352 réponses à ce sujet

[fr33stylez]

How could they not? Or did they say "let's start building something and see where we end up"?

If they did know what they were building, why can't subsequent cycles decipher this from the blueprints? How can you 'add' to something when you have no idea what it is?

Another question: why didn't the original creators of the Crucible simply build something that targets the Reapers?

[DeinonSlayer]

It... it is not a thing you can comprehend.

[essarr71]

If i hook up my microwave to my computer it can turn my dog into a cyborg. Customer support told me I wouldnt understand the specifics of it but it was bound to happen eventually and the dog was ready for it.

[fr33stylez]

DeinonSlayer wrote...

It... it is not a thing you can comprehend.

It really isn't something we can comprehend, that's the sad part.

The Catalyst tells us it's 'little more than a power source' - why were the creators of the Cruicble building a power source in the first place? Post-apocalyptic galactic electricity?

Modifié par fr33stylez, 16 janvier 2013 - 04:24 .

[Belisarius25]

fr33stylez wrote...How can you 'add' to something when you have no idea what it is?

You can do this to some extent - better armor/different weapons, adding new technology, etc. While everything might not be clear, there's certain stuff that would probably be pretty obvious. While it's true that, for example, Hackett doesn't know exactly what the Crucible will do, I don't think it's all that unreasonable for someone to assume it's an anti-Reaper weapon of some sort (now, whether it's good for the narrative...)

As to why it wasn't designed to just target the Reapers...the earlier cycles may not have imagined friendly synthetic life (i.e. didn't anticipate the likes of EDI and the Geth helping out), maybe it was impossible, maybe it just targets Reaper tech (which EDI and the Geth both have), maybe it should have but the writers wanted some negative effect to a high-EMS destroy ending.

Modifié par Belisarius25, 16 janvier 2013 - 04:32 .

[CronoDragoon]

There's a good thread bouncing around about the possible relationship of the Leviathans to the Crucible. Since the Leviathans knew what the Catalyst was, it's possible they could have either created the plans and covertly gave them to a cycle to keep themselves hidden, or taken a device meant for some other purpose and retrofitted the plans for using the Catalyst. For example, the original Crucible could have been created to destroy all synthetics in an applicable range (Destroy as the original function, in other words) and the Leviathans adapted it to utilize the relay network in an attempt to wipe out Reapers completely during a cycle.

[Wayning_Star]

There's no way to know as the crucible isn't fully explained in codex. I've always took it as a regular piece of equipment, tinkered with over the cycles. Each cycle learned of it, but didn't send information ahead about it, or the information was lost in time. IN the current cycle, the finders don't really know what to think of it, but the protheans left 'clues' as to it's function, but not a users manual. The techs were smart enough to understand the blueprints, but not having the time to fully study it's function,as the reapers were already on the door step, frustrating that effort. Maybe each cycle was limited in their add ons as well. There isn't any ingame actions that include the manipulation of the crucible,just it's hurried construction effort.

I think the original creator/designers of the crucible didn't have any idea it were to be used to battle anyone or anything. It could just of been a mining tool, slowly over the cycles altered for different attempts at upending the catalyst. Maybe that's how the choices menu was created,as each one was attempted over time? Each one with different results? Till finally one was figured out to work? Or none yet actually fits the bill.. The given cycle would have to try it and see...trial and error?

edit: it could be that many cycles didn't ever get the chance, didn't get to find the blueprints, or a completed crucible, it could just of been considered a piece of space junk and parted out?

Modifié par Wayning_Star, 16 janvier 2013 - 04:39 .

[cyrslash1974]

Skynet story : beginning with a computer, and finally we have a war between humans and machines, and Terminators...

[Leem_0001]

It was a poorly thought out plot device.

How can you add to something in a meaningful way if you don't know what it is or does in the firsrt place? We are told previous cycles added something.

Funny how the cycles didn't know about the Reaper threat until it was too late but still managed to get their hands on this blueprint to develop it and expand upon it.

Utter waffle.

[CronoDragoon]

Leem_0001 wrote...

It was a poorly thought out plot device.

How can you add to something in a meaningful way if you don't know what it is or does in the firsrt place? We are told previous cycles added something.

Funny how the cycles didn't know about the Reaper threat until it was too late but still managed to get their hands on this blueprint to develop it and expand upon it.

Utter waffle.

The Protheans knew about the Reapers before they arrived. Why do you assume other cycles didn't?

[jojon2se]

I suppose you'd not so much "add" to the design, as "adapt" some piece of machinery, that you happen to have at hand, so that it can supplant a part, from the schematics, which has same function...

[survivor_686]

I'd liken it more to a sophisticated nuke capable of manipulating mass-relays. Over the cycles each species added its own knowledge to the design, refining it. It originally may have started as a giant bomb, but another cycle added a refinement to it (say deliver a more measured radiation dosage), another generation added the coding needed to interface with the Citadel, another generation added a counter-AI module to it and so and so forth.

[GHNR]

Is building a giant death ray not more preferable to extinction?

[XXIceColdXX]

All we know is the Leviathans looked pretty awkward when questioned about the crucible. I think they knew exactly what they were building.

Modifié par XXIceColdXX, 16 janvier 2013 - 11:25 .

[Maxster_]

CronoDragoon wrote...

Leem_0001 wrote...

It was a poorly thought out plot device.

How can you add to something in a meaningful way if you don't know what it is or does in the firsrt place? We are told previous cycles added something.

Funny how the cycles didn't know about the Reaper threat until it was too late but still managed to get their hands on this blueprint to develop it and expand upon it.

Utter waffle.

The Protheans knew about the Reapers before they arrived. Why do you assume other cycles didn't?

Suddenly, nonsense.
So, they knew about reapers existence, Citadel being relay into dark space and master control unit of the relay network.
And still lost to a surprise decapitation strike.
Riight.
So, protheans are now morons like reapers and leviathans, suddenly?

Modifié par Maxster_, 16 janvier 2013 - 11:30 .

[Maxster_]

survivor_686 wrote...

I'd liken it more to a sophisticated nuke capable of manipulating mass-relays. Over the cycles each species added its own knowledge to the design, refining it. It originally may have started as a giant bomb, but another cycle added a refinement to it (say deliver a more measured radiation dosage), another generation added the coding needed to interface with the Citadel, another generation added a counter-AI module to it and so and so forth.

This is nonsense.
They had no idea that Catalyst even existed, and suddenly adding counter-AI module to a battery. 

So, someone designed a unknown device with unknown function, which should interface with another unknown device with unknown function, unknown interface, unknown location, unconfirmed existence, and even need of it. And suddenly, such a device somehow alters a programming of an AI, no one even knew it existed.

Riight.

[TheCrazyHobo]

Preferably, they should have kept the Crucible as a Prothean design concept but alas.......

The point, in my opinion, is that the "original's" had an idea (destroy or control possibly) and with each successive failure, the dying species added a new design concept, hid the plans, and then were blended.

[Kabooooom]

lol, the Protheans didn't know anything about the Reapers. They got pwned. Replay ME1.

Also, the first builders of the Crucible HAD to know what they were building. It'd be like building a gun piece by piece with no conception or understanding of what it would ultimately become...and then STILL having it turn out to be a gun...and then shooting yourself in the foot with it. That is nonsense.

And because that is nonsense, many people have proposed that the original builders had to know about the existence of the Catalyst, by default. And that kind of narrows down the list of possible candidates to: the Reapers (unlikely), the Leviathans (possibly via a thrall race), or an unknown race in a pre-existing cycle that was far, far more advanced and knowledgeable than even the Protheans (in my opinion, also unlikely).

[Giga Drill BREAKER]

This is part of the reason while playing Mass Effect 3 pre EC I thought the crucible was going to be a trap.

[Maxster_]

Kabooooom wrote...

lol, the Protheans didn't know anything about the Reapers. They got pwned. Replay ME1.

Also, the first builders of the Crucible HAD to know what they were building. It'd be like building a gun piece by piece with no conception or understanding of what it would ultimately become...and then STILL having it turn out to be a gun...and then shooting yourself in the foot with it. That is nonsense.

And because that is nonsense, many people have proposed that the original builders had to know about the existence of the Catalyst, by default. And that kind of narrows down the list of possible candidates to: the Reapers (unlikely), the Leviathans (possibly via a thrall race), or an unknown race in a pre-existing cycle that was far, far more advanced and knowledgeable than even the Protheans (in my opinion, also unlikely).

Exactly.
There are several reasons why Crucible can not be designed at all.
Also, blueprints can not pass all those cycles. It is plain impossible, especially with those blueprints suddenly appearing in posession of every cycle right after reapers attack(otherwise existence of the reapers, Citadel being master control unit of the relay network, and relay into dark space - would be known before reapers invasion).

[Maxster_]

DinoSteve wrote...

This is part of the reason while playing Mass Effect 3 pre EC I thought the crucible was going to be a trap.

That would be a twist. Especially without conventional victory.

[Kabooooom]

Also, blueprints can not pass all those cycles. It is plain impossible, especially with those blueprints suddenly appearing in posession of every cycle right after reapers attack(otherwise existence of the reapers, Citadel being master control unit of the relay network, and relay into dark space - would be known before reapers invasion).

Precisely. Which is why for almost the entirety of my first playthrough of ME3 I thought the Crucible was a Reaper-designed trap. Damn that would have been a decent plot twist - better than what we were given, at least. But, that's not the route Bioware took. Nope: Crucible - totally legit, bros.

Which is one reason I favor the idea that the Leviathans may have designed it (and through a thrall race, so the Catalyst would not be aware of their influence) slightly more than that of an unknown race in a bygone cycle, and dramatically more than the idea that it was built and improved piecemeal over time.

[TheCrazyHobo]

Kabooooom wrote...

lol, the Protheans didn't know anything about the Reapers. They got pwned. Replay ME1. 

Ummm...they knew about the Reapers sir...Here we go:

1. They understood indoctrination, and their VIs could sense it.
2. They understood that the Repaer's used the Citadel as a trap, and succesfully sabotaged it via the Keepers.
3. Vendetta possibly figured out the existence of the Catatlyst.
4. The Cruicible seems to have been finished by the Protheans, they just never got to use it becasue of the splinter control faction.
5. Just becasue they lost doesn't mean they didn't know anything.  A Shepherd can pick refuse and watch the universe burn with all that knowledge of the Reapers floating around in their skull.  

[Kabooooom]

No - the Protheans were taken completely by surprise. What they did have, which other cycles didn't, was a communication network that allowed instantaneous communication which did not utilize the FTL comm buoys. This allowed them to remain not completely in the dark while the extinction was going on - and it allowed Ilos to broadcast a signal to the beacon network after the hibernating scientists awoke.

While the extinction was happening, which took 200 years, they began building the Crucible and presumably studying Indoctrination. It was during this time that Vendetta was built.

2. They understood that the Repaer's used the Citadel as a trap, and succesfully sabotaged it via the Keepers.

Only years after the invasion began, and only a select team of scientists figured it out and carried it out.

3. Vendetta possibly figured out the existence of the Catatlyst.

Vendetta thought the Catalyst was the Citadel - which is what the Protheans thought. They had no idea what it really was.

4. The Cruicible seems to have been finished by the Protheans, they just never got to use it becasue of the splinter control faction.

Irrelevant. They didn't design it, but inherited the plans from the Inusannon.

5. Just becasue they lost doesn't mean they didn't know anything. A Shepherd can pick refuse and watch the universe burn with all that knowledge of the Reapers floating around in their skull.

No, Vigil's description of them being completely blindsided by the ferocity of the attack and immediately losing the Citadel proves that well enough.

Modifié par Kabooooom, 17 janvier 2013 - 12:06 .

[Leem_0001]

Kabooooom wrote...

No - the Protheans were taken completely by surprise. What they did have, which other cycles didn't, was a communication network that allowed instantaneous communication which did not utilize the FTL comm buoys. This allowed them to remain not completely in the dark while the extinction was going on - and it allowed Ilos to broadcast a signal to the beacon network after the hibernating scientists awoke.

While the extinction was happening, which took 200 years, they began building the Crucible and presumably studying Indoctrination. It was during this time that Vendetta was built.

2. They understood that the Repaer's used the Citadel as a trap, and succesfully sabotaged it via the Keepers.

Only years after the invasion began, and only a select team of scientists figured it out and carried it out.

3. Vendetta possibly figured out the existence of the Catatlyst.

Vendetta thought the Catalyst was the Citadel - which is what the Protheans thought. They had no idea what it really was.

4. The Cruicible seems to have been finished by the Protheans, they just never got to use it becasue of the splinter control faction.

Irrelevant. They didn't design it, but inherited the plans from the Inusannon.

5. Just becasue they lost doesn't mean they didn't know anything. A Shepherd can pick refuse and watch the universe burn with all that knowledge of the Reapers floating around in their skull.

No, Vigil's description of them being completely blindsided by the ferocity of the attack and immediately losing the Citadel proves that well enough.

Pretty much this. In ME1 it is clearly stated that the Protheans did not know about the Reapers until after the invasion through the citadel relay. Any knowladge they did get was learned during the period of their extermination.

The whole cruicible thing is a joke that has been outlined in many posts in the thread. It. Does. Not. Make. Sense.