80611 réponses à ce sujet

[paxxton]

Andromidius wrote...

paxxton wrote...

CoolioThane wrote...

I don't know. I think with the IT DLC we'll get something happen that means the Reapers become weaker and easier to take out. I think with all of the resources we have with regards to "EMS" we could stand a chance of conventional victory based solely off of what actually occurs with regards to the Crucible.

I'm inclined to think that the IT DLC will feature the simplest solution. Shepard wakes up from the attempted indoctrination and continues onto the real Citadel where he opens the arms. The Crucible docks and fires. And everyone lived happily ever after. The End. Somewhere in between there's going to be a boss fight or even two.

Not exactly what I'd like but it's quite reasonable to anticipate that.

Though that would essentially make the whole plot pointless if we just go and do exactly the same thing that happened in the hallucination.

It would still have all the problems with it being a Deus Ex Machina, Reaper Off Button and Space Magic.

I didn't say what we see and do before the Crucible fires would be the same. The surroundings will be different, more believable. There won't be any Starchilds whatsoever. But the general principle of having to travel with the beam onto the Citadel, making the Crucible dock and then activating it is something that is unavoidable should BioWare choose to go with this idea.

Modifié par paxxton, 14 décembre 2012 - 04:40 .

[Raistlin Majare 1992]

BleedingUranium wrote...

A couple dozen fighters against a Death Star? Lord of the Rings does this multiple times. Take your pick, in fiction this is always what happens.

Regarding Lord of the Rings, the situation is usualy not so much they beat the impossible as it is the good guys mounting a desperate defense (which would have crumbled in time) until reinforcements or some other event turns the tide on the enemy.

It is always an outside force, wether reinforcements or the destruction of the Ring which wins them the day, it is rarely the actual force present at the battle's start.

Using that in Mass Effect terms would mean we need to get a suprise reinforcement from nowhere...problem is that reinforcement cannot come from anywhere. We have scoured the galaxy clean of mercenaries, secret hidden races and every single major ally. There is no suprise reinforcements which can come to our aid, what we go in with is what we got.

The Death Star is true, but they exploited a critical flaw in the Death Star's design to pull it of. We dont have such an advantaage regarding the Reapers.

Also for reference I count about 200 Sovereign class Reapers at Earth. That would mean we would need about 600-800 Dreadnoughts to match them in direct firepower...yeah, not happening.

[Rifneno]

Xd2delo wrote...

Rifneno wrote...

BleedingUranium wrote...

RavenEyry wrote...

Even if thers's only 50 reapers conventional victory isn't possible. It's simple numbers.

What? No way, we'd crush them.

All Council races combined had 85 dreadnoughts before the war.  Multiple dreadnoughts have been destroyed in the war.  It takes 3-4 dreadnoughts to bring down ONE capital ship.  Look at the galaxy map.  See those things it's covered with?  Those are Reaper capital ships.  Now go to Earth!  See all those squid bastards?  Probably hundreds of them?  Those are Reaper capital ships.

Your idea is bad, and you should feel bad about being bad.

That would appear to create an infinite loop of badness. 
10 feel bad
20 if feel = bad then goto 10

In terms of the math, let's assume there are 1000 Sovereign class Reapers; that assumption may be off but it's clearly > 50 and less than billions.

It takes 3-4 dreadnoughts to bring down 1 Sovereign class.  But a Sovereign class can only be constructed at the consummation of  cycle.  Construction of a dreadnaught presumably takes much less time.  So if we can hold out long enough, attrition is our friend.  Of course, holding out long enough to build 3-4,000 dreadnaughts might be tricky.  Our economic resources are limited and diminishing.

So what might ameliorate that?  A couple things: technological advancement from studying reaper casualties (maybe we get down to a 2:1 ratio!), and the fact that, presumably, those dreadnaught numbers were kept artificially low by naval treaties (a la this: http://history.state...NavalConference check out the Five-Power treaty for the relevant part).

EDIT: Not saying conventional victory is possible, just trying to structure the discussion slightly.

The Protheans tried the attrition thing.  It, uhh, didn't end well.

[paxxton]

ThisOneIsPunny wrote...

MegumiAzusa wrote...

paxxton wrote...

CoolioThane wrote...

I don't know. I think with the IT DLC we'll get something happen that means the Reapers become weaker and easier to take out. I think with all of the resources we have with regards to "EMS" we could stand a chance of conventional victory based solely off of what actually occurs with regards to the Crucible.

I'm inclined to think that the IT DLC will feature the simplest solution. Shepard wakes up from the attempted indoctrination and continues onto the real Citadel where he opens the arms. The Crucible docks and fires. And everyone lived happily ever after. The End. Somewhere in between there's going to be a boss fight or even two.

Not exactly what I'd like but it's quite reasonable to anticipate that.

Or Shep is waking up seeing Harby teebagging her.

That might be a little more than just soul crushing. 

And FOX would go crazy.

[CoolioThane]

Raistlin Majare 1992 wrote...

BleedingUranium wrote...

A couple dozen fighters against a Death Star? Lord of the Rings does this multiple times. Take your pick, in fiction this is always what happens.

Regarding Lord of the Rings, the situation is usualy not so much they beat the impossible as it is the good guys mounting a desperate defense (which would have crumbled in time) until reinforcements or some other event turns the tide on the enemy.

It is always an outside force, wether reinforcements or the destruction of the Ring which wins them the day, it is rarely the actual force present at the battle's start.

Using that in Mass Effect terms would mean we need to get a suprise reinforcement from nowhere...problem is that reinforcement cannot come from anywhere. We have scoured the galaxy clean of mercenaries, secret hidden races and every single major ally. There is no suprise reinforcements which can come to our aid, what we go in with is what we got.

The Death Star is true, but they exploited a critical flaw in the Death Star's design to pull it of. We dont have such an advantaage regarding the Reapers.

Also for reference I count about 200 Sovereign class Reapers at Earth. That would mean we would need about 600-800 Dreadnoughts to match them in direct firepower...yeah, not happening.

Unless the Crucible reacts with the Citadel to form some kind of Relay which allows a hidden species or some **** to come through and help fight back the Reapers?

It's feasible to suggest there are some hidden things still in the Galaxy, or even in other dark space.

I'm just spitballing here.

[ElSuperGecko]

RavenEyry wrote...
Reapers don't have a simple weakpoint to exploit or it'd have been done by now.

Destroy the controlling AI, stop the Reapers.

Or destroy Harbinger, destroy the Reapers. 

one does not simply destroy the Harbinger... /Boromir

Edit:  Actually, let's follow that logic for a little bit and see where it takes us, because that's potentially quite interesting in my opinion.

The StarBrat tells us that it controls and directs the Reapers.  "They are my solution".

So, destroy the StarBrat, and the Reapers will no longer be controlled.  They will no longer have direction.  What then?

So, how to destroy StarBrat?  Destroy the Citadel, maybe?

Modifié par ElSuperGecko, 14 décembre 2012 - 04:35 .

[Raistlin Majare 1992]

ElSuperGecko wrote...

RavenEyry wrote...
Reapers don't have a simple weakpoint to exploit or it'd have been done by now.

Destroy the controlling AI, stop the Reapers.

Or destroy Harbinger, destroy the Reapers. 


one does not simply destroy the Harbinger... /Boromir

That is presumming Harbinger is controlling them (which Sovereign is directly against). He might be the leader, but in all likelyhood the Reapers programming goes deeper than a signal emitted by Harbinger (which would be like the oldest Robot Army Cliche ever).

It might disorient them for a bit (big might) but in all likelyhood the loyalty to the cycle goes deeper than just Harbinger's wishes, like programming or indoctrination.

[RavenEyry]

ElSuperGecko wrote...

RavenEyry wrote...
Reapers don't have a simple weakpoint to exploit or it'd have been done by now.

Destroy the controlling AI, stop the Reapers.

Or destroy Harbinger, destroy the Reapers. 

one does not simply destroy the Harbinger... /Boromir

Edit:  Actually, let's follow that logic for a little bit and see where it takes us, because that's potentially quite interesting in my opinion.

The StarBrat tells us that it controls and directs the Reapers.  "They are my solution".

So, destroy the StarBrat, and the Reapers will no longer be controlled.  They will no longer have direction.  What then?

So, how to destroy StarBrat?  Destroy the Citadel, maybe?

Of course that requires Mr. Sparkle to both be real and honest, but if so, yeah, I suppose.

[DoomsdayDevice]

ElSuperGecko wrote...

RavenEyry wrote...
Reapers don't have a simple weakpoint to exploit or it'd have been done by now.

Destroy the controlling AI, stop the Reapers.

Or destroy Harbinger, destroy the Reapers. 

one does not simply destroy the Harbinger... /Boromir

Edit:  Actually, let's follow that logic for a little bit and see where it takes us, because that's potentially quite interesting in my opinion.

The StarBrat tells us that it controls and directs the Reapers.  "They are my solution".

So, destroy the StarBrat, and the Reapers will no longer be controlled.  They will no longer have direction.  What then?

So, how to destroy StarBrat?  Destroy the Citadel, maybe?

Remember how Sovereign lost his shields when losing control of Saren? That flaw is said to be no longer present in newer Reapers, however: Harbinger is the oldest.

Perhaps Shepard resisting the mind control will cause a similar thing to happen to Harbinger, his shields will drop, and either we take him out or the Reapers retreat from Earth.

I don't think we'll get a 'take out the droid control ship' victory by taking out Harbinger.

But I could definitely see how we could develop a virus of sorts that could weaken the Reapers, or perhaps we could discover more about some of their weaknesses by visiting the hypothetical base in dark space.

Conventional victory can be so much more than just numbers vs. numbers. Most people here think too black and white about it, IMO.

[ElSuperGecko]

Just throwing random thoughts around Raven.

The annoying little scamp we encounter at the end of the game may well be all in Shepard's indoctrination-addled head, but the Leviathan tell us that they created an AI, which then created Harbinger and the Reapers.

Now, that AI may have decided to upload itself into the Citadel and make it it's permanent home... however, surely it would have make the most sense to upload itself into the immensely powerful and all-but invincible battleship it had just built from the processed remains of it's own creators?  (I WILL DIRECT THIS PERSONALLY...)

Harbinger = AI, the kid on the citadel is merely a projection, all be it a much less threatening one than we witness in Arrival.  (SO BE IT!)

Once we were told about the AI by the Leviathan, our goal should have immediately shifted to hunting it down and eliminating it...

Modifié par ElSuperGecko, 14 décembre 2012 - 05:01 .

[MegumiAzusa]

Guess some of you would like a certain line here.

[MegumiAzusa]

DoomsdayDevice wrote...

ElSuperGecko wrote...

RavenEyry wrote...
Reapers don't have a simple weakpoint to exploit or it'd have been done by now.

Destroy the controlling AI, stop the Reapers.

Or destroy Harbinger, destroy the Reapers. 

one does not simply destroy the Harbinger... /Boromir

Edit:  Actually, let's follow that logic for a little bit and see where it takes us, because that's potentially quite interesting in my opinion.

The StarBrat tells us that it controls and directs the Reapers.  "They are my solution".

So, destroy the StarBrat, and the Reapers will no longer be controlled.  They will no longer have direction.  What then?

So, how to destroy StarBrat?  Destroy the Citadel, maybe?

Remember how Sovereign lost his shields when losing control of Saren? That flaw is said to be no longer present in newer Reapers, however: Harbinger is the oldest.

Perhaps Shepard resisting the mind control will cause a similar thing to happen to Harbinger, his shields will drop, and either we take him out or the Reapers retreat from Earth.

I don't think we'll get a 'take out the droid control ship' victory by taking out Harbinger.

But I could definitely see how we could develop a virus of sorts that could weaken the Reapers, or perhaps we could discover more about some of their weaknesses by visiting the hypothetical base in dark space.

Conventional victory can be so much more than just numbers vs. numbers. Most people here think too black and white about it, IMO.

TIM is working on that end, different reason but the base is the same.

[RavenEyry]

ElSuperGecko wrote...

Just throwing random thoughts around Raven.

The annoying little scamp we encounter at the end of the game may well be all in Shepard's indoctrination-addled head, but the Leviathan tell us that they created an AI, which then created Harbinger and the Reapers.

Now, that AI may have decided to upload itself into the Citadel and make it it's permanent home... however, surely it would have make the most sense to upload itself into the immensely powerful and all-but invincible battleship it had just built from the processed remains of it's own creators?  (I WILL DIRECT THIS PERSONALLY...)

Harbinger = AI, the kid on the citadel is merely a projection, all be it a much less threatening one than we witness in Arrival.  (SO BE IT!)

Once we were told about the AI by the Leviathan, our goal should have immediately shifted to hunting it down and eliminating it...

But ti depends if it's actually still in control of them. Destroying the creator of the reapers may lead them to feel they're not so all-powerful after all, but I doubt it'd actually damage any of them.

[Xd2delo]

Rifneno wrote...

[

The Protheans tried the attrition thing.  It, uhh, didn't end well.

Yes, but they were Mandelbrot-eyed astro-fascists. 
All kidding aside, yeah, point taken.

Modifié par Xd2delo, 14 décembre 2012 - 05:15 .

[Andromidius]

RavenEyry wrote...
But ti depends if it's actually still in control of them. Destroying the creator of the reapers may lead them to feel they're not so all-powerful after all, but I doubt it'd actually damage any of them.

I think best case scenerio would be to create a rift between different Reapers who each want to take their own path, and start a Reaper civil war.

But yeah.

[ElSuperGecko]

RavenEyry wrote...
But ti depends if it's actually still in control of them. Destroying the creator of the reapers may lead them to feel they're not so all-powerful after all, but I doubt it'd actually damage any of them.

It would also depend how deep the AI's control runs - whether it ASSUMES DIRECT CONTROL *cough* excuse me - of their actions, or merely sets a directive and leaves them to manage it.

Either way, when it comes to military tactics, lopping the head off the chain of command tends to be rather effective - after all, that's what the Reapers themselves did to every single cycle with the Citadel trap...

"Isn't it worth a try?"  /Liara

[Rifneno]

Xd2delo wrote...

Rifneno wrote...

[

The Protheans tried the attrition thing.  It, uhh, didn't end well.

Yes, but they were Mandelbrot-eyed astro-fascists. 
All kidding aside, yeah, point taken.

I know, right?  I wanted an option to tell Javik that he's only pissed because the Reapers beat the Protheans at their own evil game.

[dorktainian]

why not simply turn off the citadels power? why do you have to destroy it?

[Xd2delo]

Andromidius wrote...

RavenEyry wrote...
But ti depends if it's actually still in control of them. Destroying the creator of the reapers may lead them to feel they're not so all-powerful after all, but I doubt it'd actually damage any of them.

I think best case scenerio would be to create a rift between different Reapers who each want to take their own path, and start a Reaper civil war.

But yeah.

It would seem a matter of curiously poor design to create a massive cybernetic organism that is incapable of autonomous action when a control signal falls silent.  Even the geth are more capable than this.  So it seems to me that this approach (divide the Reapers into factions) seems more promising and believable as a plot twist than torpedoing another Death Star. 

[RavenEyry]

ElSuperGecko wrote...

Either way, when it comes to military tactics, lopping the head off the chain of command tends to be rather effective - after all, that's what the Reapers themselves did to every single cycle with the Citadel trap...

"Isn't it worth a try?"  /Liara

Oh yeah, definitely worth a try. I just don't think dropping everything and making the AI the top priority is a good idea. More of a target of opportunity than an objective.

[CmdrShep80]

Did you know on the Wii U people are already posting pics of Shepard jumping into the pit and calling it the best ending because Shepard dies and saves everyone. I put a spoiler post under theirs saying that high EMS destroy is better for what comes after.

BioWare has succeeded in indoctrinating some of our new recruits!

[ElSuperGecko]

dorktainian wrote...
why not simply turn off the citadels power? why do you have to destroy it?

I don't believe anyone actually knows how to turn off the power on the Citadel - it's functionality is what the Keepers are for!

This is of course assuming that the AI is actually uploaded onto and contained on the Citadel itself, and not somewhere else like... oh.... I don't know, the very first Reaper it created.. :innocent:

[RavenEyry]

CmdrShep80 wrote...

Did you know on the Wii U people are already posting pics of Shepard jumping into the pit and calling it the best ending because Shepard dies and saves everyone. I put a spoiler post under theirs saying that high EMS destroy is better for what comes after.

BioWare has succeeded in indoctrinating some of our new recruits!

If the vague appearance of saving everyone is what they want I'd have thought control would be popular to. Same result without the violation. And at least the reapers have something stopping them killing everyone for now.

[KyreneZA]

CoolioThane wrote...

I don't know. I think with the IT DLC we'll get something happen that means the Reapers become weaker and easier to take out. I think with all of the resources we have with regards to "EMS" we could stand a chance of conventional victory based solely off of what actually occurs with regards to the Crucible.

And how's that going to work exactly? Presuming I buy into the rumour that this mythical IT DLC will ever be produced that is.

Please explain how, CT.

[dorktainian]

ElSuperGecko wrote...

dorktainian wrote...
why not simply turn off the citadels power? why do you have to destroy it?

I don't believe anyone actually knows how to turn off the power on the Citadel - it's functionality is what the Keepers are for!

This is of course assuming that the AI is actually uploaded onto and contained on the Citadel itself, and not somewhere else like... oh.... I don't know, the very first Reaper it created.. :innocent:

  without the citadel might be the only way we can beat them if...oh i dunno.....we invade the citadel.  shep cannot do it.  he's incapacitated.  surely someone somewhere would know where the power switch is?  either that or what about a massive emp weapon to scramble its systems?