293 réponses à ce sujet

[dreman9999]

AresKeith wrote...

they "borrowed" the Deus Ex endings, they "borrowed the Terminator logic for the Starbrat

Pre- ec. Yes it was .
Post -ec. No it's not.

[robertthebard]

TK514 wrote...

CronoDragoon wrote...

As you later state, this only accomplished getting us on par with a Reaper slave race. There's nothing to suggest that the Normandy could defeat Harbinger. That would be like saying Gondor could defeat Sauron conventionally just because Eowyn took out the Witch King at Pelennor.

By the same token, there's nothing to suggest that similarly upgraded warships wouldn't be able to defeat Harbinger.  There's nothing but what's in the cutscene and codex, which is why it's possible either way.

CronoDragoon wrote...
As for ME1, I haven't played it in months, but I don't recall anyone suggesting that conventional victory was possible, or that now that the Reapers could not use the Citadel to invade they now stood a chance. Throughout ME1 and ME2, it was always a matter of buying time.

The very last line of ME 1, regardless of who you choose for the Council, is that united, the Council races can defeat the Reapers and drive them back into Dark Space.  Given that everything in ME 1 is 'conventional warfare', up to and including the defeat of Sovereign, I'm not sure how you could interpret those words any other way.

CronoDragoon wrote...

The only thing I will agree on is that Javik seems to think that the diversity of the current cycle and their ability to work together "may be their only chance" against the Reapers, which is a nice sentiment but not one shared by anyone else. The rest of the galaxy thinks the Crucible is the only chance.

Untrue.  If that were the case, the Council would have stepped up to help with construction immediately.  Unlike Hackett, from the beginning the Council, and every individual race, view the Crucible as a theoretical device that has never worked before, can't be completed, and no one knows how to turn on.  It's right there in the first request Shepard makes to the Council.

"Earth needs help!"
"Why should we abandon our worlds and people to save Earth?"
"Because reasons!  and Prothean superweapon!"
"Does is work?"
"No."
"Well, thanks for the briefing.  Sorry to hear about Earth, but your race/planet is not more important than ours.  Good luck!"

In most cases, the Crucible resources are a side benefit to bringing a military force on board.  Not counting Mars, the only Crucible resources specific missions I can think of right off the top of my head before Priority: Thessia are planet scan missions or ME 2 character missions.  The majority of ME 3 is still about building military forces.  Which is pretty useless if you don't believe a conventional victory can be won.  You'd be better off cramming as many people as can be safely put on each ship and sending them off in random directions to random planets in the hopes that one or more of them can hide and survive the current Cycle.

That was a very bad paraphrase of the conversation.  It doesn't work because the Protheans didn't finish it, and that is explained, along with needing the Catalyst, which no one knows what it is.  It's another thing that always bothers me about the comparison between Conduit and Crucible, we don't know how the Crucible works, but we know what it's intended to do.  We have no idea what the Conduit is, or what it does, or is meant to do, but it's accepted as a good story line, despite meeting all the same preidentified criteria of the Crucible, which is dismissed out of hand as bad, due to what you finally learn about it from the Prothean VI at Cerberus HQ, and then of course for how it's handled.

Here's another glaring inconsistency, I guess, too:  "United, the Council races can defeat the Reapers and drive them back to Dark Space".  There's one problem with this philosophy, and it's made clear before you ever get to play ME 2 instead of watching movies, they are united in denying their existance.  Sovereign's "corpse" is barely cooling off, and they're patting themselves on the back celebrating victory.  They are doing nothing to prepare, because they believe the threat is dealt with, and this fact is driven home all the way into ME 3.  "It's the Reapers, and we're no where near ready for them".  Every leader in the Council races spent all that time with their heads buried in the sand, pretending the threat isn't real, instead of preparing for it.  As I said earlier, if they had prepared for it, we'd be better off, and that time would have been better spent in ME 2, while we're being unwilling terrorists, according to the rest of the Galaxy.

Then the harsh reality that is the Reapers hits, and demonstrates just how unprepared we are, and everybody is still holding out hope that Shepard can stop them.  The way the Alliance Council is presented in the Prequel to ME 3 fairly sums up how the threat has been treated for 3 years.  It's been ignored, and now, it's "That's our plan?".  I so wanted an option to say "No, our plan should have been spending the last three years getting ready for this, instead of relieving me of duty to assuage bruised egos, or Batarians", depending on Arrival or not, "and we didn't do it.  Now you expect me to pull a rabbit out of my hat to fix it".

[BeastSaver]

Voiceacted a Husk wrote...

Such was the problem with having the Reapers invade, odd as it seems.

I mean, we needed the Crucible and its instant-win button to defeat the Reapers, and that was when they acted like IDIOTS. I'd argue that we could've beaten them conventionally because they acted like first-time invaders.

What's worked for them every single cycle? Hit the CITADEL, ISOLATE races, SYSTEMATICALLY destroy everything.

They threw all that out the window for no reason whatsoever. If they hadn't and had followed their previous plan, then conventional victory would've been impossible the instant Bioware came out with the Arrival DLC and established that the Reapers weren't actually "trapped in dark space", as Vigil had told us, but that they were...lazy.

The dumbing-down of the Reapers began long before the Catalyst.

This was Vigil's supposition. Why it assumed that the Reapers had no way of traveling from the void between galaxies when they can move from system to system using FTL is flawed logic. Here is the transcribed text from the Watcher's Chamber:


"It is logical to assume the Reapers would leave one of their own behind after each extinction, a sentinel to pave the way for their inevitable return. Like those in dark space, Sovereign probably spent most of the last 50,000 years in a state of hibernation. Periodically, it would wake to analyze the situation. Keeping its existence hidden, it would evaluate the state of the galactic civilization. And, when the time was right, it would signal the Citadel and usher in the next Reaper invasion. But this time the signal failed. The keepers did not respond. Sovereign’s allies were trapped in the void. Alone, it was forced to try and discover what had gone wrong."

[Blueprotoss]

Greylycantrope wrote...

1.Being inspired by a concept while adding you own thoughts and ideas to it is one thing, blatantly using essentially the same concept and resolution as someone else is plagiarism. 

This is a huge straw-mann based on most of the stories in every medium has either borrowed or shared ideas, which wold make plagiarism a semantic.

Greylycantrope wrote... 

 
2.They're not difficult to understand, they're very simple, and to me intellectually insulting. 

Yet you're insulting people.

Greylycantrope wrote... 

3. I have no hope the ending will be changed at this point but I will voice my discontent for as long as I care to in the hopes that they learn from this, or until I feel better/lose interest completely which ever comes first.

All you're doing by being deconstructive is to prove how meaningless and useless your points are based on how ME was designed for millions of people not a small group of people.

[robertthebard]

Kamfrenchie wrote...

robertthebard wrote...

Isn't it convenient that, after being caught with his hand in the cookie jar, it's a rogue cell?  Was it also rogue cells in ME 1?  This question is kind of a trap, because if TIM has that little control over what his organization is doing, I really don't want him having control of the Collector Base, and, quite frankly, I made my initial decision to destroy the Reaper base, my default choice btw, based entirely on events in ME 1 and 2.  No metagaming necessary, or possible, since I hadn't played ME 3 yet.  Turning that base over to Cerberus does not equal helping the war effort, at that point in the game, and gives what, 10 points to ME 3?  It's not worth sacrificing my principles, or going against my own feelings about Cerberus, to that point in the games, which is why I made that decision in my first playthrough, with no prior knowledge to consequences in ME 3.

Since a non-import game of ME 3 indicates that you did save the Collector base, where's all that intel to make fighting them easier?  It seems that your logic is faulty, in that Cerberus keeps that information for themselves, as I suspected they would, and turns it to more "sinister" ends.  Pretty much following up on the "rogue cell's" actions with Jack that are laid out in ME 2.  Isn't that funny?

I don't think there is any direct evidence linking TIM to what happened to Jack, if I remember right there are even logs that confir his versions, with scientists saying they don't need TIM's approval, o that they could take TIM's pace, I don't remember clearly

Err, you are metagaming since you talk about the points,and how ME3 happen (well here you see in the future). From Shepard's perspective, if he destroy thebase, he misses a huge oportunity to help beat the reaper, and at that moment, it is reasonnable to believe keping the base would help a lot

Besides, this choice don't matter at all in ME3, like many others.

But even taking in account how power hungry TIM could be, the reapers are the biggest threat. And shep an't fford o be picky when the official powers poltely gave him the finger.

In WW2, the US "recruited" and fogave naazis (intentional mispelling) scientists for th nuclear bomb, because they knew the USSR would become too powerful.

BUt hey, lemme make a dangerous metaphor. If I must face a galactic threat, that I have very low chances and the only person that can give me a good chance of defeating it happens to be a ****i, I'll take his help, even if in the end he gets some profit out of it. I can always try and deal with him later, while if i fail, the galaxy is gone.
That doesn't mean I'll be happy about it, but you know, to some extend, the end jutifie the means. f no one else want to help me, what's my choice ?

The biggest threat comes first. Especially when you get such an opportunity.

Here's the problem with that whole theory about Jack's origin:  They started out following orders.  At what point are we supposed to believe that, in an abandoned facility, TIM didn't have the logs doctored to try to dissuade Shepard of his involvement?  Again, you cannot metagame knowledge that you don't have.  When I played ME 2 the first time, and destroyed the Collector Base, actually the first few times, I didn't own ME 3, and couldn't know what would happen because I didn't start coming here until after I'd beaten ME 3 the first time.  I tend to do that with new games, until I've played them at least once.  Especially if I'm going to be talking in the Spoiler forum, since a) I don't want to be spoiled, and even if nobody agrees with what my interpretation of something is, if I've never experienced it, I really can't say what I think.  So we can lose the nonsense about metagaming.  I thought I had made this clear in my other post, but I'll reiterate it here, just in case.

[Blueprotoss]

AresKeith wrote...

they "borrowed" the Deus Ex endings, they "borrowed the Terminator logic for the Starbrat

I'm pretty sure you haven't read or watch 2001: A Space Odessey or I, Robot.

Kamfrenchie wrote...

deus ex machinas are bad writing, it's the very definition of it.

Oh, wait, you're blue protoss, you're ging to employ a ton of yet, tell me it's opinion, and whtnot.

That DEM "happen" often or no does not mke it any more valid. DEM are typical sign of a writer writin himself int a corner

Yet writing is subjective and insulting people based on opinion or facts is useless. 

[AresKeith]

dreman9999 wrote...

AresKeith wrote...

they "borrowed" the Deus Ex endings, they "borrowed the Terminator logic for the Starbrat

Pre- ec. Yes it was .
Post -ec. No it's not.

Post EC was the samething with extra scenes plus the 4 option which is from DE:HR

[CronoDragoon]

TK514 wrote...

By the same token, there's nothing to suggest that similarly upgraded warships wouldn't be able to defeat Harbinger.  There's nothing but what's in the cutscene and codex, which is why it's possible either way.

The Codex says that it takes 5 dreadnaughts to take out a Harbinger-class Reaper. Does the Normandy have the firepower and armor of 5 dreadnaughts?

The very last line of ME 1, regardless of who you choose for the Council, is that united, the Council races can defeat the Reapers and drive them back into Dark Space.  Given that everything in ME 1 is 'conventional warfare', up to and including the defeat of Sovereign, I'm not sure how you could interpret those words any other way.

The Council races DID unite and defeat the Reapers. You are choosing to interpet that as "our ships against theirs can win" when the real reason they won was Vigil.

Untrue.  If that were the case, the Council would have stepped up to help with construction immediately.  Unlike Hackett, from the beginning the Council, and every individual race, view the Crucible as a theoretical device that has never worked before, can't be completed, and no one knows how to turn on.  It's right there in the first request Shepard makes to the Council.

"Earth needs help!"
"Why should we abandon our worlds and people to save Earth?"
"Because reasons!  and Prothean superweapon!"
"Does is work?"
"No."
"Well, thanks for the briefing.  Sorry to hear about Earth, but your race/planet is not more important than ours.  Good luck!"

In most cases, the Crucible resources are a side benefit to bringing a military force on board.  Not counting Mars, the only Crucible resources specific missions I can think of right off the top of my head before Priority: Thessia are planet scan missions or ME 2 character missions.  The majority of ME 3 is still about building military forces.  Which is pretty useless if you don't believe a conventional victory can be won.  You'd be better off cramming as many people as can be safely put on each ship and sending them off in random directions to random planets in the hopes that one or more of them can hide and survive the current Cycle.

Without that military force, you would not have been able to dock the Crucible in the battle for Earth. Both a unified galaxy AND the Crucible were required for the plan to work. Without both, we were doomed. We got both. Just because you believe a military force was the ONLY thing that should have been required does not mean it serves no purpose in the current game. Guess what happens at Earth without a unified galaxy? We warp in the Crucible, Reapers see it and blow it up. Game over, man.

The Council refused to offer support because otherwise their planets would have been lost immediately; it does not follow that they believed they could win conventionally.

[Nashiktal]

Stornskar wrote...

Doctor_Jackstraw wrote...

MetioricTest wrote...

The discovery of the Atomic Bomb was an I win button for America, are you saying World War 2 was a bad story?

What? I don't even know where to respond to that. It has nothing to do with anything.

It's a sinfully simple allegory.  The crucible is to the atomic bomb what the war with the reapers was to World War 2.  

American Scientists discovered how to create a bomb capable of destroying major cities in an instant, this was detonated over Hiroshima to end world war 2.
Liara discovered how to create a bomb capable of destroying the reapers all at once.  This was detonated over planet earth to end the war with the reapers.

how is that hard to understand?  Its the exact same thing.  ME3 is a World War 2 story.  Casey hudson said this like a million times before the game came out.  The crucible is even shaped like the atomic bomb that ended world war 2.  I recognized what they were going for the instant I saw the Crucible (its a bomb) because I know my history.

So we're making an analogy to a project which was investigating the feasibility of harnessing the power of the atomic binding force - which was known about in the 1800s - to the Crucible, which was unknown until we happened to stumble upon the schematics at the 11th hour, the purpose of which we had no idea until after it was built ... am I getting this right?

Don't forget that conventional defeat of the Japanese was always possible. Just at a staggering high cost of both American and Japanese life. It would have been harder, much more difficult, and would be a constant uphill battle where the terrain and citizenship would always be against them, but the japanese defeat and surrender was always in sight.

The bomb was an I-Win button. But it was one balanced against the costs, (a highly debated choice.) It was also a buildup of centuries of study, progress on the bomb was steady, and it wasn't just "discovered" at the end of the war.

Even then if the emperor hadn't managed to get his surrender message out, the military would have continued fighting. The previous firebombing had done more damage than the atomic bomb (and the japanese either ignored or were ignorant of long term radiation damage) and thus were less impressed with the bomb than the empereror was.

Edit: One more thing I forgot to mention. Russia would have helped the united states invade Japan. Yet another factor in why Japan was doomed. 

Modifié par Nashiktal, 19 juillet 2012 - 08:21 .

[Seival]

Blueprotoss wrote...

Greylycantrope wrote...

1.Being inspired by a concept while adding you own thoughts and ideas to it is one thing, blatantly using essentially the same concept and resolution as someone else is plagiarism. 

This is a huge straw-mann based on most of the stories in every medium has either borrowed or shared ideas, which wold make plagiarism a semantic.

Greylycantrope wrote... 

 
2.They're not difficult to understand, they're very simple, and to me intellectually insulting. 

Yet you're insulting people.

Greylycantrope wrote... 

3. I have no hope the ending will be changed at this point but I will voice my discontent for as long as I care to in the hopes that they learn from this, or until I feel better/lose interest completely which ever comes first.

All you're doing by being deconstructive is to prove how meaningless and useless your points are based on how ME was designed for millions of people not a small group of people.

+1

[Blueprotoss]

AresKeith wrote...

Post EC was the samething with extra scenes plus the 4 option which is from DE:HR

Yet you forget that wasn't Deus Ex the 1st to do that especially when you're looking at HR.

[AresKeith]

Blueprotoss wrote...

AresKeith wrote...

Post EC was the samething with extra scenes plus the 4 option which is from DE:HR

Yet you forget that wasn't Deus Ex the 1st to do that especially when you're looking at HR.

it may not have been the first, ME borrrowed it for them

[Blueprotoss]

Nashiktal wrote...

Don't forget that conventional defeat of the Japanese was always possible. Just at a staggering high cost of both American and Japanese life. It would have been harder, much more difficult, and would be a constant uphill battle where the terrain and citizenship would always be against them, but the japanese defeat and surrender was always in sight.

The bomb was an I-Win button. But it was one balanced against the costs, (a highly debated choice.) It was also a buildup of centuries of study, progress on the bomb was steady, and it wasn't just "discovered" at the end of the war.

Even then if the emperor hadn't managed to get his surrender message out, the military would have continued fighting. The previous firebombing had done more damage than the atomic bomb (and the japanese either ignored or were ignorant of long term radiation damage) and thus were less impressed with the bomb than the empereror was.

Edit: One more thing I forgot to mention. Russia would have helped the united states invade Japan. Yet another factor in why Japan was doomed. 

This is very true and on the 1st day of the invasion of Japan would have been greater then the entire operation of D-Day.

Modifié par Blueprotoss, 19 juillet 2012 - 08:23 .

[Blueprotoss]

AresKeith wrote...

Blueprotoss wrote...

AresKeith wrote...

Post EC was the samething with extra scenes plus the 4 option which is from DE:HR

Yet you forget that wasn't Deus Ex the 1st to do that especially when you're looking at HR.

it may not have been the first, ME borrrowed it for them

That isn't true at all just like you said the Star Child was borrowed from Terminator.  Two wrongs don't make a right.

Modifié par Blueprotoss, 19 juillet 2012 - 08:25 .

[AresKeith]

Blueprotoss wrote...

AresKeith wrote...

Blueprotoss wrote...

AresKeith wrote...

Post EC was the samething with extra scenes plus the 4 option which is from DE:HR

Yet you forget that wasn't Deus Ex the 1st to do that especially when you're looking at HR.

it may not have been the first, ME borrrowed it for them

That isn't true at all just like you said the Star Child was borrowed from Terminator.  Two wrongs don't make a right.

first off learn to read I said his flawed logic basically was the Terminator logic, and there is a difference from borrowing ideas and inspiring ideas

[plfranke]

I like what the OP is saying. While uniting the fleets together, standing by itself, may have not been enough to defeat the Reapers, all of the little things he mentioned could come together could have done it. TIM could have found a way to disrupt Reaper control signals to ground forces. The Asari could have shared knowledge of Prothean beacons revealing Reaper strategies. Resources that went to the Crucible could have been used to create new upgrades for guns/ships/etc...

Instead several things over the course of the game were so organized against the player it was almost ridiculous. It made no sense why the Salarians wouldn't work with you, yeah they might not agree with what you're doing but they're going to die if they don't help it doesn't make sense. The Geth allying with the Reapers go against everything we learned about Geth in the second game, for that matter it made little sense for the Quarians to pick the time when the Reapers invade to attack. All that diplomacy nonsense should have been shaved from the game and it should have been about searching for upgrades and disrupting the Reapers at every step. Unfortunately it's time to accept what we got... Artistic Integrity

[What a Succulent Ass]

I agree with you, OP, but this thread is a bit pointless, being self-evident and all. The claim that "it couldn't have been written any other way" is just utter horse****, especially since the devs themselves admitted they made up all of ME3's plot well after ME2 was completed.

Modifié par Random Jerkface, 19 juillet 2012 - 11:08 .

[J.Random]

Crap Art

Modifié par J.Random, 19 juillet 2012 - 08:41 .

[Blueprotoss]

[quote]AresKeith wrote...

[quote]Blueprotoss wrote...

it may not have been the first, ME borrrowed it for them[/quote]That isn't true at all just like you said the Star Child was borrowed from Terminator.  Two wrongs don't make a right.
[/quote]

first off learn to read I said his flawed logic basically was the Terminator logic, and there is a difference from borrowing ideas and inspiring ideas[/quote]
You're still using a red herring here.

Modifié par Blueprotoss, 19 juillet 2012 - 08:45 .

[GreyLycanTrope]

Blueprotoss wrote...

This is a huge straw-mann based on most of the stories in every medium has either borrowed or shared ideas, which wold make plagiarism a semantic.

I'm not sure what point you're trying to make about semantics but
No this is a straw man:
Person A has position X.
Person B disregards certain key points of X and instead presents the superficially similar position Y
Person B attacks position Y, concluding that X is false/incorrect/flawed.

I disregarded nothing.

Yet you're insulting people.

I'm insulting the written work, not people.

All you're doing by being deconstructive is to prove how meaningless and useless your points are based on how ME was designed for millions of people not a small group of people.

I'm beign decontructive to point out the faults with a product which was designed for millions of people, myself included, but failed to deliver in terms of quality. My points are not meaningless or useless, they exist to encourage the better quality of products by this developer in the future.

Modifié par Greylycantrope, 19 juillet 2012 - 09:01 .

[robertthebard]

Greylycantrope wrote...

Blueprotoss wrote...

This is a huge straw-mann based on most of the stories in every medium has either borrowed or shared ideas, which wold make plagiarism a semantic.

I'm not sure what point you're trying to make about semantics but
No this is a straw man:
Person A has position X.
Person B disregards certain key points of X and instead presents the superficially similar position Y
Person B attacks position Y, concluding that X is false/incorrect/flawed.

I disregarded nothing.

Yet you're insulting people.

I'm insulting the written work, not people.

All you're doing by being deconstructive is to prove how meaningless and useless your points are based on how ME was designed for millions of people not a small group of people.

I'm beign decontructive to point out the faults with a product which was designed for millions of people, myself included, but failed to deliver in terms of quality. My points are not meaningless or useless, they exist to encourage the better quality of products by this developer in the future.

I could buy that, in the first month, maybe the first two months, but now, it just seems like I should sign every post I make with "Alsitair called, and he wants his box of Kleenex back".

[Ghurshog]

MetioricTest wrote...

Now first off this isn't an ending topic. I'm not saying I want a convential victory or it should be included in DLC or anything like that. I frankly didn't and don't care how the end of the war went down so long as it was told well.

But since this whole "conventional victory" stuff popping up recently (I think some people are calling it the new IT) I've seen literally hundreds of people declare that it is and always was impossible, presented as such since the first game.

And to that I say bull****.

If victory was an impossibility and pointless to attempt until Liara found the crucible plans on the floor at the start of the game. Why did it matter that the council refused to believe the Reaper threat? Why was that dramatic? **** it, if defeat at the hands of Reapers was assured unless someone stumbles over an "I win" button, we may as well deny Reaper existance and die in happiness instead of long drawn out agonizing death. Hell the stumbling part can happen either way (as indeed it did)

What's the relevance of bringing Shepard back to life and stopping the Collectors from abducting human colonies? Saving a few lives? We'd save even more if we took all the resources/time/effort we spent into doing that and instead put it into curing dieases and giving it to hospitals.

Why does it matter whether or not we save Toombs? Take down the Shadow Broker? 

What's the dramatic value in anything, anything at all if at absolute best all it means is "Well, at least we'll go down swinging a little bit more when we all die." That's terrible... The point always was working towards the ultimate goal of defeating the Reapers.

Now don't misunderstand my point here. I'll repeat I'm not saying this as a "And so they should have made it an option!" I'm saying "Within the context of the story it should have been possible or else the story loses a lot of meaning and drama."

The entire trilogy and ME3 especially is so much stronger if:
"We could have beaten the Reapers If only.... The council listened two years ago."
"We could have beaten the Reapers if only.... We would unify our fleets, even at the cost of our homeworld's security."
"We could have beaten the Reapers if only.... The Asari had shared knowledge of the prothean beacon."
"We could have beaten the Reapers if only.... The Batarians had been more cooperative."
"We could have beaten the Reapers if only.... Miranda's butt wasn't distracting the admirals."
"We could have beaten the Reapers if only.... TIM's obsession didn't lead him to indoctrination and he had worked with us."
Etc.
And now we have to fall back on this desperate crucible plan because of the folly of man.

As opposed to:
"Never had a chance. Good thing Liara found those plans 5 minutes ago."

Just my thoughts. In my "headcannon" or whatever (I don't like that term for some reason) defeating the Reapers was always possible. It just was never realized due to arrogance and denial.  I find that to be a much more powerful and moral story than "We were always ****ed but then we discovered the Death Star."

The presumtion is false. If in 2 years the species of galaxy can build a superweapon then the first 2 ME games are not falsified. You simply say 'we just got our prototype done, lets go shoot some space squids".

See Heavy Weapon - Cain "one shot takes down Destroyer Reaper" 

The M-920 Cain is a portable particle accelerator surrounding an array of dust-form element zero chambers. This weapon prototype subjects its eezo to extreme positive and negative currents to project mass effect fields. By increasing and decreasing mass, the fields shear the target's mass the way disruptor torpedoes do. The shearing fields collide ambient materials at such high speeds, they create mushroom clouds, an effect otherwise impossible on the small scale. The weapon induces neither fission nor fusion in non-nuclear targets, and its own nuclear reactions are shielded by lead alloys. The M-920 Cain uses graphite rods as neutron moderators, which require frequent replacement to sustain power. Fortunately, most heavy weapon ammunition can be re-fabricated via omni-tool into graphite rods.

See Heavy Weapon - Blackstar (any squids that land on a planet go squish) 

The Reaper weapon nicknamed "Blackstar" is so advanced that Alliance scientists can only offer speculation about how it works. The gun appears to exploit an element zero and mass effect fields to fire gravitational singularities--micro black holes--that revert to their natural lethality when they impact a solid object. Researchers theorize that the blast tears apart the strong nuclear forces that hold the target's atoms together, resulting in a localized fusion reaction in light atoms and a fission reaction in heavy atoms. If that hypothesis is correct, the weapon alters nuclei, thus changing the chemical composition of the target. It destroys organic tissue, corrodes surviving armor, and leaves a visible trail of light-emitting particles.Although some might argue that the Blackstar's single-launch capability makes it a liability, its capacity for utter destruction is essential when the user requires large-scale, instantaneous damage.

So don't tell me a 'convential victory is not possible' of coarse it is. (is it contradictory and bad writing? Yes)

Modifié par Ghurshog, 19 juillet 2012 - 10:09 .

[TK514]

CronoDragoon wrote...

The Codex says that it takes 5 dreadnaughts to take out a Harbinger-class Reaper. Does the Normandy have the firepower and armor of 5 dreadnaughts?

I'm not sure what you're getting at.  I wasn't suggesting that the Normandy would have the power of 4 (the Codex number) dreadnaughts.  I was, however, suggesting that a similarly upgraded dreadnaught might change the 4 to 1 number considerably.  But since we never see it, we don't know.

What we do know is that the upgraded Normandy, an advanced frigate, is more than a match for a Cruiser with tech more advanced than what a similar displacement alliance vessel would have.  And since Alliance cruisers can go 1 to 1 with Destroyers, I would expect the Normandy to take out a Destroyer with ease.

CronoDragoon wrote...

The Council races DID unite and defeat the Reapers. You are choosing to interpet that as "our ships against theirs can win" when the real reason they won was Vigil.

I apologize, but I'm not sure what you're saying here.  How was Vigil responsible for their victory?  As far as I recall, Vigil's purpose was exposition on the fate of the Protheans, the function of the Citadel, and the explanation of the Conduit.  And I'm not sure how you can interpret 'drive the Reapers back into Dark Space' as anything but a conventional war, given the information we have pretty much right up until the end of ME 3.

CronoDragoon wrote...

Without that military force, you would not have been able to dock the Crucible in the battle for Earth. Both a unified galaxy AND the Crucible were required for the plan to work. Without both, we were doomed. We got both. Just because you believe a military force was the ONLY thing that should have been required does not mean it serves no purpose in the current game. Guess what happens at Earth without a unified galaxy? We warp in the Crucible, Reapers see it and blow it up. Game over, man.

The Council refused to offer support because otherwise their planets would have been lost immediately; it does not follow that they believed they could win conventionally.

An after the fact justification that is irrelevant.  There was no 'plan' for the Crucible other than to build it and hope something happened.  It was the most outrageous Hail Mary in the history of ever.  There is absolutely no way you can justify saying Shepard was flying around the galaxy gathering military forces to escort the Crucible when A)  There was no reason to expect it would ever be functional and No reason to believe they would have to escort it anywhere.  It is not until Priority: Thessia that there's any indication that the Catalyst might still exist, and not until Vendetta tells Shep that the Reapers have moved the Citadel to Earth at the end of the assault on the Cerberus base that there is any reason to believe the Crucible will need to be moved, much less moved into an enemy occupied system.

In fact, had TIM not informed the Reapers of the Crucible, there would have been no need for a fleet at all as the Reapers had avoided Citadel space for the entire game and the Crucible could have been flown in with the minimal Alliance escort we see in the various cutscenes, and only because they happened to be there anyway.

There's also Shepard's (and Hackett's, and Anderson's) explicitly stated reasons for seeking help from the other races.  They say, outright, that they want military assistance to Take Back Earth.  Not 'escort theoretical superweapon to the vicinity of Earth'.  In fact, at one point Hackett tells Shepard that he needs soldiers, and if Shep can't get him soldiers at least try to get him someone who can swing a hammer.  You don't prioritize military assets if what you're trying to do is build an experiemental superweapon and figure out if you can hotwire it to work.  You prioritize scientists and engineers and the necessary building materials.

But forget Shepard and Hackett for a moment.  If no one believes that any sort of conventional victory is possible, then what possible purpose could the Turians have for wanting the Krogan?  Why would anyone in their right mind expend the time and resources to:

• Have a summit to discuss combining military forces
• Invite the Krogan to the summit
• Retrieve the Krogan female
• Save Tuchanka from a planet killing bomb
• Cure the genophage (or go through the motions)
• Transport shiploads of Krogan across the galaxy

if they don't believe it will have a positive outcome in the end?  What were the Turians planning to do if not win?  Point and laugh at the Krogan and say "Ha ha, fooled you again, now we won't die alone?" 

And what were we, as players, expected to believe?  That'd we'd just wasted 10+ hours on something that wouldn't matter?  "Oh, well, I know I just spent all that time curing the genophage and watching Mordin die and having an epic Thresher Maw moment, but it'll all be meaningless in the endgame.  Palaven is still going to get Reaped and all those Krogan and Turians are going to die for nothing.  We should totally be expecting the superweapon we know nothing about to completely render conventional forces useless and make all this meaningless once we figure out how to turn it on."

I don't think so.  As players, and as followers of the narrative, there is every reason to believe, based on what we have experienced through all three games, that conventional victory, or at least victory on our terms, is possible. 

ME 1:  The Council wasted a lot of time, but hey!  Victory against the odds, and buying the galaxy time in the end.  Stirring speech about kicking the Reapers back into Dark Space!  We Rock!

ME 2:  Well, the Council has mostly wasted the time we bought, but some things have moved forward.  We have new weapons and defensive tech, new information on the Reapers themselves, and, hey, we beat impossible odds on our terms again!  As a bonus we bought the galaxy another repreive at the low low cost of 300,000 batarian lives, and got to tell Harbinger off directly.  Rock ON!

ME 3:  The Council still wasted the time we gave them, big surprise.  Well, they wasted time in 1, and we won on our terms anyhow.  They wasted time in 2 and we won on our terms anyhow.  Heck, we've come out on top of every challenge so far save one, and that was a temporary setback that ended with Shep taking an omniblade to the guy.  We've even fought our way through Banshee and Brute infested London, killing two Reaper Destroyers along the way.  We should totally expect a complete shift from empowered badass to confused dupe in the last 10 minutes of the trilogy, and only be able to achieve a victory that the thing claiming to be the head of the Reapers says is ok.  Yeah, THAT'S what we should have expected based on the story so far. 

And I can totally see how that doesn't invalidate ME 1, 2, and most of 3. Oh, wait ,no I can't.

What it actually does is invalidate everything in 1 except recruiting Liara and putting the a select few people on notice that there's a bad thing coming. 

Then it makes everything in 2 meaningless.  Stopping the collectors?  Big deal.  Finding out new info on the Reapers?  Not necessary.  Upgraded weapons and defensive technology?  Doesn't matter.  Recruiting some of the best and brightest in the Galaxy?  No point.  Buying the galaxy just a little more time?  Ha.  Even if it hadn't been wasted, you'd have lost if you had 3 more decades and used every moment of it wisely.

And Three?  If you cut out every major mission after Priority: Mars but before Priority: Thessia, it would have made no difference to the outcome from a story perspective.

[Ice Eyes]

You can not comprehend the magnitude of the Reapers' presence!

To quote Sovereign: "Confidence born of ignorance."

[tangalin]

Krunjar wrote...

Honestly I don't think so. It took Sovereign managed to chew it's way through 30% of the alliance fleet with it's shields down and its posterior hanging in the wind. And as numbers go up the power of individuals rise as well.

Actually it was only the arcturus fleet (also known as the Fifth fleet) and the citadel defense fleet versus not only sovereign, but also a massive geth armada. So a reaper is not as powerful as people seem to think they are.