8 réponses à ce sujet

[Null_Mime]

So I just recently started playing ME1. (Late to the party, I know. PS3 user) After I gained control of the Normandy from Anderson I went to go have a talk with Joker as I was always curious about his back story. When his Vroliks syndrome came up, he mentions how it only affects his legs which seems to contradict what I was led to believe in ME2.

While never directly stated in ME2, there are several moments that lead you to believe Joker's brittle bone disease affects his entire body, not just his legs.

When Shepard grabs his arm to pull him out of the chair, it seems to hurt him quite a bit.

When asking him how things are in the cockpit a second time, he mentions fracturing his thumb pressing the mute button.

During the collector attack he fractures several (or all) ribs when he falls on his back. Afterwards he also makes a joke about the only other course of action he could have taken being to break his arm at them.

This also carries into ME3, where he mentions he could break a bone during "light over-the-clothes action" when talking about EDI, his talk with Mordin (also about EDI) and mentioning he could crack a rib by sneezing when talking about the biotic kids.


Anyway, just wondering if anyone else noticed this, or knows when or where it was explained. Again, I'm pretty late to the party on the first Mass Effect. Maybe this was already discussed and explained years ago, and in the end it really isn't a huge deal. I just noticed it and thought it was a bit of a misstep in Joker's character.

[PsiFive]

The impression I got is that all his bones are weak but his legs are particularly fragile, possibly because they've still got to carry his weight and he's more affected in the short term when he breaks a leg as opposed to an arm. A bigger question - and I'm far from the first person to ask - is why the heavy bone weave upgrade Shepard gets for melee attack damage reduction, and which is described as making bones near unbreakable, isn't a treatment for Vrolik's syndrome.

[Null_Mime]

The heavy bone weave probably wouldn't work for Joker because it most likely requires the subject to have healthy/strong bones form the start and/or otherwise be in good physical condition.

Kinda like in X-Men where the Weapon X program couldn't fuse adamantium to anyone's bones other than Wolverine due to his healing factor.

[Megaton_Hope]

My understanding is that his whole skeleton is affected the same way. I don't think that repeated mention of his legs was intended to mean that it's only the bones in his legs, just that it does affect his leg bones and they're a visible and painful reminder of his condition. This is a real condition, by the way:

http://en.wikipedia....esis_imperfecta

It's also been used once or twice in fiction, such as Mr. Glass in the movie Unbreakable.

"Heavy Bone Weave" and all of that only works on Shepard; only Shepard spent two years being aggressively rebuilt with advanced technology.

What irritates me is that genetic engineering is commonplace - routine for soldiers, and not unheard of as a solution to prenatal health defects, as seen in two assignments in the first game. Knowing that Joker has this illness, they could easily have solved his problem during his childhood, or Joker could opt for the treatment at any time. Why they would go out of their way to draw attention to Joker's illness and not come up with an explanation for why he hasn't had such treatments rankles a bit.

[Null_Mime]

Megaton_Hope wrote...

What irritates me is that genetic engineering is commonplace - routine for soldiers, and not unheard of as a solution to prenatal health defects, as seen in two assignments in the first game. Knowing that Joker has this illness, they could easily have solved his problem during his childhood, or Joker could opt for the treatment at any time. Why they would go out of their way to draw attention to Joker's illness and not come up with an explanation for why he hasn't had such treatments rankles a bit.

Joker does explain this actually. In the conversation about his Vroliks syndrom he mentions how it can be treated but not cured and that over 100 years ago he would have been dead before he reached his first birthday, but now his condition can be "managed". 

Remember, a treatment for something and a cure are two different things. A cure gets rid of the problem entirely, while treatments just keep it from getting worse and killing you, but you still have it. For example, we currently can't cure diabetes but we can treat it so it dosen't get worse.

Dr. Chakwas also mentions how Joker constantly needs her help and probably always will.

[PsiFive]

@Megaton_Hope Yes, I know of it. Probably like a lot of people Unbreakable was where I first heard about it. And I may have worded things badly before - yes, his whole skeleton is affected though my understanding of the condition is that some bones are more prone to breaking and cause much bigger problems than others because of the practical consequences of where they are and what they do. Legs have to support the weight of the rest of the body and move it all around. Break your arm and you can still walk and possibly even drive yourself to the hospital. Break a leg and things suddenly get a lot tougher. For Joker he's probably going to be alright sitting in the pilot seat dealing with haptic UIs, but he takes a significant but manageable risk getting up and going to the dunny. And of course if he does break a leg and go down he may well break something else when he lands.

Good in game reasoning from you and Null_Prime why the bone weave might not work for Joker, though you'd still think it was a potential avenue of research. But since the games don't go there there's no reason why it should be stated as such. That just leaves the question of WTF Joker was doing firing a rifle from the airlock at the end of the Suicide Mission. ;-)

[AkahaneOh]

In ME1 he tells you that it's because his bones are hollow. I never understood why they don't just inject artificial filler into the bones. I mean, you can put a needle in there to extract marrow; why can't you inject something that will propagate throughout the skeletal system? I mean, come on, medical science in this universe HAS to be advanced enough for that.

Modifié par AkahaneOh, 15 janvier 2013 - 03:02 .

[PsiFive]

I didn't think he meant the hollow remark literally.

[Megaton_Hope]

Null_Mime wrote...

Joker does explain this actually. In the conversation about his Vroliks syndrom he mentions how it can be treated but not cured and that over 100 years ago he would have been dead before he reached his first birthday, but now his condition can be "managed". 

Remember, a treatment for something and a cure are two different things. A cure gets rid of the problem entirely, while treatments just keep it from getting worse and killing you, but you still have it. For example, we currently can't cure diabetes but we can treat it so it dosen't get worse.

Dr. Chakwas also mentions how Joker constantly needs her help and probably always will.

But see, it's established in-game that genetic engineering is safe and effective, to the point that it's standard for soldiers in the Alliance "Navy" to be upgraded genetically. Two side quests touch on that technology, one on the Citadel (Family Matters) and one on Noveria  (Espionage). Under the assumption that the cause for the syndrome is hereditary, they should be able to rewrite his genes to give him a stronger skeleton. The Mass Effect universe would also be able to cure Type I Diabetes and Sickle Cell Anemia by replacing the defective code with healthy code.