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[avenging_teabag]

humes spork wrote...

avenging_teabag wrote...

...rooted in the logic of the respective fictional universe...

How then would you qualify the ending of War of the Worlds? The Martians' death by contagion is entirely internally consistent, despite being wholly unexpected, unforeshadowed, and strains credibility in that a spacefaring species would certainly be capable of detecting and protecting themselves from terrestrial atmosphere and contaminants even if they lacked immunity.

Or, as I mentioned earlier, The Stand. Wholly unexpected and unforeshadowed, and contradicted previous notions of divine interference in the universe, but still rooted in internal logic.

The irony here is the Eagles and their respective use in Tolkien's legendarium is a topic on which even Tolkien himself punted, as was the case in Letter 210, in an attempt to justify them as eucatastrophic agents opposed to deus ex machina. It is in this regard in which Tolkien's lore does in fact heavily contradict itself, especially in contrast to the question of why did the Eagles simply not usher Frodo to Mount Doom themselves.

Yeah, the difference between an eucatastrophe and a DEM is fuzzy at best, but what difference there is, isn't based on their respective  timing. So, like i said, it's not particularly relevant to our discussion.

I don't remember War of the Worlds very well, so i won't comment, but the ending of The Stand is a blatant DEM, there's no way around that. I believe i brought up The Stand in this thread earlier as an example of a great novel getting a DEM treatment. Ah yea, The Stand. I was reading it when i was I think 15, thinking it was the best thing ever, and then in the end i was like ... what. Wait, what did just happen? I knew that something was wrong, even if I couldn't put my finger on it at the time. I bet there were (and are) a lot of ME3 players like that - they have this gut feeling that there's something not right with the game's plot, but they often can't tell exactly what. They lash out at the endings (which are, of course, eyepoppingly terrible), but they're simply the most visible manifestation of the flaw that lies much deeper. That flaw is the Crucible.

 

humes spork wrote...
Apparently "nearer" than the primary plot devices of ME1 and 2 (the Conduit and the Omega-4 relay) to the respective resolutions of their story arcs, which was at the end of each game's first act. When was the Crucible introduced?

Hey it was introduced at the end of ME3's first act! Funny, that. 

It's ludicrous to compare these two and the crucible. First, neither conduit, nor omega4 resolve anything, in and of themselves. They 're both (omega 4 especially) just gateways for the protagonist, places that he should pass through to resolve the conflict. I touched on the Conduit in one of my earlier posts (which you ignoired), so i just repost it here:
 

avenging_teabag wrote...
Consider Conduit, for example. Is it introduced at the climax of ME1's story? Yes. Does it give the protagonist means to resolve the primary narrative? Also yes. Is it a DEM? Hell no. Why not? Because it follows the clearly established rules of the universe - the protheans knew important stuff, the beacons contain important stuff, beacons are connected to the reapers, Saren is connected tot he reapers, saren is searching for the conduit, conduit is on ilos. And finally, on ilos, vigil tells us what the conduit really is - it's the final piece of the puzzle, but the puzzle itself we started to assemble from the very beginning of the game.

The omega-4 example is even more silly - you can't even call it a plot device, in all honesty. You can make a case, for example, for  the reaper iff being a plot device, but omega 4? We know since the beginning of LotR that Frodo must go to Mordor to destroy the Ring - does that make Mordor a plot device? No, it's just a destination. And again, neither reaper iff nor omega 4 resolve the conflict by themselves, so the comparison is pointless.

The other reason why your comparison doesnt work is the place these plot elements get in their respective storylines. (As an aside, i think it would be neat to consider DEMs, or any other plot devices, not in relation to the story as a whole, but to each separate storyline. In my post that i quoted i gave an example of a minor storyline (the Noveria Lorik quest) being hypothetically resolved by a DEM. That DEM would've no bearing on the main plot of the game - but that doesn't make it not a DEM.)

So, back to the Conduit and the Omega4, we should consider that ME 1&2 have self-contained plots - yes, they're related to the main story (ME2 only tengentially), but self-contained all the same. ME1 is about stopping a rogue spectre from attacking the citadel; only during the finale we learn that Saren didn't simply go nuts and his campaign is a part of much bigger picture (reaper invasion), but the story of hunt for Saren and his Geth armada stands on its own. This is all doubly true for ME2 - it's a self-contained story about stopping the Collectors, and only in the last possible moment we learn that the Collectors are, in fact, reaper proxies. So, omega 4 and the conduit have their rightful places in first acts of those particular storylines. As they should.

Now, ME3 is vastly different - it has no self contained plot to speak of. The underlying arch of the first two games becomes the main plot of the third. There's nothing in me3 beside REAPERS ARE RIGHT FREAKING HERE, HOW DO WE STOP THEM. Moreover, as someone upthread neatly pointed out, even that plot (if it can even be called that) is trunkated to the max. Basically, it's "1. reapers invade, 2. the crucible design is found, 3. the crucible is deployed, 4. reapers die, the end". And between stages 2 and 3 (which most of the game fits into) absolutely nothing happens to advance, or derail, the main plot in any way. All Shepard does throughout this period are some side missions for old pals, which are fully irrelevant in the grand scheme of things. The Crucible is getting built and deployed no matter what, even if Shepard fails every single quest.

What i'm getting at, is that the Crucible was not introduced in the first act of ME3, because narratively ME3 doesn't stand on its own - it's a conclsion of a 3-game storyline. Crucible was introcuced during the 3rd act of that big storyline - its climax, in other words. So, even going by your (unsupported and arbitrary) definition, the Crucible is a DEM.

ETA: Holy ****, wall of text

Modifié par avenging_teabag, 11 juillet 2012 - 10:28 .

[JBPBRC]

Heeden wrote...

@Eain

You mention Horus and the Emperor, but Horus wasn't the true villain there. The true villain is Chaos which is an unbeatable enemy. Chaos was victorious in the Heresy, the crumbling Imperium is more than they could have ever hoped to have gained if Horus had been victorious.

Whoa whoa whoa.

Chaos did severe damage, but ultimately got backhanded by THE GOD-EMPRAH, and ever since then the most Chaos has been able to do is launch failed crusade after failed crusade where the Imperium crushes them each time (though it gets rather bloody). 

Plus if the new Horus Heresy novels are anything to go off of, the crumbling Imperium is actually the checkmate against the Chaos Gods, who sought its total destruction. (How I don't know, but this is what the Emperor implies and will probably be revealed several books from now.)

As for undefeatable, Chaos is actually quite defeatable, though the staggering cost must be considered:

A) The Tyranids finally invade full force and the sheer psychic might of the Hive Mind shuts down the Warp.
The Necrons purge all life (no life = no prayer to Chaos Gods, the Emperor tried a similar plan by banning all religion, then the Heresy happened)
C) Any number of Emperor Reborn theories, new golden age for the Imperium, yadayadayada.

Will these happen? Probably not, as this would mean the franchise would ultimately end. So 40k will remain in this perpetual status quo as long as the $$$ is there...

Huh. THAT was off-topic. Ummm, Mass Effect, lets see...uhh:

The Reapers should've been portrayed as far more destructive than what they were presented as if conventional victory was truly pointless. More than just Admiral (CHARGE EM POINT-BLANK) Hackett being a broken record with the "We can't win conventionally" sthick. No, make the Reapers seem REALLY unstoppable.

-No Cains one-shotting Destroyers.
-Kalros gets killed on Tuchanka, atmosphere is poisoned and the planet becomes a lifeless wasteland.
-No "Miracle of Palaven" codex entry, swap it out with a "Tragedy of Palaven" entry, where the Turians are dealt a devastating defeat with few if any Reaper casualties.
-Rannoch becomes Reaper infested, complete with Geth slaves and a severe loss of ships in the Migrant Fleet
-No EMS screen that says Reapers are being pushed back
-Even, dare I say it, kill off some companions. Not some arbitrary Mass Effect 2 characters that no longer matter, actual squadmates. Liara for instance, Garrus if not already dead, the Vermire Survivor,  Joker, etc.
-No Crucible being built in the background while Shepard flies around conventionally defeating Reaper Destroyers, and the Turians doing massive damage to Sovereigns, make the Crucible actually appear as the only hope, not the crowning achievement in a Reaper defeat, but the only hope because everything else is dead or dying, make the atmosphere so grimdark even 40k has to do a double-take at this thing.

This above all else would have hammered the point in that the Reapers can't be stopped. Except by space magic.

[satunnainen]

avenging_teabag wrote...

...the Crucible is a DEM.

ETA: Holy ****, wall of text

Analyzing the plot and trying to categorize some plot elements is not very interesting, atleast for me. Either the story works or it doesnt, or somewhere between those. Ofcourse some people find it entertaining and who am I to stop them.

Whole genre of scifi and fantasy is full of DEM:s, for example plenty of star trek episodes are ended with DEM like technobabble-trick-of-the-week. Other examples I have seen in the net were first 3 Harry Potter movies/books which all ended with a surpricing trick or gadget not mentioned in previous parts of the book(s). Also some humorous stories are doing it on purpose, like Douglas Adams Hitchhikers guide series. Actually the 5th part ended with quite a DEM. Monty Python had a habit of breaking all the possible story telling conventions. That was part of their humor.

Problem with this is that one part of the scifi is showing new technology and then later using/explaining it in some logical way to the reader. Or some new creature, or environment, or whatever. I dont think that should be categorized so fast as a DEM. It is the idea of the genre, not some mystical god who follows the story and then solves the problem when the writer has (usually purposefully) written himself in the corner. (Just trying to write the idea of classical DEM in my own words )

Anyway there are few reasons why you shouldnt categorize crusible as a DEM, for example: In the previous ME games it has been shown that proteans were doing all they could to either win the reapers or atleast help the next cycle. So it shouldnt be such a miracle to find new tech from them that might help to beat the reapers. Also if they hadnt found the plans, they would have tried something else so we have no idea if crusible really is the only way to beat the reapers.

So considering the fact that it is introduced in the beginning of the game and that finding some useful tech to fight the reapers is not that uncommon in series, and that the device actually doesnt actively do much I wouldnt categorize it as a DEM. Surely it is some plot device, maybe a mcguffin(how do you spell that ) since it is not too well explained what it actually does and most of the plot follows some way building it, but not necessarily a DEM.

You can ofcourse define DEM in such a way that crusible fits it if you wish, I just would like to use a more classical or atleast strict definition.

Modifié par satunnainen, 11 juillet 2012 - 09:18 .

[Joccaren]

Archereon wrote...

The point of the Crucible was that BioWare didn't want to "nerf" the reapers, which they built up as unstoppable, and didn't want to change genres;

without the Crucible or a reaper nerf, Mass Effect would've gone from science fiction to cosmic horror.

Actually, what they had to do was NOT nerf the Galaxy's forces.

Thanix Guns. Bypass shields thanks to using heat as primary damaging mechanism. Can be fired every 5 seconds. Gives a fighter the same firepower as a Cruiser, and scales with ship size. It is quite literally the same gun the Reapers use - just smaller and less efficient. A dreadnought firing it would have a similar effect to a Reaper shooting another Reaper: Death.

Fleet sizes. The Geth were a complete unknown in the ME universe. We knew the Heretic Geth were a small portion of the overall population. They had a fair fleet though, and were able to successfully attack the Citadel with Sovereign [Until the Alliance showed up]. For all we knew the Geth could have had twice to three times as many ships as the Quarians, with the Technology of the Salarians and Military Training of the Turians. It wouldn't have been unrealistic for a race that had the Geth Dreadnought of ME3 [On par or better than Salarian Technology], were able to simply download or run combat programs [As disiplined and trained as Turians] and who had been left alone to build ships for over 300 years [Larger fleet than the Quarians].

Beyond that, just set our forces agaisnt the Reapers, and you have a reasonable chance of us winning. 4 Dreadnoughts with conventional weapons take down a Reaper Sovereign class. A Cruiser is about 1/4 of the size of a Dreadnought, and thus has 1/4 of the firepower. 16 Cruisers will take down a Sovereign class. Thanix gives fighters the same firepower as Cruisers. 16 Fighters will take down a Sovereign class. That is counting as shields doing something. If they do nothing, as few as 4 fighters could take down a Sovereign.

It shouldn't have been easy. You should have needed the whole damn galaxy to do it, but beating the Reapers conventionally is what the story had been building to through ME1 and ME2. Sure, there was no direct preperation in ME2, but what about researching Thanix guns? What about the new Armour, Shields and Engines we equip ourselves with? What about the new technology we integrate into our fleets - it all counts for something.
Setting up the uniting of the Krogan and curing of the Genophage. Had we never found Mordin, it would never have happened [IMO you should have needed Maelons data too, or a number of things and actually had the possibility of not being able to cure the Genophage, but W/E].
What about stopping the Heretics from rewriting all Geth to support the Reapers.
What about the Rachni building their fleet? ME3 just made them enslaved - have them be warriors, and be fighting the Reapers.
Sure, Shepard's job in ME2 wasn't to prepare the galaxy. The Galaxy was slowly preparing itself though, even if it didn't know what for.

Had ME3 not been written to make everything seem hopeless to justify the existance of the Crucible, the galaxy would have stood a chance. Fighting alone, the Reapers would overwhelm us. Fighting together, we would stand a chance at breaking the Cycle.

The Reapers were never unstoppable. They were unbelievably powerful, but they were still only mortal.

[Joccaren]

satunnainen wrote...
Whole genre of scifi is full of DEM:s, for example plenty of star trek episodes are ended with DEM like technobabble-trick-of-the-week. Other examples I have seen in the net were first 3 Harry Potter movies/books which all ended with a surpricing trick or gadget not mentioned in previous parts of the book(s). Also some humorous stories are doing it on purpose, like Douglas Adams Hitchhikers guide series. Actually the 5th part ended with quite a DEM. Monty Python had a habit of breaking all the possible story telling conventions. That was part of their humor.

There is a slight difference between a lot of them and a DEM. For example, the First Harry Potter Movie. Harry Potter is saved from being killed by the magic of love that also saved him from being killed by Voldemort originally. Hardly a DEM.
Comedy does it purposefully because of how bad a story telling technique it is. By using it they act like the class clown: They make themselves look like idiots because they know other people will find it funny. Ironically saying "The sky is made of watermelons" is very different to seriously stating that "The sky is made of watermelons".
Technobabble sometimes can be classed as a DEM, however other times it is not. "The Takyon field allows us to detect their cloaking" is hardly a DEM, unless they have been cloaking previously in the story, were unable to be found, and now suddenly the main character remembers that they can use a tacheon field to find the location of a cloaked vessel. If its used the first time the ship cloaks and it is established as a way that the crew can track a cloaked vessel, it is more akin to a Spartan warrior walking up to his apprentice as he looks fearfully at his opponent swinging a sword and saying "This is a shield. It blocks things. Use it".

Problem with this is that one part of the scifi is showing new technology and then later using/explaining it in some logical way to the reader. Or some new creature, or environment, or whatever. I dont think that should be categorized so fast as a DEM. It is the idea of the genre, not some mystical god who follows the story and then solves the problem when the writer has (usually purposefully) written himself in the corner. (Just trying to write the idea of classical DEM in my own words )

Another large difference between theses and the Crucible I shall explain later, however for now, see above.

Anyway there are few reasons why you shouldnt categorize crusible as a DEM, for example: In the previous ME games it has been shown that proteans were doing all they could to either win the reapers or atleast help the next cycle. So it shouldnt be such a miracle to find new tech from them that might help to beat the reapers. Also if they hadnt found the plans, they would have tried something else so we have no idea if crusible really is the only way to beat the reapers.

Yes, the Protheans were trying to stop the Reapers. So you introduce something that doesn't give an instant victory, I.E: New Prothean shielding technology that improves our ships durability against the Reapers, but doesn't actually stop them. This being introduced at the start, and a few other bits and pieces of Prothean tech throughout, would not be a DEM to end the story. It has been established the Protheans were more technologically advanced than we were. Provided what you find is not too rediculous, it has been established that technology can do this.

The Crucible shares none of these attributes, and there was no logical reason to believe we would find something like it left over by the Protheans. Meta thinking we might think "Many stories end with a DEM, so we'll probably find a DEM" or "They made the Reapers unstoppable, so we'll be finding a DEM", but in-universe of Mass Effect, there is no reason to suspect any such technology to come from the Protheans. Better weapons, better shields, bigger guns - sure. Magical devices that literally just turn off the Reapers if you activate them? Uhhh. No, not really.

So considering the fact that it is introduced in the beginning of the game and that finding some useful tech to fight the reapers is not that uncommon in series, and that the device actually doesnt actively do much I wouldnt categorize it as a DEM. Surely it is some plot device, maybe a mcguffin(how do you spell that ) since it is not too well explained what it actually does and most of the plot follows some way building it, but not necessarily a DEM.

It is introduced at the beginning of the game, but the end of the story. The Mass Effect Story does not begin with the Reapers invading Earth. The Crucible is introduced probably 75% of the way through the ME storyline. That is quite late, and even if you think how late it appears in the story dictates whether something is a DEM or not, 75% is late enough for it to qualify.
As for it not actively doing much: It destroys, controls or synthesises the Reapers.
Is it a McGuffin? Arguably for a large part of the story, however we do know what it is [Its a device that stops the Reapers], and we learn a little more about it in the last 0.05% of the story.

You can ofcourse define DEM in such a way that crusible fits it if you wish, I just would like to use a more classical or atleast strict definition.

The Crucible does fit the classical and literal definition for a DEM. If you want that definition to be stricter so that it doesn't include the Crucible, that is you wanting the Crucible to not be a DEM rather than anyone else wanting it to be. The definition does not require it to arrive right at the end of a story [Which the Crucible arguably does], but only for it to resolve the conflict.

Modifié par Joccaren, 11 juillet 2012 - 09:39 .

[Naerivar]

satunnainen wrote...
I dont think that calculating the chance of one set of plans to stay hidden for 20000 rounds and then be found is the correct way to estimate that chance Explanation: chance of one set of plans to be passed on: 95%
If you take that to the power of 20000 (num. of cycles) you are calculating the chance of that single set to stay hidden.

You should consider that every cycle has a chance to find the plans from previous cycle. Also those cycles that found the plans, possibly tried building it and saved their own set of plans (which should reset your calculation back to 95% ? ). Anyway I would make some simple simulation where I could change the numbers to see how it goes but I am too lazy and I dont really like propability math

Also you should consider that these plans are supposed to be hidden so well, and in so many places that it should be nearly sure to have atleast few plans around during the next cycles. There is no reason to save for example just 10 caches while you might as well save 1 000 000 caches since your civilisation is about to be destroyed anyway.

Ok, I just lost my whole explanation. But I will preservere.

The p to the power 20,000 does not in fact, calculate the chance of a single set to stay hidden. This all goes down into the fact that p is an average value. It's the chance that during that cycle, the plans weren't found. At a single spot. It does not matter if the information is moved, or if they hid it on multiple places. It's a rather crude estimation, I'll admit, but that is not really important because the number is still way too small.

I could write you down the exact equation for the chance if you'd like. It would however, take some time. But if you wanted to I'd do it. I'm not very keen on simulations, because they are numerical. It does not matter very much of course if you let N  be about 20,000. But I'd rather use cold analytical statistics.

My original point is, however, that there's not much reason for any cycle to save 1,000,000 caches. Because these plans were once found, left behind by an alien race, who didn't know what it would do, but whatever it did, it didn't help them. Then this cycle finds the plans, may or may not try to built the crucible, but they still get beaten by the Reapers. They still don't know if it works, or what it does. The only reason to pass it along would be in a last ditch hope that 'Maybe the next cycle can use it'. There only needs to be one cycle that would rather document something else, and the plans would be lost.

If the crucible was known as an IWIN button, then yes, of course any cycle would try to pass it on as much as possible. But it's not, so there will be very little, if any, intention to pass it along. for that to happen 20,000 times? Very small chance.

I calculated it for you. By using my rough estimation, if you want a chance of 1% for the plans to survive 20,000 cycles, (1-p) to the power 20,000 =0.01. Which would translate as p = 1 - 20,000nd root of 0.01. Since p was the chance not to pass any information on. 1 - p = 0.99977.  to get 50% you need a 1 - p = 0.999965. To get anywhere a chance of 1 to pass along the information through 20,000 cycles, you need a chance of 1, to pass along the information through one cycle. And that is just impossible, unless it's done deliberately by the Reapers.

[avenging_teabag]

Joccaren wrote...

Yes, the Protheans were trying to stop the Reapers. So you introduce something that doesn't give an instant victory, I.E: New Prothean shielding technology that improves our ships durability against the Reapers, but doesn't actually stop them. This being introduced at the start, and a few other bits and pieces of Prothean tech throughout, would not be a DEM to end the story. It has been established the Protheans were more technologically advanced than we were. Provided what you find is not too rediculous, it has been established that technology can do this.

The Crucible shares none of these attributes, and there was no logical reason to believe we would find something like it left over by the Protheans. Meta thinking we might think "Many stories end with a DEM, so we'll probably find a DEM" or "They made the Reapers unstoppable, so we'll be finding a DEM", but in-universe of Mass Effect, there is no reason to suspect any such technology to come from the Protheans. Better weapons, better shields, bigger guns - sure. Magical devices that literally just turn off the Reapers if you activate them? Uhhh. No, not really.

Yep, and what's more, this whole "Protheans were  fighting the reapers and came this close to beating them" is a last minute retcon. Going by the Vigil conversation, the Prothean empire fell in the first moments of reaper invasion. Once the reapers entered through the citadel relay and shut down the relay network, the bug-eyes were finished. The only reason why the reaping stage went on for so long, was that the empire was incredibly vast, so the reapers needed time. But the protheans certainly hadn't put up any systematic resistance  - and being isolated in separate star clusters, they realistically simply couldn't. Certianly, they couldn't develop or build such an incredibly powerful and resource intencive device, considering the circumstances they were in. Each of the clusters couldn't do it on its own due to lack of recources, and the cooperation was out of the question.

That is not even touchng the whole "the Crucible is the combined work of countless cycles" thing, which is so amazingly dumb i'm pretty sure my brain started leaking out my ears the first time i heard it.

satunnainen wrote...

You can ofcourse define DEM in such a way that crusible fits it if you wish, I just would like to use a more classical or atleast strict definition.

.... what. 

The definitions of a DEM were posted in this thread twice. Three of them, from different sources. They are not my definitions, they ARE classical and modern literary definitions of a Deus Ex Machina plot device. The Crucible fits every single one of them.

Do you want me to post them again?

Modifié par avenging_teabag, 11 juillet 2012 - 11:42 .

[satunnainen]

Joccaren wrote...

You can ofcourse define DEM in such a way that crusible fits it if you wish, I just would like to use a more classical or atleast strict definition.

The Crucible does fit the classical and literal definition for a DEM. If you want that definition to be stricter so that it doesn't include the Crucible, that is you wanting the Crucible to not be a DEM rather than anyone else wanting it to be. The definition does not require it to arrive right at the end of a story [Which the Crucible arguably does], but only for it to resolve the conflict.

Or it could be you who is desperately trying to classify the crusible as a DEM, since you want to have some logical explanation why you dont like the story. Maybe not you personally, since I have no idea what you really think or if you are just arguing because you like arguing  Some people surely are seeking reason, since they cannot consiously find a logical reason for hating me3 and the peer pressure demands them to hate it.

It has not much to do with the possible badness of the me3 story, and it has lots to do with the way people behave in modern social media. I think it is quite sad, that the new generation, who are apparently supposed to be naturals in all computer using, keep staring those sentences and paragraphs and fail to notice the bigger picture of mass behaviours that are happening around them. Again, I am generalizing a bit, some of them see but quite a big part of them dont and that is why we have these phenomenons like me3 ending forum explosion. I am not saying that me3 was a perfect game but surely atleast someone can see that the story did not deserve nearly all that manure that got thrown at it.

urgh /rantmode off

As I said, I am more interested in the stories itself, than cutting them to small pieces and then categorizing those. If the story is good, then it is good, even if it has 45 DEM:s one after another. Wether it is humor or Star Trek technobabble.

I think the classical DEM has atleast the god part (some active actor) and the suddennes part, which are both lacking here. Finding new tech and re-engineering it to use for whatever is part of the mass effect universe. Finding protean tech has been quite common too. Finding protean tech that helps agains the reaper, again common. So why should we expect that we wont find anything useful if we have a sudden motive to search for anything that might help? Reapers were coming quite soon, since arrival it was clear to atleast Shepards crew and friends and anyone who wanted to listen.

Why do I keep talking about it then if I dont care much? I am not english speaker, and my writing skills are specially a bit rusty, so its kind of practicing

[satunnainen]

Naerivar wrote...

satunnainen wrote...
I dont think that calculating the chance of one set of plans to stay hidden for 20000 rounds and then be found is the correct way to estimate that chance Explanation: chance of one set of plans to be passed on: 95%
If you take that to the power of 20000 (num. of cycles) you are calculating the chance of that single set to stay hidden.

You should consider that every cycle has a chance to find the plans from previous cycle. Also those cycles that found the plans, possibly tried building it and saved their own set of plans (which should reset your calculation back to 95% ? ). Anyway I would make some simple simulation where I could change the numbers to see how it goes but I am too lazy and I dont really like propability math

Also you should consider that these plans are supposed to be hidden so well, and in so many places that it should be nearly sure to have atleast few plans around during the next cycles. There is no reason to save for example just 10 caches while you might as well save 1 000 000 caches since your civilisation is about to be destroyed anyway.

Ok, I just lost my whole explanation. But I will preservere.

The p to the power 20,000 does not in fact, calculate the chance of a single set to stay hidden. This all goes down into the fact that p is an average value. It's the chance that during that cycle, the plans weren't found. At a single spot. It does not matter if the information is moved, or if they hid it on multiple places. It's a rather crude estimation, I'll admit, but that is not really important because the number is still way too small.

I could write you down the exact equation for the chance if you'd like. It would however, take some time. But if you wanted to I'd do it. I'm not very keen on simulations, because they are numerical. It does not matter very much of course if you let N  be about 20,000. But I'd rather use cold analytical statistics.

My original point is, however, that there's not much reason for any cycle to save 1,000,000 caches. Because these plans were once found, left behind by an alien race, who didn't know what it would do, but whatever it did, it didn't help them. Then this cycle finds the plans, may or may not try to built the crucible, but they still get beaten by the Reapers. They still don't know if it works, or what it does. The only reason to pass it along would be in a last ditch hope that 'Maybe the next cycle can use it'. There only needs to be one cycle that would rather document something else, and the plans would be lost.

If the crucible was known as an IWIN button, then yes, of course any cycle would try to pass it on as much as possible. But it's not, so there will be very little, if any, intention to pass it along. for that to happen 20,000 times? Very small chance.

I calculated it for you. By using my rough estimation, if you want a chance of 1% for the plans to survive 20,000 cycles, (1-p) to the power 20,000 =0.01. Which would translate as p = 1 - 20,000nd root of 0.01. Since p was the chance not to pass any information on. 1 - p = 0.99977.  to get 50% you need a 1 - p = 0.999965. To get anywhere a chance of 1 to pass along the information through 20,000 cycles, you need a chance of 1, to pass along the information through one cycle. And that is just impossible, unless it's done deliberately by the Reapers.

If there were only 10 cycles, you would get a lot higher propability with your method of calculating. Does that sound right or do you think there is some problem with your way of taking some average probability and then multiplying it over all the possible cycles? You should consider that atleast proteans had the plans and they were available on next cycle.

If you hide something like 1 million caches during the first cycle, then with your numbers: 1-p = 0.999965 =>
out of the million 35 are found after the first cycle, then a bit less than 35 etc until you hopefully have 1 left after 20000 cycles. That is what I mean with the problem of your way of calculating this. You dont consider that the later cycles can save the plans too.

The idea is to make sure some caches will be available during next cycles. So to make sure of that, they need to be cleverly hidden, also there needs to be loads of them since some of them, maybe most, are surely going to be found. Also it would help if there were some clever way of finding them, like starting some radio transmit bursts after 10000 years of silence. I am not sure why wouldnt you hide as many as possible.

How I would count it: 
First some basics:
20000 cycles. first set of plans during first cycle.
Every 3rd cycle finds the plans and understands what they are
Every 3rd cycle of those has time to atleast try to build the device, and save new, possibly improved sets for future cycles.
So 66% of cycles who either dont find the plans, or find them and dont understand.
That leaves 22% of cycles find and understand but dont have time to try them, or dont care for some reason.
and 11% of cycles who save a new set and possibly try making it better

Then I would make some simple program to calculate the needed probabilities and possibly amounts of caches hidden. Maybe with a possibility to change parameters to see what happens.

Ofcourse we have no idea when the plans were first designed, or that if there were some other devices/trick/whatevers before that were lost during cycles. For some reason it feels natural that if your whole civilization is going to be wiped that you are somehow trying to warn the next cycle. Maybe give them as much help as possible?

Modifié par satunnainen, 11 juillet 2012 - 01:09 .

[DuffyMJ]

humes spork wrote...

avenging_teabag wrote...

...rooted in the logic of the respective fictional universe...

How then would you qualify the ending of War of the Worlds? The Martians' death by contagion is entirely internally consistent, despite being wholly unexpected, unforeshadowed, and strains credibility in that a spacefaring species would certainly be capable of detecting and protecting themselves from terrestrial atmosphere and contaminants even if they lacked immunity.

Or, as I mentioned earlier, The Stand. Wholly unexpected and unforeshadowed, and contradicted previous notions of divine interference in the universe, but still rooted in internal logic.

The irony here is the Eagles and their respective use in Tolkien's legendarium is a topic on which even Tolkien himself punted, as was the case in Letter 210, in an attempt to justify them as eucatastrophic agents opposed to deus ex machina. It is in this regard in which Tolkien's lore does in fact heavily contradict itself, especially in contrast to the question of why did the Eagles simply not usher Frodo to Mount Doom themselves.

Climaxwas very much foreshadowed in war of the worlds, the Martians effortlessly wipe out the British military and spend most of their observable set pieces grinding people into fertilizer and trying to turn Earth into a habitable mars-like environment... Their effort failed

[chemiclord]

To the OP:

For what it's worth... the Reapers aren't technically "invincible." They can be beaten. Hell, if the galaxy had gotten off their ass shortly after the Sovereign debacle, and seriously began preparing for the threat rather than reverse engineering a few things, burying their heads in the sand, and pretending it was just the geth, then hey, it might have been quite possible to defeat them in a conventional manner.

And I honestly think THAT was another underlying theme to the series; how we (as a people) have a very irritating tendency to pretend our problems don't exist rather than face them. We'd much rather live in ignorance and pretend nothing is amiss rather than potentially have to address the hard truth when it comes to us.

It sure seemed that Bioware was trying to make an allegory between the Council and large governmental bodies, that only act with what seems to be extreme reluctance, the barest minimum necessary, and often not terribly effective once it DOES churn to action.

[Naerivar]

satunnainen wrote...
If there were only 10 cycles, you would get a lot higher propability with your method of calculating. Does that sound right or do you think there is some problem with your way of taking some average probability and then multiplying it over all the possible cycles? You should consider that atleast proteans had the plans and they were available on next cycle.

If you hide something like 1 million caches during the first cycle, then with your numbers: 1-p = 0.999965 =>
out of the million 35 are found after the first cycle, then a bit less than 35 etc until you hopefully have 1 left after 20000 cycles. That is what I mean with the problem of your way of calculating this. You dont consider that the later cycles can save the plans too.

The idea is to make sure some caches will be available during next cycles. So to make sure of that, they need to be cleverly hidden, also there needs to be loads of them since some of them, maybe most, are surely going to be found. Also it would help if there were some clever way of finding them, like starting some radio transmit bursts after 10000 years of silence. I am not sure why wouldnt you hide as many as possible.

How I would count it: 
First some basics:
20000 cycles. first set of plans during first cycle.
Every 3rd cycle finds the plans and understands what they are
Every 3rd cycle of those has time to atleast try to build the device, and save new, possibly improved sets for future cycles.
So 66% of cycles who either dont find the plans, or find them and dont understand.
That leaves 22% of cycles find and understand but dont have time to try them, or dont care for some reason.
and 11% of cycles who save a new set and possibly try making it better

Then I would make some simple program to calculate the needed probabilities and possibly amounts of caches hidden. Maybe with a possibility to change parameters to see what happens.

Ofcourse we have no idea when the plans were first designed, or that if there were some other devices/trick/whatevers before that were lost during cycles. For some reason it feels natural that if your whole civilization is going to be wiped that you are somehow trying to warn the next cycle. Maybe give them as much help as possible?

Meh, I keep trying to write it out. But it's rather annoying because the chance of finding it immediately depends on how many were hidden and how many died/were destroyed during those 50,000 years + Reaper clean up.

The problem with the way you would count is that you assume that the plans are always available, in some shape or form. Sometimes they're not found. But they always survive so a following cycle can find them. I neglect this possibility because I find it has an extremely small probability.

The chance for the plans to survive depends on several factors.
If it is found:
a) Do they have enough time to read, decode and study the plans? (lets consider this very large, just put it to 1)
Do they decide to pass it on?
c) Will the Data cache survive the Reaper Clean Up?
d) Will the cache survive 50,000 years?

If it is not found:
e) Will the cache survive for ANOTHER 50,000 years?

a) could be put to one. I don't think its very probable that the cycle finds the plans and immediately after gets destroyed (do note that it almost happened in this cycle).
I consider this pretty small. They do not know what it is (other than some large structure), they do know it didn't work (or even got finished). They have very little reason to actually put a million different caches out there. Let alone consider the problems of hiding it when you can't get out of your own cluster (of course, it could be that the plans were found on several places, but that would mean the previous cycle solved the problem, without you knowing how).
c/d) This would be another very small one. In this cycle, Prothean tech wasn't scattered everywhere. There was a cache on Mars, a beacon on Eden prime/Thessia and a lot of ruins. Probably some tech. The beacons are basically the only real storage of information (I believe the cache on mars only contained tech they reengineered). That they were unreadable was because of the Protheans, so we ignore that. The point is that we know very little about the protheans and next to nothing about the cycle before. It shows that even the protheans (who were more advanced than this cycle), had nearly no means of having Data survive 50,000 years. Sure, there is vigil. But if Shepard visited a month later, vigil would be no more (confirmed by the crew the Council sent to Ilos). And Vendetta. And that's basically the only two sources of information. This shows that the chance of the tech containing the information, dying is very large.
e) The chance of a cache survivng a Reaper clean up and 50,000 years is fairly small. (probably due to the Reaper clean up). But if you look at how bad Vigil was when Shepard met him (Vendetta doesn't really count here because the Beacon on Thessia undeoubtedly was put on some energy source), then the chance of surviving another 50,000 years is pretty much nil.

No matter whether it's found or not. The chance of any information surviving is very small. So in fact, that 95% approximation, doesn't even hold true.

[Shadow Shep]

Heeden wrote...

DJCubed wrote...

I can do you one better.  I can tell you a universe consisting of many different worlds with invincible enemies.  It's called the Marvel Universe.

There is no "the Marvel Universe", the Marvelverse is a multi-verse, it therefore contains many universes most of which have many worlds with unbeatable enemies.

Well, yes you are correct.  For the sake of simplicity I thought my answer would do, but yours is fine also.  Unbeatable enemies was the main point.  

[Novate]

Tealjaker94 wrote...

julio77777 wrote...

They are invincible because of their number. Because you destroyed 3 of them using radical means doesn't mean you can destroy thousands.

I like this human. He makes sense.

So the whole Premise of ME3 is to gather all the forces of the Galaxy, bring them all to Earth space, make them all cannon fodder and as an Distraction to smuggle Shepard back to earth. Because we can never beat them, so the whole gathering the universe together is all worthless and useless.

Great, thanks Krogans and Quarians and Geth and Asari and Salarians your sacrifice is so that I can go to earth, I was already on Earth, left Earth so that I can go back to Earth. Awesome story.

[BDelacroix]

How many enemies don't tell you they are invincible. The only 'evidence' I have of their invincibility is that they say so.

[satunnainen]

BDelacroix wrote...

How many enemies don't tell you they are invincible. The only 'evidence' I have of their invincibility is that they say so.

You did not fight against any reaper(s) during the game to make a guess?

[Novate]

DEM - if they had used the Dark Matter that was introduced during ME2 then it would have not been DEM

ME3 did introduce DEM, because during ME1 and ME2 they had a direction, a direction that they wanted to take the story, a direction that will lead them to ME3 and tie all the stories together. But when they were doing ME3, something happened, and they decided to rewrite all the stories that they had planned, and what we got was the result. All you had to do is follow the stories of ME1 and ME2 and then you will see that some of the main missions in ME3 that has any relation to the Crucible is alittle out of place like some information is missing.

ME1- Rachni was introduced as being important
ME2- we are reminded that Rachni will be important to the upcoming war
ME3- Rachni is just a side mission if without Grunt was pretty useless but with Grunt it was fun to see him in action. Rachni is unimportant.

[FirstBlood XL]

Eain wrote...

Can anyone tell me in what world it's considered quality writing to make an enemy invincible just to give the writer an opportunity to resolve the conflict with a deus ex machina?

People keep saying "we can't beat the Reapers in conventional warfare, we need some sort of superweapon."

Why should that be the premise of a story? Even if you strongly feel that we cannot beat the Reapers conventionally, does it at least not feel like rather childish storytelling?

Just curious.

Shhhhh....   There are too many people here who like 

On a serious note, I fully agree. Been meaning to reply to some fans of the ending with this, but keep getting sidetracked. 

I haven't read the discussion in this thread yet.... but you stated my feelings on the matter 100% in the OP.

[BDelacroix]

satunnainen wrote...

BDelacroix wrote...

How many enemies don't tell you they are invincible. The only 'evidence' I have of their invincibility is that they say so.

You did not fight against any reaper(s) during the game to make a guess?

Sure I did.  I won, until the end.  Therefore, they aren't invincible.
Difficult is not the same as invincible.

I've actually done several things in real life that people say is impossible (similar to invincible). They even claim it was not doable after I did it with evidence, right beside me.  That isn't to say said things were easy to perform.

Modifié par BDelacroix, 12 juillet 2012 - 06:48 .

[CaptainCommander]

I thought the Crucible would do what killing Saren did. Disable the Reapers' weapons and shields so that I can shoot them to death. Instead I got God-Child and his 3 choices!!

To me the Crucible being a giant disruptive wave would of fitted in with the ME lore cause we saw how it happened in ME1 so why not be able to do it on a Galactic scale?

[Chewin]

Making the Reapers nearly invincible was a mistake imo. Reject could have had another turn weren't if for that.

[satunnainen]

Naerivar wrote...
The chance of a cache survivng a Reaper clean up and 50,000 years is fairly small. (probably due to the Reaper clean up). But if you look at how bad Vigil was when Shepard met him (Vendetta doesn't really count here because the Beacon on Thessia undeoubtedly was put on some energy source), then the chance of surviving another 50,000 years is pretty much nil.

You can ofcourse use a bit older tech if you are unsure wether your powersource lasts or not, one solution:
http://en.wikipedia....r_Golden_Record

Anyway my idea was to make some basic rules and then try to figure out the needed propabilities and other parameters. Surely there are some bad simplifications and other problems. Adding the idea that the plans can disappear makes the model a bit more complex, since you need to assume then that some new design (new idea/device/weapon to destroy reapers) is added in some later cycle.

Not much to do with subject, sorry

[Naerivar]

satunnainen wrote...

Naerivar wrote...
The chance of a cache survivng a Reaper clean up and 50,000 years is fairly small. (probably due to the Reaper clean up). But if you look at how bad Vigil was when Shepard met him (Vendetta doesn't really count here because the Beacon on Thessia undeoubtedly was put on some energy source), then the chance of surviving another 50,000 years is pretty much nil.

You can ofcourse use a bit older tech if you are unsure wether your powersource lasts or not, one solution:
http://en.wikipedia....r_Golden_Record

Anyway my idea was to make some basic rules and then try to figure out the needed propabilities and other parameters. Surely there are some bad simplifications and other problems. Adding the idea that the plans can disappear makes the model a bit more complex, since you need to assume then that some new design (new idea/device/weapon to destroy reapers) is added in some later cycle.

Not much to do with subject, sorry

I'm not really sure how many of those discs you'd need to save the plans for the Crucible. Quite a lot I'd imagine. When you're confined in a cluster you might not get the proper materials to actually make them.

The problem with the crucible's plans is that they have to be passed on consecutively for a whole lot of cycles. even if you believe that it is possible that the information can survive one or several cycles untouched to be found by a later cycle. Unless you make that amount of skipped cycles very large (and thus very unlikely), it's still very unlikely. Events that do not have a chance of 1 rarely happen 20,000 times consecutively. Rarely meaning here never. We could discuss this endlessly. But that's the whole crux of it. It doesn't really matter how exact you make your model. If you assume that the amount (and chance) of the plans surviving for two cycles is small, then you require that it's passed on 20,000 times and survived 20,000 times. Which would always result in a very small chance unless you deliberately do it.

[humes spork]

avenging_teabag wrote...

Yeah, the difference between an eucatastrophe and a DEM is fuzzy at best, but what difference there is, isn't based on their respective  timing. So, like i said, it's not particularly relevant to our discussion.

Actually, in Letter 89 and in On Fairy-Stories Tolkein makes the distinction between deus ex machina and eucatastrope quite clear.

I don't remember War of the Worlds very well, so i won't comment, but the ending of The Stand is a blatant DEM, there's no way around that. I believe i brought up The Stand in this thread earlier as an example of a great novel getting a DEM treatment. Ah yea, The Stand. I was reading it when i was I think 15, thinking it was the best thing ever, and then in the end i was like ... what. Wait, what did just happen?

War of the Worlds had the Martians dying at the end because they were infected by bacteria, and since there were no bacteria on Mars they were not immune. They quarian'ed themselves to death. I don't think I need to elaborate as to why that strains credibility to a contemporary audience any more than I already have in this thread.

And yes, The Stand was undoubtedly, inarguably, deus ex machina...that worked. The hanging question throughout the entire narrative, which was reflected through Stu, Nick, and even Mother Abagail, was the nature and level of divine intervention, especially in regards to protecting the good survivors, relating back to the question of the benevolent god. The ending answered that lingering question, in a way that betrayed expectation.

What i'm getting at, is that the Crucible was not introduced in the first act of ME3, because narratively ME3 doesn't stand on its own - it's a conclsion of a 3-game storyline. Crucible was introcuced during the 3rd act of that big storyline - its climax, in other words. So, even going by your (unsupported and arbitrary) definition, the Crucible is a DEM.

Whether or not ME3 is a continuation of the Mass Effect trilogy is irrelevant in terms of the game's internal narrative. The Reaper War is a self-contained plot, like Saren/Sovereign and the Collectors before it. ME3 itself still has internally a traditional narrative structure: introduction (Prologue and Mars), rising action (genophage cure through Horizon), climax (Cerberus HQ and Earth), resolution (epilogue). The Crucible is still introduced at the end of the Mars mission, placing its introduction at the end of ME3's first act.

Though, just for the sake of argument let's look at the Mass Effect trilogy as a whole. The Crucible is introduced in the seventh act or movement of a nine-act work. Each game follows a three-act structure, the Crucible is introduced in the first act of the third game. That places the Crucible's introduction no later than the end of the rising action, since even in the greater context of the trilogy itself ME3's second act is the sequential resolution of trilogy-spanning B-plots and its third act the resolution of the trilogy's dramatic question.

ME3 is not a short game. At the point of the Crucible's introduction the player is informed that it exists and what it is (an ancient superweapon that can defeat the Reapers); throughout ME3's second act leading up to ME3's and the trilogy's climax the player is informed in greater detail about what the Crucible is (a dark energy device), what it is supposed to do (defeat the Reapers), and most tellingly what about it is unknown (how it will defeat the Reapers). That exposition occurs consistently throughout approximately twenty-five hours of gameplay, giving the player ample time to acclimate themselves to the plot device and form clear, concise expectations of the Crucible as a plot device and what it will do. And at the end of the game, the Crucible is deployed in accordance with player expectations, and used to defeat the Reapers in accordance with player expectations; though, the choice of how the Crucible works is left to the player as per the final choice, also in accordance with player expectations as they are specifically informed throughout the game how it will work is unknown.

The definition of a deus ex machina -- even the ones you cited -- is that it is a new plot device, that is suddenly introduced, which unexpectedly resolves the dramatic question. At the time of ME3's climax, the Crucible is not new, it was not suddenly introduced, and it expectedly resolves the dramatic question. Not only is the description of a deus ex machina inconsistent with the Crucible and its role in ME3's story, it is contradictory. In the face of that contradiction, the only logical conclusion to draw is the Crucible is not a deus ex machina.

The Crucible is a MacGuffin. If you think it's a bad MacGuffin, please by all means go ahead and argue such. MacGuffins can be poor devices, too. What you cannot logically do is argue the Crucible is deus ex machina, because the nature of its introduction and the fact audience expectations regarding the Crucible and its role in the narrative are clearly, carefully, and concisely crafted over the course of twenty-five hours of gameplay explicitly and facially contradict the traits and description of deus ex machina. In fact, the only reason this is even somehow still a point is because certain individuals have it in their heads "deus ex machina is bad", and because they didn't like the Crucible it must be deus ex machina. Without putting thought one into the idea that perhaps a deus ex machina is merely a plot device with a bad rep, or that other plot devices can be bad too.

Which, in essence boils down to basing the definition of "deus ex machina" solely on the perceived contrivance of the plot device in question. So, at this point I will return to the point I made in the previous page of discussion,

humes spork wrote...

As to whether such a plot device is 'contrived', is entirely subjective. To say something is contrived is to make a statement ofopinion, in this case being the gamer felt their suspension of disbelief was broken. If the plot device in question -- the Crucible -- broke your suspension of disbelief, that is your subjective opinion opposed to objective truth. And by extension, both of your definitions hinge upon the contrivance of the plot device in question opposed to its place in the narrative structure; as such, any arguments whether or not the Crucible is deus ex machina stemming from that definition are matters of opinion and not objective truth.

Modifié par humes spork, 13 juillet 2012 - 05:26 .

[someguy1231]

Tealjaker94 wrote...

Well **** me. I guess you are the god of writing and know how people should write their villains. The Reapers being basically invincible is part of the story of Mass Effect. It makes the eventual triumph over them even sweeter.

No, it makes the eventual triumph over them feel hollow and contrived thanks to the inevitable deus ex machina...