex:

At the end of ME1, the turians have 37 dreadnaughts, the asari have 21, the salarians have 16, and humanity has 6 with 1 under construction.

So even if a few more are built between ME1 and ME3, you're talking about HUNDREDS of Reaper dreadnaughts vs less then 100 allied dreadnaughts.  Reaper ships are roughly 4:1 times as powerful as allied dreadnaughts.

Conventional victory is IMPOSSIBLE.  END OF LINE.

Good try, I told them this earlier and it was like talking to a fence post.  Someone even suggested we could win by attrition!  WTH?!?

[tonnactus]

Father_Jerusalem wrote...
 You're damning TRILLIONS of beings to horrible horrible deaths because YOU think the Starbrat is trying to trick you for some reason that's never really quite explained.

No sane shepard would trust an entity that mudered countless civilisation before...
Its like asking hitler how to end the second world war.