[quote]So many literary "experts" in here... [/quote]
Only criteria that matters in a discussion about the Mass Effect series is whether or not one has played the series and paid attention. Skills as a writer or lackthereof, or the expanse of one's knowlege regarding other literary works, have no bearing on one's ability to asses the quality of the story in ME3, merely how eloquently one can express their thoughts.
[quote]Thank you for demonstrating the issue perfectly.
Literally none of what I said was true? You're saying that the ending does fill me with confidence about BioWare's writing? You're telling me BioWare don't have have a proven track record?
Semantics are important.[/quote]
As I suspected, your boasting that you were done arguing with me was meaningless. Figured you couldn't resist returning to tell me "what's what".
[quote]Thanix Cannons are in development for eleven months and would require subsequent time to be properly situated into current ships. It is logical to presume the Citadel Fleet was prioritized before homeworld Planets like Palaven. With only an eighteen month interim between development completion and ME3. We can concludethe only fleet with Thanix Cannons equipped in near every ship would be the Citadel armada. The statement "Thanix Cannons have become wide spread" is not inaccurate if only a handful of ships in say, Palaven have them.[/quote]
What is your source on only the Citadel fleet having them?
[quote]I stated the Reapers relied upon an ambush, which is theoretically correct. Homeworlds had no idea of their arrival, thus were wholly unprepared.[/quote]
Earth prepared, Palaven prepared, and Thessia had extra time to prepare. All three fell. There was no ambush, the Reapers did a frontal assault in all three cases and won with sheer force alone.
[quote]It is a near certainty even the strength of the Reapers that their fleet suffered severe damage before even taking to the sky. If they had limited use of the Thanix Cannon it woul significantly weaken their ability to react.[/quote]
Source?
[quote]
"The Reapers, aware of their enemy's reputation, brought overwhelming force to Palaven and did not hesitate to bombard cities that resisted -- and all of them resisted. The dust and smoke from pulverized cities is now a breathing hazard across much of the planet. Water and power supplies have all but vanished. Still, the fight here has cost the Reapers dearly."
For a supposedly near invincible force. The Reapers took a hell of a beating at Pavalen. If the Turians could mount such an offense to actually "cost the Reapers dearly." Why is the combined fleet of every species amongst the galaxy, in addition to the entire Citdeal armada not capable of giving them a run for their money?[/quote]
Whatever it may have cost the Reapers, they still set Palaven ablaze and did the same to every other world they visisted in force. The fact that they did incur heavy losses at Palaven and still mounted a strong offense not only there but on every other front only further proves that a conventional victory was not possible.
[quote]Except they are only outclassed by Fighters and Frigates. The Normandy makes short work of them with only the Javelin Disruptor Torpedoes. In fact, they are blown away in a single shot. Therefore, they would pose little more than a distraction to the fleet.[/quote]
And one of them was enough to infiltrate and cripple the Normandy in ME2. The Normandy is an advanced ship, Joker is an above average pilot, hence why they faired so well.
[quote]We have no idea of Cain supplies, not to mention they had indoctrinated Reaper forces and Husks to contend with. What we do know is a Cain blew away a Destroyer. This means the Fleet would not have nearly as much difficulty with them.[/quote]
We know that there are several Cain's lying around when you arrive at the scene, and nobody has managed to destroy the AA cannon. Furthermore, effective as the Cain was against the Hades Cannon mounted on the Destroyer, the fact is that it was an anti-aircraft asset being taken down by a ground attack.
[quote]This is irrelevant considering once again, they only create one capital Reaper ship per cycle. Any loss would deplete their numbers.[/quote]
"The cycle has repeated itself more times than you can fathom." Therefore, there are more captital ships than we can fathom.
[quote]This has since been taken and as evident by the Pavalen codex entry, they are suffering significant loss in just handling the Turians.[/quote]
Significant loss could just as easily refer to Reaper ground forces as well, and several times throughout the game people have considered the repelling of said ground forces a victory.
[quote]It is insinuated the bulk of their force is actually comprised of Destroyers, a much weaker enemy.[/quote]
Obviously, since there is only one capital ship created per cycle to several destroyer class ships. Weaker yes, but still requiring extreme measures to destroy.
[quote]Incorrect. The vast majority of Sovereign's dialogue is rendered misleading at best and completely inaccurate otherwise. He insinuates the Reapers are machines, has utter contempt for organics, going so far to claim they are a, "A genetic mutation; an accident." He then goes on to say the Reapers are beyond comprehension, when it actuality their goals are quite understandable, albeit illogical.[/quote]
Sovereign's dialogue may have been rendered misleading in your mind, but not in reality. The only thing he truly insinuates about the Reapers is that they are the pinnacle of evolution. He has contempt for organics, yes, because he considers them lesser than him, an attitutde likely shared by many Reapers. What he said about the Reapers being beyond comprehension is true as well, as organics would not be able to fathom being part of a conjoined conciousness made up of billions of minds contained within a single being. Also, their goals are horrible, but not illogical. Furthermore, the fact remains that Legion, having touched Sovereign's mind, confirmed and expanded upon the statements of Reaper independence.
[quote]How do we know what Legion learned is only a portion of their psyche?[/quote]
We don't. He learned they were independent. I'm sure they were many other things as well.
[quote]We have no way to be certain what the entire Citadel fleet (largest force in the galaxy) combined with the remnants of every other homeworld could accomplish.[/quote]
We do. They succeed in their mission to distract the Reapers long enough to get the Crucible into place, but are losing the overall battle. Then if you pick Refuse they lose the battle.
[quote]FYI, "Deus ex Machina is a plot device whereby a seemingly unsolvable problem is suddenly and abruptly solved with the contrived and unexpected intervention of some new event, character, ability, or object." - Wikipedia.
Unsolvable problem = Reapers
Abruptly solves problem = Crucible
Contrived and unexpected intervention = All three endings
With a new event (Endings), character (the Catalyst), ability (Tricolor lasers) or object. (Crucible)[/quote]
The Crucible is nothing more than an idea when it is discovered. The entire game is spent making that idea a reality, so it doesn't unexpectedly intervene and abruptly solve anything, it's a long process. Furthermore, if the endings truly do fit the criteria of a DEM simply because they were unexpected, then suddenly most plot twists in fictional stories are DEM. Catalyst is an expositional tool in terms of its role in the telling of the story. Not to be confused with its role in the lore, while it is the architect of the Reapers, for Shepard it does nothing more than explain how the Crucible can work.
[quote]My point remains they have no bearing on the ending whatsoever, beyond your EMS score.[/quote]
Contributing to the EMS score is having a bearing on the ending. You may not like the limited extent, but it is there.
[quote]For instance, the Collector Base does nothing except determine if you can choose Control or Destroy should your EMS be too lower, otherwise it is entirely useless.[/quote]
The fact that it determines which base option the Crucible presents means it makes a sizeable difference. Furthermore, this choice, like many others, impacts the overall story of ME3. Case in point, the choice you made at the end of ME2 determines the state of the Cerberus headquarters in ME3, and which parts of the Human-Reaper the Illusive Man salvaged. Not every single choice made is going to be in the foreground of the very end of ME3, nor would that make sense. The Krogan remaining sterile or having babies would have little relevance when Shepard stands before the Catalyst, for instance. Yet, most choices we've made in all three games heavily influence the state of things all throughout Mass Effect 3, including the ending slideshow thing. The choices do matter.
[quote]With regards to the endings. We are presented with three options but no explanation on what precisely they entail due to us lacking a reason to trust the Catalyst.[/quote]
The options are explained in the EC. Furthermore, whether or not one trusts the Catalyst is irrelevant, using the Crucible would require a leap of faith regardless of whether or not the Catalyst was the one explaining its functions to you. It was deemed a necesarry risk long before, and its use presents the only possibility of victory. Nothing to lose, everything to gain, nothing fundamental about that changes with the presence of the Catalyst.
[quote]Arrogant, yes. He was not however incompetent. Not only has every attempt to study or infuse Reaper technology been problematic, TIM has personal experience in both his past (comics) and the actual games (ME2). No, the Reapers were well known to TIM as the comics depict, never mind Arrival DLC. There is nothing to suggest he would take such a risk, if anything the comics refute this characterization entirely.[/quote]
None of the character traits or background facts you just described are contradicted by TIM's attempt to use Reaper technology in the context of how he did it, what his reasoning was in the game, and how likely he thought his chances of success were. TIM simply calculated that harnessing the Reaper technology to control was possible. He was right, after all, by the end he was able to exert control over those around him. Problem was even he underestimated the risk of Indoctrination. He thought his resources, facilities, and staff of brilliant minds would be enough to understand indoctrination and avoid it, he was wrong. Simple as that.
[quote]You are characterizing an individual of one species assisting his species, as though it harbors similarities to one species determining the fate of every other species in the galaxy excluding one. Those are vastly different on numerous levels. Geth are a synthetic race that share one mind, thus Legion was aware all Geth desired this upload. The galaxy knew nothing of Synthesis or the potential ramifications it might cause.[/quote]
Yes, and the two are still similar in concept for the reasons I stated previously. The concept was foreshadowed before the end in Legion's actions. I'm not saying they're exactly the same, I'm saying the basic concepts are similar, so as to disprove the notion that the concept of synthesis comes out of nowhere in the end with no foreshadowing. What I've said on the subject is accurate.
[quote]Arrival retconned this depicting an asteroid causing one to explode. Mass Effect 3 changed them once again, albeit that was subsequently retconned by the Extended Cut.[/quote]
Again, ME3 did not change anything. All we knew beforehand was that a rocket-propelled asteroid striking the Alpha Relay in a specific way triggered a reaction with the element zero therein that caused a supernova. This says nothing about what would happen if, say, a normal relay discharged all of its energy to transmit the Crucible signal to the next relay.
[quote]There is nothing in the narrative that claims the Crucible beam would do any different than what happened in Arrival. All we know for fact is a relay explosion since ME2 causes an explosion the equivalency to a supernova.[/quote]
And the Crucible's effects on the relays did not, even in the original ending.
[quote]A+B=4
What A and B are in the equation above are irrelevant provided they equate to four. It could be 3+1, 2+2, 4+0 but they will always equal 4 and in this scenario four leads to supernova.[/quote]
The problem with this point (and subesquently, the reason why it fails) is that while the equation is different in each case, so is the result. Even in the original cut of ME3, the circumstances differed greatly from those in Arrival, and, most importantly,
so did the result. Since all we had to go on beforehand was one situation that was unique for several reasons, nothing is contradicted, nothing is retconned. Different circumstances, different outcomes, simple as that.
Modifié par Geneaux486, 12 juillet 2012 - 01:31 .
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