503 réponses à ce sujet

[UniqueName001]

Geneaux486 wrote...

UniqueName001 wrote...

I'd really like one of the defenders of the OP's position to answer me. Are you seriously trying to say that there is never a limit to what should be allowed in a science fiction story, just because of the genre? That anything and everything are to be considered valid, just because the word "fiction" is attached?

Sure there's a limit, but not everyone draws the line in the same place.

Agreed.  There is line at which point suspension of disbelief is broken.  It doesn't have to be the same for everyone, but it is a legitimate complaint.

[palician]

Tealjaker94 wrote...

Suspension of disbelief. Most things, like FTL, are fine. They're explained within lore and make the experience better. Some things, like the Lazarus Project, start to stretch it. These aren't explained as well but we can get past them as long as they benefit the story. And a few things, namely Synthesis, completely shatter the suspension of disbelief. They either lack any sort of explanation or are explained in a way that only makes them more absurd i.e. New DNA WTF?! They don't benefit the overall plot of the game and are thus dismissed as space magic.

This

Plus it leave's the franchise in a strange place.How do you know that in the next trilogy everything wont just be solved by a time traveling wizard riding a flying uni-seahorse.Because that is no more rediculous than synthesis or even control.

Modifié par palician, 17 août 2012 - 06:12 .

[UniqueName001]

Mcfly616 wrote...

I think everytime we get on this "unexplainable space magic" topic, all I really say is: well, what about The Force?

Which leads to a bunch of nonsensical answers dismissing it or excusing because of the context of the topic I'm bringing it up in.....basically I think people are simply mad about the space magic in ME is because they didn't want the game to end the way it did.....otherwise, space magic is completely understandable in any other sci fi story.....

Haha riiiight...

Yes, let's talk about The Force.

It's a power that is introduced in the very first movie.  It's use is, for the most part, consistent throughout those movies.

But it wouldn't make a bit of sense for it to show up in ME, nor would it make sense for element zero to show up in Star Wars; they are two different fictional universes with completely different baselines.  Merging them together would break suspension of disbelief, which is the basis of the "space magic" complaint in the first place.

[GhaleonUnlimited]

Star Wars is space fantasy, by the creator's description. Mass Effect is grounded science fiction, per the creators. Just because they have spaceships, they are not comparable as genres of fiction.

I read this whole thread for fun -- I respect people's opinions to say "Oh, I think the Synthesis wave is possible". OK, that's your right. But IMO the key points here are:

A: It comes out of nowhere
B: It can't be compared to any other "space magic" the universe has set up for itself (and IMO anything else besides the Lazarus project is sufficiently explained in-world and based on pseudo science, as well as entertaining sci-fi can be)
C: It's just crappy storytelling.

Honestly the entirity of the Crucible/Catalyst I think is terrible storytelling. It'd be like the Rebels finding their own Death Star already built behind the moon of Yavin to use to fight the real Death Star which is just about to destroy them. 

That makes me think, if the Alliance found the "plans" for a Reaper to analyze and find their weakness (or just did this w/ the derelict Reaper), that prob would have been a whole lot better plot device than a superweapon, and an excuse for the game to involve a conventional war w/ the Reapers other than "We're just going to keep getting wasted till we build this craaaaaaaazy huge thing, which might not even do anything or just explode when it turns on"

Modifié par GhaleonUnlimited, 17 août 2012 - 06:49 .

[Ieldra]

@OP:
There are several reasons:

(1) If people don't like something, they are less willing to suspend their disbelief.
(2) Some of the symbolism used in the ending, particularly Shepard's sacrifice in Synthesis, is not sufficiently rooted in in-world logic.

Regarding (1), I think this is where the general criticism of the kind "the Crucible is space magic" comes from. Regarding (2), I think it is a very bad thing to include things which aren't meant to be taken literally, especially in an SF story (Bioware admitted that there are such elements). Good symbolism is always something added to a real scene, not something to replace it.

Personally, I don't think criticism of the kind "The Crucible is space magic" is valid, since it was introduced as a device with capabilities far beyond Citadel Civillization. *What* it does can be explained in reasonably scientific terms, while *how* it does that remains a mystery but there's room for reasonable speculation. That's how ultra-tech artifacts work in SF settings.

The limit of the acceptable is reached only when the most obvious interpretation of an element is "the authors alluded to mystical concepts and religious themes with no regard for in-world logic". Unfortunately, Shepard's sacrifice in Synthesis is of exactly that kind (Note: wilful imposing of the sacrifice theme is just as bad (Shepard in Destroy) but it doesn't have anything to do with space magic).

Edit:
What Shepard should have asked the Catalyst is: "How the hell will adding my 'energy' to the Crucible make this Synthesis possible?"

Modifié par Ieldra2, 17 août 2012 - 07:32 .

[SpamBot2000]

It doesn't help that the devs were literally saying "It can't just be magic in space" about the ending before release. Cos, y'know, it IS.

Modifié par SpamBot2000, 17 août 2012 - 08:04 .

[daecath]

In order for a story to be effective, you have to have what is called "suspension of disbelief". In other words, you have to believe in the elements of the story even though you know it can't really work that way. In stories set in the real world setting, this is pretty easy. Just don't do something that you know can't happen. Or at least, don't stretch it too far. If you want to have your bad guy with a silencer that makes his gun sound like a quiet sneeze, or shoot a machine gun for 3 minutes non stop, that's one thing. Most of us know that guns don't really work that way, but ok, we'll let them get away with it. However, if you have your bad guy shooting laser beams out of his eye, that breaks the suspension of disbelief. We know that doesn't happen in our world, so we fall out of the story.

In a sci-fi/fantasy story, it's harder to get that suspension of disbelief because the very nature of your story goes against the rules of our universe. As you say, all sci-fi is technically "space magic". However, a good author knows how to make this work, how to work with the audience to achieve that suspension. As an audience member, you are telling the author that you are willing to suspend what you know about the universe and the way it works, and replace it with what the author wants. In return, the author will make sure that the rules are clear from the get-go. This is crucial for a sci-fi/fantasy story. Everyone has to know what the rules are from the start, or your audience will fall out of the story.

The way you do this is the same way you do it in the real world. You have your characters simply accept it. I know that when I press a button on a box, that I can see and hear stories taking place on it. I don't need to know the intricate inner workings of a television set in order to accept television technology. Televisions are commonplace technology, lots of people have them, so to see a box with pictures of people moving around on it and voices coming out of it isn't magical to us. Similarly, Commander Shepard doesn't know how a mass relay works, but it's clear by his/her attitude that they are a common everyday part of life. It's not magical to them, so it's not magical to us.

That's how you create the suspension of disbelief. You define the rules of what your universe is capable of by showing what it's capable of early, and making it seem commonplace. And you don't break that rule by introducing something that is new later on, at least not without being very careful. For instance, resurrecting Shepard in ME2. That's not a technology we've seen before. So it could very easily have taken us out of the story. However, they explain that it's new technology, go into the backstory of how it was researched and developed, so even though it is weird new technology, we are able to accept it because the story shows that it's weird, but that it didn't just come from nowhere, that it actually did fit the universe.

The ending however, (particularly synthesis) doesn't do that. There's no prior technology to extrapolate from to get us to this point, there's no technobabble to show that anyone understands how it works, there's nothing to show anything about why this strange new technology does belong to this universe. That is why it's space magic. It would be like Commander Riker waving a magic wand to get rid of the Borg, or Harry Potter killing Voldemort with a lightsaber, or Luke Skywalker preventing Anakin from turning to the dark side by travelling back in time with the Tardis. It instantly kills your suspension of disbelief and pulls you out of the story with a major WTF.

[Xamufam]

maaaze wrote...

"Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic."

Arthur C. Clarke, "Profiles of The Future", 1961 (Clarke's third law)
English physicist & science fiction author

THERE IS SCIENCE FICTION, AND THEN THERE IS SPACE MAGIC

Arthur
C. Clarke's quote "any sufficiently advanced technology is
indistinguishable from magic" is abused thoroughly in the ME3 ending.
Clarke NEVER meant to be a justification for the
writers in science fiction to just do whatever the hell they felt like
at any time without any justification; to think so is lazy. GOOD science
fiction, which includes mass effect up until the last 10 minutes, makes
a few assumptions about/changes to the nature of the story universe and
uses them in a rational, consistent fashion throughout to create a new
and interesting world - but one in which fundamental logical rules, such
as the law of identity, still hold (i.e. random **** doesn't "just
happen"). Mass Effect does this with Element Zero (eezo), upon which all
the far out technologies are rather reasonably based, at least more
than enough to not break immersion in the universe. See "applied
phlebotinum" and "minovsky physics" in TV tropes for similar examples. 


BTW, the Arthur C. Clarke reference may have been more appropriate
than you realized.  Before becoming a sci-fi writer, he was a radar
expert and mathematician.  He was actually the first to do the math
required for geostationary orbits (also called Clarke Orbits).  One of
the reasons why he was so respected as a sci-fi writer is that he really
knew what he was talking about--and it showed in his work.

Before you can utilize the energy you have to understand the math behind it.

eddieoctane wrote...

legion999 wrote...

Great post though but that's not suprising.

I
must ask- by Arthur C. Clarke quote do you mean the frequently repeated
"Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from
magic."?

Key words in that quote: sufficiently advanced.
The problem is that such advancement is relative. The upper limit for
any technology or science is the Theory of Everything (ToE), which would
explain all physical phenomena, from quark reactions to galactic
super-clusters, and accoutns for all physical constants. M-theory is a
strong candidate to fill this slot. Once you have a theory of
everything, there is nothing more advanced. Everything in the universe
has to either be explained by math or is magic. Not slieght of hand, but
real, influence of an omnipotent deity, magic. The ability to have
drastically advanced technology over modern man that appears to be magic
is dimishing every day.

You can't just write something
inconceivable and use a quote from 40 years ago as a means to ignore the
continuous developments in quantum mechanics. There is less and less
opportunity for something to appear totally impossible and be accepted
by a simple hand-wave. And when much work was done early in a series to
distance the technology from any comparison to magic, and ass-pull like
synthesis is very, very out of place. Enough to break the suspension of
disbelief. Once that has happened, all bet are off. Every inconsistency
will be picked apart.

Modifié par Troxa, 17 août 2012 - 09:39 .

[Essalor]

Science fiction =/= magic. Get your genres straight.

[Krunjar]

Opinions, nothing but opinions and disrespect for others. No need to take you seriously. You just keep repeating the same old nonsense as if I haven't heard it all before I have stated my case and my reasons. Whine all you like but I am as entitled to my opinion of what constitutes good sci fi as you are. If you want to say you don't like the endings fine but don't insult my intelligence by saying that Synthesis was any more space magic than Eezo. Just because it makes more sense in laymans terms doesn't change anything. I am hearing alot of "in order for a story to be effective you have to .. no ... rubbish. These are not everyones rules they are yours. And I have neither time for nor acceptance of them. To quote one of my favorite stories I have no use for those who have learned the "limits" of the possible. When it comes to sci fi and I am not alone. And our preferences are just as important as yours.

And I would just like to say I have shown the people who disagree with me every respect they are due. I say that both you and I are entitled to our opinions but Mass Effect went one way. You didn't like it but that's how it is. What the space magic crowd do is repeat the same old arguments over and over again becuase they think we are dumb or sick in the head just please .. stop. Stop with the blanket refusals to acknowledge the opinions of others. Stop with the Arrogance and the assumptions and the calls to genre definitions as if that even mattered. Just stop you are embarassing yourselves. Unless of course you want a place where you can make wisecracks about space magic and artistic integrity free from any dissenting opinion so you can whine and cry and sniffle innefectually at game designers who have understandably lost interest in any attempt to please you long ago. Which honestly is what I am beggining to suspect.

And no I have no problem with people HAVING their own opinions.

It's people treating them like fact and truth just because it's theirs that aggravates me.

Modifié par Krunjar, 17 août 2012 - 09:07 .

[SpamBot2000]

"In this idea originated the plan of the 'Lyrical Ballads'; in which it was agreed, that my endeavours should be directed to persons and characters supernatural, or at least romantic, yet so as to transfer from our inward nature a human interest and a semblance of truth sufficient to procure for these shadows of imagination that willing suspension of disbelief for the moment, which constitutes poetic faith."

-Samuel Taylor Coleridge: Biographia Literaria, chap. XIV

[Mcfly616]

UniqueName001 wrote...

Mcfly616 wrote...

I think everytime we get on this "unexplainable space magic" topic, all I really say is: well, what about The Force?

Which leads to a bunch of nonsensical answers dismissing it or excusing because of the context of the topic I'm bringing it up in.....basically I think people are simply mad about the space magic in ME is because they didn't want the game to end the way it did.....otherwise, space magic is completely understandable in any other sci fi story.....

Haha riiiight...

Yes, let's talk about The Force.

It's a power that is introduced in the very first movie.  It's use is, for the most part, consistent throughout those movies.

But it wouldn't make a bit of sense for it to show up in ME, nor would it make sense for element zero to show up in Star Wars; they are two different fictional universes with completely different baselines.  Merging them together would break suspension of disbelief, which is the basis of the "space magic" complaint in the first place.

who ever said anything about element zero in Star Wars....or the Force in ME? Wtf? Lol......no, my point was, people bash the endings of ME3 and blurt out Space magic in reference to Synthesis.....and I was simply pointing out that "The Force" isnt any less Space Magic than Synthesis is......nor is it any more explainable.....(and I could care less when it was introduced or how its used.....one cannot explain it....)


I could just go down the list of entries within the sci fi genre, and make countless observations of unexplained Space Magic(even less explained than Synthesis is).....and most of these "entries" are good stories....space magic and all

[noobcannon]

JC_aka_fps_john wrote...

o Ventus wrote...

JC_aka_fps_john wrote...

It's science fiction. Science fiction is space magic.

Get over it.

I've been on internet forums too long to really tell if somebody is trolling or not.

Are you?

To an extent, yes, but the point is still valid.  Element zero, the basis of just about everything in Mass Effect, is pure space magic, but nobody bats an eyelid at that

element zero is established lore from early in the series, not the last 5 minutes.

[KoorahUK]

Its like Groundhog Day in here.

Modifié par KoorahUK, 17 août 2012 - 09:46 .

[robertthebard]

Geneaux486 wrote...

AresKeith wrote...
and we also learn that human DNA doesn't combind with all of the other races which is what Synthesis did

Synthesis enhanced organic DNA with synthetic material.  Really not that big of a stretch from Reaper spikes turning corpses into cyborg zombies.

The actual thing that's wrong with his statement is that that isn't what Synthesis did.  It melds Organic and Synthetic, not Organic and Organic.  When you watch the vid for the ending, it doesn't make everyone one race, it just makes them look all techy.  The Krogan still appear Krogan to me, as do the Turians and the Asari.  It's not a Make everybody exactly the same button, it's an enhance everyone with tech button.

[Mazebook]

Troxa wrote...

maaaze wrote...

"Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic."

Arthur C. Clarke, "Profiles of The Future", 1961 (Clarke's third law)
English physicist & science fiction author

THERE IS SCIENCE FICTION, AND THEN THERE IS SPACE MAGIC

Arthur
C. Clarke's quote "any sufficiently advanced technology is
indistinguishable from magic" is abused thoroughly in the ME3 ending.
Clarke NEVER meant to be a justification for the
writers in science fiction to just do whatever the hell they felt like
at any time without any justification; to think so is lazy. GOOD science
fiction, which includes mass effect up until the last 10 minutes, makes
a few assumptions about/changes to the nature of the story universe and
uses them in a rational, consistent fashion throughout to create a new
and interesting world - but one in which fundamental logical rules, such
as the law of identity, still hold (i.e. random **** doesn't "just
happen"). Mass Effect does this with Element Zero (eezo), upon which all
the far out technologies are rather reasonably based, at least more
than enough to not break immersion in the universe. See "applied
phlebotinum" and "minovsky physics" in TV tropes for similar examples. 


BTW, the Arthur C. Clarke reference may have been more appropriate
than you realized.  Before becoming a sci-fi writer, he was a radar
expert and mathematician.  He was actually the first to do the math
required for geostationary orbits (also called Clarke Orbits).  One of
the reasons why he was so respected as a sci-fi writer is that he really
knew what he was talking about--and it showed in his work.

Before you can utilize the energy you have to understand the math behind it.

eddieoctane wrote...

legion999 wrote...

Great post though but that's not suprising.

I
must ask- by Arthur C. Clarke quote do you mean the frequently repeated
"Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from
magic."?

Key words in that quote: sufficiently advanced.
The problem is that such advancement is relative. The upper limit for
any technology or science is the Theory of Everything (ToE), which would
explain all physical phenomena, from quark reactions to galactic
super-clusters, and accoutns for all physical constants. M-theory is a
strong candidate to fill this slot. Once you have a theory of
everything, there is nothing more advanced. Everything in the universe
has to either be explained by math or is magic. Not slieght of hand, but
real, influence of an omnipotent deity, magic. The ability to have
drastically advanced technology over modern man that appears to be magic
is dimishing every day.

You can't just write something
inconceivable and use a quote from 40 years ago as a means to ignore the
continuous developments in quantum mechanics. There is less and less
opportunity for something to appear totally impossible and be accepted
by a simple hand-wave. And when much work was done early in a series to
distance the technology from any comparison to magic, and ass-pull like
synthesis is very, very out of place. Enough to break the suspension of
disbelief. Once that has happened, all bet are off. Every inconsistency
will be picked apart.

Okay...another one .

He says that it seems to you like magic...but it is not...Synthesis is not space magic...it is just a reaction to a very advanced technologie...the most advanced technologie.

How does it work?...that is pretty much the point of advanced. who knows.


sci-fi is allowed to create any scenario it would fancy... There are no bounderies on what is possible.
It never mattered how something was possible, what is important is : what are the consequences of this?

Every SCI-FI that has technologie is much more advanced to us is "space magic" by default.

Modifié par maaaze, 17 août 2012 - 10:13 .

[Xamufam]

maaaze wrote...

Troxa wrote...

maaaze wrote...

"Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic."

Arthur C. Clarke, "Profiles of The Future", 1961 (Clarke's third law)
English physicist & science fiction author

THERE IS SCIENCE FICTION, AND THEN THERE IS SPACE MAGIC

Arthur
C. Clarke's quote "any sufficiently advanced technology is
indistinguishable from magic" is abused thoroughly in the ME3 ending.
Clarke NEVER meant to be a justification for the
writers in science fiction to just do whatever the hell they felt like
at any time without any justification; to think so is lazy. GOOD science
fiction, which includes mass effect up until the last 10 minutes, makes
a few assumptions about/changes to the nature of the story universe and
uses them in a rational, consistent fashion throughout to create a new
and interesting world - but one in which fundamental logical rules, such
as the law of identity, still hold (i.e. random **** doesn't "just
happen"). Mass Effect does this with Element Zero (eezo), upon which all
the far out technologies are rather reasonably based, at least more
than enough to not break immersion in the universe. See "applied
phlebotinum" and "minovsky physics" in TV tropes for similar examples. 


BTW, the Arthur C. Clarke reference may have been more appropriate
than you realized.  Before becoming a sci-fi writer, he was a radar
expert and mathematician.  He was actually the first to do the math
required for geostationary orbits (also called Clarke Orbits).  One of
the reasons why he was so respected as a sci-fi writer is that he really
knew what he was talking about--and it showed in his work.

Before you can utilize the energy you have to understand the math behind it.

eddieoctane wrote...

legion999 wrote...

Great post though but that's not suprising.

I
must ask- by Arthur C. Clarke quote do you mean the frequently repeated
"Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from
magic."?

Key words in that quote: sufficiently advanced.
The problem is that such advancement is relative. The upper limit for
any technology or science is the Theory of Everything (ToE), which would
explain all physical phenomena, from quark reactions to galactic
super-clusters, and accoutns for all physical constants. M-theory is a
strong candidate to fill this slot. Once you have a theory of
everything, there is nothing more advanced. Everything in the universe
has to either be explained by math or is magic. Not slieght of hand, but
real, influence of an omnipotent deity, magic. The ability to have
drastically advanced technology over modern man that appears to be magic
is dimishing every day.

You can't just write something
inconceivable and use a quote from 40 years ago as a means to ignore the
continuous developments in quantum mechanics. There is less and less
opportunity for something to appear totally impossible and be accepted
by a simple hand-wave. And when much work was done early in a series to
distance the technology from any comparison to magic, and ass-pull like
synthesis is very, very out of place. Enough to break the suspension of
disbelief. Once that has happened, all bet are off. Every inconsistency
will be picked apart.

Okay...another one .

He says that it seems to you like magic...but it is not...Synthesis is not space magic...it is just a reaction to a very advanced technologie...the most advanced technologie.

How does it work?...that is pretty much the point of advanced. who knows.


sci-fi is allowed to create any scenario it would fancy... There are no bounderies on what is possible.
It never mattered how something was possible, what is important is : what are the consequences of this?

Every SCI-FI that has technologie is much more advanced to us is "space magic" by default.

Most sci fi have a narrative coherent explanation for them that fits the story. Synthesis don't have that in me 3.

There are bounderies in sci fi, If you go above them it's not a sci fi anymore

(How does it work?...that is pretty much the point of advanced. who knows.)
This is not an answer, it's just too stupid

Bill Casey wrote...

"From very early on we wanted the science of the universe to be plausible.
Obviously it's set in the future so you have to make some leaps of faith
but we didn't want it to be just magic in space."

- Mac Walters

Modifié par Troxa, 17 août 2012 - 10:47 .

[MysticSpace]

D24O wrote...

Does this prove IT?

I hope so.

[LittleFranklin]

Reaper indoctrination always seemed like magic to me. But the synthesis didn't bother me that much, I just assumed the Catalyst had knowledge of technology far more advanced than anything anyone else had. The reason the Reapers didn't have it was they didn't need it, their solution had been sufficient in all the previous cycles.

Can't think of any good reason why it would require Shep to jump into the beam though.

Modifié par LittleFranklin, 17 août 2012 - 11:39 .

[tonnactus]

JBPBRC wrote...

Because there's mostly talky-techy science fiction with "magic" sprinkled in every now and then like Star Trek

Star Trek is science fiction? Where Vulcans and Humans could have kids together? Is this a joke?(and dont start with common origin,that is true for humans and chimpanzees too)

Modifié par tonnactus, 17 août 2012 - 11:50 .

[Mazebook]

tonnactus wrote...

JBPBRC wrote...

Because there's mostly talky-techy science fiction with "magic" sprinkled in every now and then like Star Trek

Star Trek is science fiction? Where Vulcans and Humans could have kids together? Is this a joke?(and dont start with common origin,that is true for humans and chimpanzees too)

That is the point...even the most scientific fiction is sprinkled with magic. Even Enders Game and 2001 have many magical elements.

[Memnon]

maaaze wrote...

tonnactus wrote...

JBPBRC wrote...

Because there's mostly talky-techy science fiction with "magic" sprinkled in every now and then like Star Trek

Star Trek is science fiction? Where Vulcans and Humans could have kids together? Is this a joke?(and dont start with common origin,that is true for humans and chimpanzees too)

That is the point...even the most scientific fiction is sprinkled with magic. Even Enders Game and 2001 have many magical elements.

I can't believe this thread is this long - I'm sure it has been touched on in this thread, just as it has all the other "but if x is space mage why isn't y" threads as well, but it has nothing to do with suspension of disbelief over what is and isn't space magic. Read that again. What people complain about is that the space magic from the Crucible/Catalyst is so far beyond the underlying rules and assumptions established in the first two games.

ME1 started off with the explanation for what Eezo was, what the mass effect was, and had dozens of Codex entries explaining how it pertained to the universe you were about to play in. It's why we can talk in great detail about the complications with long-term FTL travel, the logistics of activating the mass relays, etc. I loved all of the detail that was put into those entries, and I liked that the writers spent as much time as they did thinking about it.

In ME3, the Citadel, powered by the Crucible, fires a beam that somehow changes every single organic (including plants) and every single synthetic in the entire galaxy at a molecular (or smaller?) level, merging them into hybrids. This is done by adding some genetic material to a gream beam. I'm sorrry, but this is where Space Magic (X) does not relate to Space Magic (Y), at least to me. If you're able to reconcile it in your head, then more power to you, but for many of us, it will never make sense

Modifié par Stornskar, 17 août 2012 - 12:25 .

[Mazebook]

Stornskar wrote...

maaaze wrote...

tonnactus wrote...

JBPBRC wrote...

Because there's mostly talky-techy science fiction with "magic" sprinkled in every now and then like Star Trek

Star Trek is science fiction? Where Vulcans and Humans could have kids together? Is this a joke?(and dont start with common origin,that is true for humans and chimpanzees too)

That is the point...even the most scientific fiction is sprinkled with magic. Even Enders Game and 2001 have many magical elements.

I can't believe this thread is this long - I'm sure it has been touched on in this thread, just as it has all the other "but if x is space mage why isn't y" threads as well, but it has nothing to do with suspension of disbelief over what is and isn't space magic. Read that again. What people complain about is that the space magic from the Crucible/Catalyst is so far beyond the underlying rules and assumptions established in the first two games.

ME1 started off with the explanation for what Eezo was, what the mass effect was, and had dozens of Codex entries explaining how it pertained to the universe you were about to play in. It's why we can talk in great detail about the complications with long-term FTL travel, the logistics of activating the mass relays, etc. I loved all of the detail that was put into those entries, and I liked that the writers spent as much time as they did thinking about it.

In ME3, the Citadel, powered by the Crucible, fires a beam that somehow changes every single organic (including plants) and every single synthetic in the entire galaxy at a molecular (or smaller?) level, merging them into hybrids. This is done by adding some genetic material to a gream beam. I'm sorrry, but this is where Space Magic (X) does not relate to Space Magic (Y), at least to me. If you're able to reconcile it in your head, then more power to you, but for many of us, it will never make sense

It is then not more space magic than other space magic, it is something that was not explained in great detail like the rest of the series.
Because it was the resolution. 
It is just left unexplained.

Yes you and others don´t like it if not everything is fully explained...me and others like to construct our own reasoning, or just don´t care how it is could truly work...because that was never their focus.

[Reorte]

maaaze wrote...

It is then not more space magic than other space magic, it is something that was not explained in great detail like the rest of the series.
Because it was the resolution. 
It is just left unexplained.

Yes you and others don´t like it if not everything is fully explained...me and others like to construct our own reasoning, or just don´t care how it is could truly work...because that was never their focus.

So you can accept anything that's thrown at you, no matter how nonsensical and far-fetched it is? It's also incredibly lazy writing to fall into space magic when unnecessary, particularly to resolve major plot points. Star Trek's victory through technobabble is intellectually just as bad although at least it usually fits in with the setting.

Everything does not have to be explained but should at least do a convincing enough job that it is explicable.