317 réponses à ce sujet

[JBPBRC]

jumpingkaede wrote...

CronoDragoon wrote...

AresKeith wrote...

CronoDragoon wrote...

AresKeith wrote...

it was still a retcon when they talk to Shepard about it in ME2 and completely acts like it never happened like that, after they already knew it was a Reaper

That's not a retcon. It was scumbag politics.

that is a retcon, whether they wanna believe it or not they knew the Reapers were real at the end of ME1, then in ME2 they randomly claim it wasn't, and even if they did that for the general public they would have still prepared.

They believed it at the time, just like people in graveyards at midnight tend to start believing in ghosts. Afterwards, it seems silly.

In ME2 they claim that Sovereign was simply a really advanced geth ship or something. In any case, they blame the geth.

You'd think with advanced omnitool technology available Shepard would have thought to record some of his conversations with Sovereign or whatever.

Because omnitool audio recordings can't be faked.  And the Council considers that indisputable evidence.

I think we're all showing dangerous signs of logic here. We should all walk the plank. OFF WITH YE!

[jumpingkaede]

JBPBRC wrote...

jumpingkaede wrote...

You'd think with advanced omnitool technology available Shepard would have thought to record some of his conversations with Sovereign or whatever.

Because omnitool audio recordings can't be faked.  And the Council considers that indisputable evidence.

I think we're all showing dangerous signs of logic here. We should all walk the plank. OFF WITH YE!

I'm just saying that would've definitely shut the Council up.

Shepard:  "How about this recording of Harbinger talking to me?  (brzztrap... this hurts you, Shepard, we are the harbinger of your destruction.... bsszzst.)  

Councilors: "The evidence is undeniable!  Reapers are real!!"

[Jayleia]

silentassassin264 wrote...

If you saw the Sovereign fight in ME1 when Sovereign was completely invincible to everything thrown at it until a fluke that would most definitely not happen when all the Reapers were here and thought you could beat them conventionally, you are crazy.

No.  We read the Codex.

Also, the Rule of Cool does support needing a fleet for the climactic battle of ME1, and it has reasonable backup in story.  After all, a substantial portion of the Geth heretic fleet was supporting Sovereign.

[Jayleia]

saracen16 wrote...

The Crucible is the only method that you speak of that results in the least loss of life and property compared to the other methods. It is the only method that does the greater good for the greater number of people. The others sacrifice populations, planets, and entire systems and barely leave a home for the others to return to.

Yes.  But those are unconventional methods that are not plans for something that a previous race thought might be a magic weapon.

And they aren't something that forces the player to have the character they created sell out their ethics for something that you NOR the character have any clue about.

Modifié par Jayleia, 24 août 2012 - 08:27 .

[Cainne Chapel]

AresKeith wrote...

CronoDragoon wrote...

AresKeith wrote...

it was still a retcon when they talk to Shepard about it in ME2 and completely acts like it never happened like that, after they already knew it was a Reaper

That's not a retcon. It was scumbag politics.

that is a retcon, whether they wanna believe it or not they knew the Reapers were real at the end of ME1, then in ME2 they randomly claim it wasn't, and even if they did that for the general public they would have still prepared.

its not a retcon though Ares, they just didn't want to face the facts, they pretty much spell that out in the game.  Everyone in power knows the reapers are real, but they dont want to admit to that horrible truth.

Thats NOT a retcon and perfectly plays into how the council was portrayed in ME1.  They dont want to panic the whole galaxy on something that "MAY" be a one time thing.

So once again, not a retcon, which means something totally different.

A Retcon would be like Shepard, in ME3, all of a sudden being an asari or turian with a past to match.  Saying the council was a "retcon" is like saying characters that evolve and change over the course of the series are being "retconned"

[saracen16]

Jayleia wrote...

saracen16 wrote...

The Crucible is the only method that you speak of that results in the least loss of life and property compared to the other methods. It is the only method that does the greater good for the greater number of people. The others sacrifice populations, planets, and entire systems and barely leave a home for the others to return to.

Yes.  But those are unconventional methods that are not plans for something that a previous race thought might be a magic weapon.

Yet, they always end up killing and destroying more than saving compared to the Crucible.

And they aren't something that forces the player to have the character they created sell out their ethics for something that you NOR the character have any clue about.

Better to sell out your ethics than the lives of every single being. I have placed my trust in my allies in creating a superweapon capable of defeating the Reapers, and I believe that they above all are worth saving. Besides, if you refuse, you also lose ethically: you have deemed all life in this cycle worthless and capitulated to the Reapers.

[AlanC9]

Quething wrote...

This sort of goes hand-in-hand with my continuing despair at the complete lack of comprehension from some parties that "unconventional" is not a synonym for "Crucible." Throwing a thresher maw at a Reaper is unconventional. Having a completely mobile population center that isn't forced to defend a specific planet and can freely focus all its attention on single isolated targets and then retreat is unconventional. Dropping an asteroid on a mass relay is unconventional. Sending civilians with bombs into enemy resource production centers is unconventional.

All of those tactics are completely available to the allied organic & geth forces at their current tech level. All are proven successful against Reapers.

Of course, the italed tactic would work even better for the Reapers. And the bolded one requires the Reapers to be very, very stupid if you want to actually accomplish anything.

[a load of stanton]

MegaSovereign wrote...

Mike 9987 wrote...

It's not impossible, i agree. Just have every cycle kill an amount of reapers that is one more reaper than is created during that harvesting cycle in a full frontal assault. Eventually, they will be wiped out.

They create more than one.

They make one capital ship and then turn the rest into destroyers.

well hundreds of capital ships wear destroyed during me3

[MegaSovereign]

a load of stanton wrote...

MegaSovereign wrote...

Mike 9987 wrote...

It's not impossible, i agree. Just have every cycle kill an amount of reapers that is one more reaper than is created during that harvesting cycle in a full frontal assault. Eventually, they will be wiped out.

They create more than one.

They make one capital ship and then turn the rest into destroyers.

well hundreds of capital ships wear destroyed during me3

Really? Hundreds? Doesn't sound likely.

[Fixers0]

Mass Effect 3's is full of Retcons, take the Crucible for example: Not only is it a contrived Macguffin, but i'ts entire existance is based upon Retcon, that of the Prothen ruins on mars.

[DJRackham]

Conniving_Eagle wrote...

CronoDragoon wrote...

Conniving_Eagle wrote...

Prior, we are given the sense of "Our cycle is different."

Our cycle was different. We won. The diversity that Javik comments on pays off in a final battle where the galaxy's strength is enough to dock the Crucible and thus win the war. We were the first cycle to unite completely, and that's why we won the battle at Earth.

ME3 could have been so much more, there was no need for a super weapon, because the antagonists weren't established as invincible (which is poor writing). If done correctly, conventional victory wouldn't have broken Mass Effect's lore or made the Reapers look like pushovers. It was only in the third game that they writers decided "Nope. They're unstoppable, there's no way you can beat the Reapers." Even then, you can still make the argument that we didn't need the Crucible to win in ME3, there wasn't enough information on the Reapers to disprove it."

Most games could have been so much more. ME1 and 2 could have been so much more. Doesn't mean they aren't great games.

Anyway, I think the Crucible is a better way to defeat the Reapers than conventional victory because it gives the previous cycles a more active role in the destruction of the Reapers and shows that their struggles were not in vain.

ME1 already honored the previous cycles. If it wasn't for the Protheans everybody would've been dead a long time ago.

If it wasn't for the Protheans tinkering with the Keepers, they wouldn't have ignored the signal to open the gate from darkspace to the Citadel, and Humanity likely wouldn't even be involved in this cycle's harvest. If I recall correctly, the current cycle should have started around the time of the Rachni wars. The Reapers had to fall back to plan B due to the Protheans. In the meantime, Humans manage to find the Charon gate and joined the greater galactic community just in time to be deemed worthy of being reaped. 

Modifié par DJRackham, 24 août 2012 - 09:16 .

[The Twilight God]

CronoDragoon wrote...

What? The slides are clearly meant to provide closure for the characters as BioWare said they would in the EC. Those slides are all canon for their endings.

Those slides are "narrated by a single entity who talks about what they think, hope or plan will happen. None of the events in the slides actually occur in game. It's just wishful thinking." Just as I said. Nothing you say can change what is actually portrayed in the game. Unless Hackett, EDI and Shepard AI are now psychics who can see into the future. Alot of the EC slides are an impossibility. It's a polished turd. The entire point is to count on people to be stupid and have no critical thinking skills.

CronoDragoon wrote...

Communication still works. Once the Sol scientists figure out how to fix their relay, they can put out the plans to whoever is closest to each respective relay. Not much of the relay gets destroyed, either, so we aren't talking about a massive undertaking to repair them (they don't have to rebuild them).

Nobody knows how to repair them. Or even how they work.

1. The comm bouys rely on the relay network for tradtional communication. So unless they have quantum entanglers there will be limited communications. Probably just between homeworlds to the Citadel.

2. Assuming a world has a quantum entangler it also has to have the means to repair the relays. For instance, if you brought me instructions on repairing a rocketship, it doesn't mean I have the means to perform the repairs. Eden Prime, for example, may simple not have the means to do the repairs.

3. Relays are made out of a alloy that no species is currently capable of making. Let's assume just the rings blow off of a relay. Those rings are now flying through open space after being ejected by an event whose force propelled it faster than the speed of light. And you think we'll just magically find a object the size of a building that in the vastness of space? There are no mass relay spare parts stores.

4. And even if we could repair them we still have to FTL to the next. Imagine you wan to get from Detroit to San Antonio. Chicago, St Louis, Oklahoma City and Dallas are the mass relays. If San Antonio and Detroit are both fixing relays they still have to travel on foot (FTL) to the closest one. So SA repairman has to walk to Dallas and the Detroit repairman has to walk to Chicago. And that would just be one arm of the galaxy. The long range primary relays would be like Baltimore International Airport to Frankfurt International Airport. They have to reconnect the relay paths piece by piece over decades, centuries or millenia. It's not like Thessia relay leads straight to Earth. You seem under the impression that any relay can go to any other relay by request. It doesn't work that way.

CronoDragoon wrote...

And yes, fixing relays would be extremely high priority for everyone involved, since the only planets capable of sustaining themselves are colony planets. Everyone else will die of starvation without help, meaning the relay economy is essential to their recovery.

So they aren't going to rebuild infrastructure, plant farms, etc. They are going to imediately send ships on month, year, decade long voyages out into the vast space betwen star clusters? Any colony that is not self-sustaining and within practical FTL distance is dead. Nothing can be done about that. The galactic economy is done for as well as the relays are down, galactic communication is near nothing and the infrastructure of most major worlds is kaput. Nothing can be done about that.

It will be a "dark age".

Modifié par The Twilight God, 24 août 2012 - 09:50 .

[AtreiyaN7]

Feeling that it's not impossible to defeat the Reapers conventionally doesn't change the the reality of the situation, which is that it was impossible.

There is exactly one EDI, and only she was capable of co-ordinating the quarian fleet's firepower to help destroy the Reaper on Rannoch. Ditto on EDI being the one saving grace on Earth that allowed Shepard to make the final push. As I recall from the final battle, we were having our butts handed to us by the Reapers while making a rather desperate last stand. Unless someone suddenly pulls a couple thousand friendly unshackled AIs out of nowhere, we're effectively doomed.

A happy little Codex entry about the Miracle on Palaven and plucky kakliosaur-riding krogans or seeing how all our species have pulled together means nothing. Thessia's complete and utter destruction is a LOT more indicative of what happens if you try to fight the Reapers conventionally.

The Protheans couldn't do it, and they ruled a galactic empire with access to advanced technlogies beyond those of the current cycle. Based on what Javik said, the Protheans managed to hold out for a fair amount of time, but eventually they fell. I fully expect that if we tried it, we'd be destroyed even faster - exactly like the Refuse ending.

*checks the failure in the Refuse ending*

Yep, just like that.

[Jayleia]

saracen16 wrote...

Jayleia wrote...

saracen16 wrote...

The Crucible is the only method that you speak of that results in the least loss of life and property compared to the other methods. It is the only method that does the greater good for the greater number of people. The others sacrifice populations, planets, and entire systems and barely leave a home for the others to return to.

Yes.  But those are unconventional methods that are not plans for something that a previous race thought might be a magic weapon.

Yet, they always end up killing and destroying more than saving compared to the Crucible.

And they aren't something that forces the player to have the character they created sell out their ethics for something that you NOR the character have any clue about.

Better to sell out your ethics than the lives of every single being. I have placed my trust in my allies in creating a superweapon capable of defeating the Reapers, and I believe that they above all are worth saving. Besides, if you refuse, you also lose ethically: you have deemed all life in this cycle worthless and capitulated to the Reapers.

Yes, they do end up getting more killed.  But there is a slight difference, we KNOW they work, we have no idea what the Crucible is, we just find out that a previous cycle thought it was a weapon.  And we have no idea if it is a weapon (yet we can build it...you'd think someone would figure out which end gets pointed to the enemy...nvm).

And no, you haven't deemed all life worthless if you refuse.  If the writers had chosen to write an ending that resembled the rest of the Mass Effect series.

[AlexMBrennan]

From the opening, to Palaven, to the battles over and on Earth at the end. I see the same thing. Lethargic fools rolling over and giving up before the battle has even begun. Ridiculous tactics and random flailing about.

Then you need to pay more attention. In the tutorial, you see them one-shotting a dreadnought. If you go to Arcturus, all you see is rubble. If you read the WA reports, you learn that the Alliance lost about half of their ships in the first engagement with the Reapers before falling back. On Palaven, you see turian ships firing on Reapers without any apparent effect before being shot down. They are trying - it's just that their weapons are no good.

This is reinforced by Shepard only being able to take down the 2 Reapers you encounter with ridiculous overkill such as having the entire quarian fleet target a tiny weakness in their hull.

Failure to use the technology and weapons they're supposed to have. All when the codex outright says they can do better.

Such as? The Codex says that you need 4 dreadnoughts to take down one Reaper, so we'd need a fleet that is an order of magnitude bigger.

Modifié par AlexMBrennan, 24 août 2012 - 09:26 .

[The Twilight God]

The Angry One wrote...

CronoDragoon wrote...

The Angry One wrote...

If I see the Reapers win, it should be because they demonstrate they're an overwhelming force.
Not because our side demonstrates that they have all the combat capabilities of an ostrich.

Thanix Cannons would somehow even the odds? Not even close.

How do we know? They're never used. That's my point.

If the Thunderchild had suddenly forgot it had guns and tried to ram a tripod, that would've been a pretty crappy scene and we'd have to assume they were a bunch of twits. Same thing here. Forgetting the main weapon that both ME2 and ME3 say they have just makes them look like idiots.

Either just fighters and frigates have it or all the ships have it. During the final battle there were blue energy beam weapons being fired at the Reapers. Regardless, the thanix canons are not as powerful as Reaper cannons as you can clearly see the leading end of thanix fire. The Reaper equivalent is so fast and powerful it looks like a laser.

We are outnumbered and outgunned. I don't think conventional victory would be possible even if Reaper tech was equal to our own just because of their numerical superiority.

Mass Effect Codex....

After the Battle of the Citadel, human and turian volunteers spent three months clearing the station's orbit of debris. During the cleanup, the turians secretly salvaged Sovereign's powerful main gun along with much of the weapon's element zero core. Eleven months later, the turians introduced the Thanix, a scaled-down version of the weapon.
The Thanix's core is a liquid alloy of iron, uranium, and tungsten suspended in an electromagnetic field powered by element zero. The molten metal, accelerated to a significant fraction of the speed of light, solidifies into a projectile as it is fired, hitting targets with enough force to pierce any known shield or armor. The gun can fire reliably every five seconds.
The weapon's relatively small size allows it to be mounted on most fighters or frigates. It is now widely used by the Alliance military and is the primary weapon on the refurbished Normandy SR-2.

[estebanus]

I agree. Imagine how awesome it'd be to see two dreadnoughts converging on a swarm of destroyers and go down guns blazing!

[Jayleia]

Finn the Jakey wrote...

I like complaining about the endings as much as the next guy, but here's a question for CV'ers: What makes you think our cycle has a better chance than all the others in terms of beating the Reapers conventionally?

By "conventional" we do not mean lining up in wall of battle formations and pounding away like morons.  We know the Reapers are powerful and have significant advantages.  But we seem to know more about the Reapers than even the Protheans, and they fought Reapers for centuries.

But our victories, by normal standards have been unconventional.  However, the Crucible was choosing what conditions the Reapers would ALLOW us to have our galaxy back...or they keep killing us.  That's not a victory.

[RasenRebirth]

If the Normandy could down a reaper in ME1 and inproved the firepower, how are they not destroying the reapers. They say the reapers have no weakness, but Shepard points out they are weak on their lazer optics when they are about to fire. Garrus says let's drop Meteors on the Geth on Rannoch I don't think reapers would last against a assult of meteors.

[Reptilian Rob]

Someone wasn't paying attention during ME1...

[ZerebusPrime]

One of the things that bugs me is what constitutes conventional and unconventional victory.

For example, consider a locked door. The conventional method to open it is to use a key. Picking the lock or kicking down the door are both unconventional means of opening the door.

What's conventional in a space war? Line up your fleets and shoot at the enemy from long range until one side or the other is obliterated? If so, closing to visual or point blank range alone is an unconventional strategy. Unconventional warfare should be the use of any sort of tactics that isn't written down in the big book of accepted battle protocols.

Instead, it seemed at times in the story that "conventional victory" encompassed anything we could possibly come up with, tactics both standard and nonstandard. Any attempt at creatively engaging the enemy was painted as pointless, stupid, irrelevant, and why bother. That wasn't just a thematic betrayal; it also questioned the very point of playing the game at all. We're playing the game to beat the Reapers, after all. Instead, we find out that the Reapers can't be beaten and in the end we even have to use our ace in the hole with the Reapers directing and advising us. It's just..... arrgh I don't wanna turn this into another thread about the endings so I'll stop here, but my point is made.

[The Twilight God]

Jayleia wrote...

Finn the Jakey wrote...

I like complaining about the endings as much as the next guy, but here's a question for CV'ers: What makes you think our cycle has a better chance than all the others in terms of beating the Reapers conventionally?

By "conventional" we do not mean lining up in wall of battle formations and pounding away like morons.  We know the Reapers are powerful and have significant advantages.  But we seem to know more about the Reapers than even the Protheans, and they fought Reapers for centuries.

But our victories, by normal standards have been unconventional.  However, the Crucible was choosing what conditions the Reapers would ALLOW us to have our galaxy back...or they keep killing us.  That's not a victory.

Destroy has nothing to do with allowing us o do anything. The Reapers have been doing this for millions, maybe billions, of years. They're not just going to roll over and LET anyone kill them. That's what the Crucible does: it destroys synthetic life. Just because you dislike what it does doesn't make it the Reaper's doing. If the Reapers didn't put that gadget there to block the Crucible it would have armed automatically and did the exact same thing. You just wouldn't have know it would target all synthetics beforehand.

[Ranadiel Marius]

AlanC9 wrote...

Quething wrote...

This sort of goes hand-in-hand with my continuing despair at the complete lack of comprehension from some parties that "unconventional" is not a synonym for "Crucible." Throwing a thresher maw at a Reaper is unconventional. Having a completely mobile population center that isn't forced to defend a specific planet and can freely focus all its attention on single isolated targets and then retreat is unconventional. Dropping an asteroid on a mass relay is unconventional. Sending civilians with bombs into enemy resource production centers is unconventional.

All of those tactics are completely available to the allied organic & geth forces at their current tech level. All are proven successful against Reapers.

Of course, the italed tactic would work even better for the Reapers. And the bolded one requires the Reapers to be very, very stupid if you want to actually accomplish anything.

.....The Reapers are portrayed in ME3 as very very stupid. Instead of using a highly effective strategy that they have used for countless cycles that completely messes up any enemy they might face, they spread their forces thin and try to strike at every point at the same time.

When they get the uber McGuffin away from their enemies they don't set up any traps, put it in a location that is difficult to reach(such as beyond the omega relay), they don't put it anywhere beyond the reach of the people who want it. They just set up a Civil War style line and hope that no ground forces make it up to the beam which they presumably turned on in the first place.Heck they are idiots just for allowing the fleets to make it to Earth. If they set up a dozen or Reapers at the Sol relay to fire at anything coming through the relay, the entire battle for Earth would have been over in five minutes.

Actually in my opinion that really is the big disconnect between the game saying that the Reapers are unbeatable and what the game shows. The game shows the Reapers to be complete morons abadoning the most basic of tactics to just go "Reaper Smash!" That makes them come off as unthreatening and makes it feel as though they should be beatable either through intellegent tactics or through the use of.....less preferred methods such as a scortched earth strategy. 

[Jayleia]

The Twilight God wrote...

Destroy has nothing to do with allowing us o do anything. The Reapers have been doing this for millions, maybe billions, of years. They're not just going to roll over and LET anyone kill them. That's what the Crucible does: it destroys synthetic life. Just because you dislike what it does doesn't make it the Reaper's doing. If the Reapers didn't put that gadget there to block the Crucible it would have armed automatically and did the exact same thing. You just wouldn't have know it would target all synthetics beforehand.

Starkid:  We brought you up to use this machine, you can use it to destroy us if you want, but it will kill all synthetics, and even you are part synthetic.

Shepard: How about you just stop shooting us and let us shoot you?

Starkid: NO!  If you want to destroy us, you do it the way WE tell you to, or we harvest you.

Shepard:  That's so stupid I don't know where to begin...

Holo-Reaper:  SO BE IT.

So, yes, we were allowed to have our galaxy back in destroy.