341 réponses à ce sujet

[Kataphrut94]

I don't see what all the fuss is about. This is just a half-decent handwave in order to let people play as Collectors in multiplayer. The fun of being an ancient space bug blasting baddies with your dark energy gun and shooting swarms of wasps at Cerberus flunkies outweighs any need to justify it with the backstory that no one but the pedantic will be upset about. Especially in multiplayer where the point is to relax and enjoy yourself.

[Bill Casey]

Indy_S wrote...

I wouldn't believe the Collectors would
have ready access to those archives. And with the removal of the brain, I
don't expect any way to interpret those memories.

I don't believe it was ever said their brain was removed...
Mordin stated they lost intelligence and their mental capacity was almost gone...

Mental capacity in both a medical and legal sense means sufficient understanding to know right from wrong. Almost gone is another way of saying not completely gone...

So they're stupid and insane...

Modifié par Bill Casey, 27 février 2013 - 08:51 .

[Indy_S]

Bill Casey wrote...

I don't believe it was ever said their brain was removed...
Mordin stated they lost intelligence and their mental capacity was almost gone...

Mental capacity in both a medical and legal sense means sufficient understanding to know right from wrong. Almost gone is another way of saying not completely gone...

So they're stupid and insane...

Perhaps the greatest combination of attributes a person can have. The perfect qualities of Vengeance. We should arm them all! Nothing can go wrong!

[Bill Casey]

Indy_S wrote...

Perhaps the greatest combination of attributes a person can have. The perfect qualities of Vengeance.

And the perfect role playing avatar for online gamers...

[Sc2mashimaro]

It's a lore break, but as long as it stays in the MP, I don't care. To me, SP is all that is "canon", no matter how "integrated" the two supposedly are.

[Dean_the_Young]

Indy_S wrote...

Bill Casey wrote...

I don't believe it was ever said their brain was removed...
Mordin stated they lost intelligence and their mental capacity was almost gone...

Mental capacity in both a medical and legal sense means sufficient understanding to know right from wrong. Almost gone is another way of saying not completely gone...

So they're stupid and insane...

Perhaps the greatest combination of attributes a person can have. The perfect qualities of Vengeance. We should arm them all! Nothing can go wrong!

You're assuming that once they are freed, they can't be given new mental capacity in some fashion or another.

EDIT:

On of the interesting points to me about Mordin's talk on the Collectors were that they were culturally dead: no art, no beliefs, no framework or structure for independent thought. That alone would be enough to go a long ways to making them the faceless/identityless monsters that they were. Think of feral children who grow up without human contact: insanity and amorality are pretty unsurprising for people not brought up with social contact and culture.

In the Mass Effect universe, however, culture is transferable by one of the dominant races in the galaxy. It doesn't have to be a long process of acclimitization and association over years or decades, but can be given in a matter of minutes. And culture... culture isn't just trivia or art, it's the system of beliefs and processes as well, a good part of how we think.

So, to me, the premise wasn't 'the Collectors are mentally incapable because of their relaince on tech-implants,' but rather 'the Collectors are mentally incapable because they are culturally dead.'

Modifié par Dean_the_Young, 27 février 2013 - 10:33 .

[Indy_S]

Dean_the_Young wrote...

You're assuming that once they are freed, they can't be given new mental capacity in some fashion or another.

I am. I don't believe the restoration of a person's mind is possible after it is lost so absolutely. These things can't want vengeance.

[ElectronicPostingInterface]

Really hate this change and the idea "huskified" units can suddenly wake up and be normal again.

Would have been totally fine with the current lore to just have them be enthralled.

I mean, if they *wanted* to do this, they could have probably executed it into a way that I would have been OK with in a single player game. Some kind of story or example of how this is all possible. I sort of find it...very weird...now that we are suddenly waking up these people who have had their organs rerouted and turned into killing machines. How life is supposed to work like that on some kind of psychological level...weren't these originally mindless drones, sort of like ants, more machine than aware?

It introduces a lot of questions that are confusing and aren't answered. I suppose the husks now in synthesis can go on to have nice quality of life and integrate into society, just like these "awakened" Collectors...?

Ehh. I find the whole thing to be unenjoyable, personally.

I'm just going to pretend for my own enjoyment that the mysterious codex author got it wrong here and that their awareness is overexaggerated for PR reasons, like the Protheans being the creators of the Mass Relay and the Reapers being a myth.

---

"I am. I don't believe the restoration of a person's mind is possible after it is lost so absolutely. These things can't want vengeance."

I'm not so sure how these can be "Protheans" in the strictest sense - it confuses me how they could even have memories of being a Prothean or adapt to that culture, given their prior role was just being drones for the Reaper army.

Is it implanted identity by the Leviathians...?

Unfortunately this is probably reading too much into something that was thought up for the purpose of putting a cool new unit into MP. I can appreciate that - but they could have done it without adding this whole new understated "Reapers troops can be awakened" element.

Modifié par PKchu, 27 février 2013 - 10:38 .

[Dean_the_Young]

Indy_S wrote...

Dean_the_Young wrote...

You're assuming that once they are freed, they can't be given new mental capacity in some fashion or another.

I am. I don't believe the restoration of a person's mind is possible after it is lost so absolutely. These things can't want vengeance.

If we're using some sort of mental projection, as is possible in the lore, it wouldn't really be regaining their own mind: it would be overlying the mind/culture that is the basis of the projection, mingling with their post-sentience development.

If the 'source-code' is, say, Javik, then it would be as much his anger as their own. Or if the Cypher we received is actually a 'Prothean culture is pretty vengeful', as might well have been the case, then again it can be helped by a foreign influence.

[ElementL09]

When Harbinger seperated his connection from the Collector General, its wasn't brain dead, it still had its conscience. I don't find anything wrong with Leviathan (mind you, Harbinger was modeled after this civilization) using their powers or influence to "awaken" collectors.

I'm more suprised at the Awakened Collector then I would be if we had Protheans. Protheans could have made sense since we don't know the exact number of stasis pods out there.

[ElectronicPostingInterface]

That source code idea is kind of interesting to me Dean: the implantation of a personality.

That's less weird to me than the idea that the person inside a husk is merely sleeping and that you can undo mental changes and suddenly Joker's sister is normal again, if a bit more grey and scaly looking. (Or a scion or a brute, beings fused of multiple people.)

It's sort of weird to look back at the older games and the Reaper troops with a lens of, "We could have saved these people." That idea is never given a passing thought.

Modifié par PKchu, 27 février 2013 - 10:44 .

[Indy_S]

Dean_the_Young wrote...

If we're using some sort of mental projection, as is possible in the lore, it wouldn't really be regaining their own mind: it would be overlying the mind/culture that is the basis of the projection, mingling with their post-sentience development.

If the 'source-code' is, say, Javik, then it would be as much his anger as their own. Or if the Cypher we received is actually a 'Prothean culture is pretty vengeful', as might well have been the case, then again it can be helped by a foreign influence.

They would be man-sized children, then. I'm somewhat okay with that. I'd question their competence in a fight but I'd be (minimally) okay with them 'coming back'. Let them shoot their guns in anger.

[Dean_the_Young]

PKchu wrote...

That source code idea is kind of interesting to me Dean: the implantation of a personality.

That's less weird to me than the idea that the person inside a husk is merely sleeping and that you can undo mental changes and suddenly Joker's sister is normal again, if a bit more grey and scaly looking.

It's sort of weird to look back at the older games and the Reaper troops with a lens of, "We could have saved these people." That idea is never given a passing thought.

I think it would depend on the sort of husk, honestly. Husks, for example, are told to us (including a war asset) to have their brain more or less re-created: considering how they can be made of dead people in the first place, I doubt they have any real potential for independence (bar Synthesis). Similarly with the more artificial Reaper creations, such as Brutes or other mental-splicings.

Collectors fill a somewhat unique spot in the Reaper heirarchy, though: the Protheans were a species the Reapers wanted to ascend into Reaperhood, but couldn't. Unlike other types of husks, made from Species that will be uplifted, the Collectors are kept around as a part of the Reaper's preservationist tendencies... which may or may not entail different means/priorities of their thralldom. Outright indoctrination of an organic mind with implant support, rather than autonomotons.

Possible, not claiming it is. I wouldn't look at it as 'saving them', either, because that implies there's a helpless personality in there waiting for rescue. Maybe... repurposed?

[ElectronicPostingInterface]

You know, if they were willing to make a big lore change like this to accommodate a collector unit because people wanted Protheans in MP...

...they could have just gone an actual Prothean. Just make clones of Javik that die off in a few months for some random reason and a contrived reason why it can't be replicated. Or people found in Javik's stasis pod with some kind of mental and physical damage that makes them barely able to communicate and infertile, but able to fight.

Awkward, but less confusing than this and how it impacts the perception of fighting Reaper units in the past, the processes we've seen. The idea is weird to me, but they could probably tell an interesting story about it.

The salvation of reaper troops probably deserves a bit more than two paragraphs of text. A book detailing Harbinger's defeat would have been OK. Or even one of those comics then tend to bounce between "ehhh..." and "average.

Protheans clones/generic excuse to revive them temporarily would have been more lore friendly.

Modifié par PKchu, 27 février 2013 - 10:59 .

[Dean_the_Young]

Indy_S wrote...

Dean_the_Young wrote...

If we're using some sort of mental projection, as is possible in the lore, it wouldn't really be regaining their own mind: it would be overlying the mind/culture that is the basis of the projection, mingling with their post-sentience development.

If the 'source-code' is, say, Javik, then it would be as much his anger as their own. Or if the Cypher we received is actually a 'Prothean culture is pretty vengeful', as might well have been the case, then again it can be helped by a foreign influence.

They would be man-sized children, then. I'm somewhat okay with that. I'd question their competence in a fight but I'd be (minimally) okay with them 'coming back'. Let them shoot their guns in anger.

Why would you question their competence in a fight?

Cerberus troops turn random civilians into special forces quality soldiers in an ambiguously short amount of time. Even if we assume the Collectors didn't keep the Reaper 'training' they already had, and I'm not sure why we would, rapid training means do exist in the ME universe.


As for being man-sized children, that depends on what you mean by that... and what the Cypher/uplift process brings to the table. Would you consider the Cerberus troopers man-sized children?

[ElectronicPostingInterface]

Dean_the_Young wrote...

I think it would depend on the sort of husk, honestly. Husks, for example, are told to us (including a war asset) to have their brain more or less re-created: considering how they can be made of dead people in the first place, I doubt they have any real potential for independence (bar Synthesis). Similarly with the more artificial Reaper creations, such as Brutes or other mental-splicings.

Collectors fill a somewhat unique spot in the Reaper heirarchy, though: the Protheans were a species the Reapers wanted to ascend into Reaperhood, but couldn't. Unlike other types of husks, made from Species that will be uplifted, the Collectors are kept around as a part of the Reaper's preservationist tendencies... which may or may not entail different means/priorities of their thralldom. Outright indoctrination of an organic mind with implant support, rather than autonomotons.

Possible, not claiming it is. I wouldn't look at it as 'saving them', either, because that implies there's a helpless personality in there waiting for rescue. Maybe... repurposed?

Yeah, that's a really interesting train of thought - how the Collectors are created specifically is a bit more vague than say, scions. The idea that maybe the Collectors in some way preserve Prothean memories or thought, perhaps maybe in case they found a way to build a Prothean reaper later. A just in case book.

They might even consider themselves "Protheans" but differ heavily from what they were actually like, sort of like people coming back to a dead culture and claiming it for themselves.

That's not so bad as my initial fear of Reaper units being grumpy people, just needing the help of some friendly care bear to lift up the spirits of their hearts...

Thanks Dean, that helps my lore OCD some.

[Dean_the_Young]

PKchu wrote...

You know, if they were willing to make a big lore change like this to accommodate a collector unit because people wanted Protheans in MP...

...they could have just gone an actual Prothean. Just make clones of Javik that die off in a few months for some random reason and a contrived reason why it can't be replicated. Or people found in Javik's stasis pod with some kind of mental and physical damage that makes them barely able to communicate and infertile, but able to fight.

Awkward, but less confusing than this and how it impacts the perception of fighting Reaper units in the past, the processes we've seen. The idea is weird to me, but they could probably tell an interesting story about it.

You'd end up still having people complain about it, including many of the same, so at that point we're really just sloshing the disgruntlement around. We can ask how Collectors can be turned to the light side, or ask where a few thousand Protheans conveniently came from.

As long as it's confined to MP, and at this point it looks like it easily would be (Collectors are just as non-viable breeding population, and sound to be a small and very late-war entry), I don't consider it a terribly big lore change as much as a concession of gameplay and story interaction. If they want to keep Collectors/Protheans around in the future, they have ways to justify it without resting too much on the Awakened Collector description (hey, we captured Collector Cloning facilities during the war and were starting to make an army: after Destroy we repaired them and the Collectors maintained themselves etc. etc.), and if they don't want to carry on the Protheans/Collectors they can simply let them die out/be Destroyed and later phrase it ambiguously.

The salvation of reaper troops probably deserves a bit more than two paragraphs of text. A book detailing Harbinger's defeat would have been OK. Or even one of those comics then tend to bounce between "ehhh..." and "average.

Protheans clones/generic excuse to revive them temporarily would have been more lore friendly.

Well, that is what Collectors technically are: Prothean clones with a short lifespan.

But I do agree that it would make better fodder for a storyline than a summary paragraph. Much of the MP lore would, such as Cerberus Project Phoenix. Occassionally I muse and wonder if they're keeping those sort of plot threads in reserve for if they do a Reaper War spinoff game, in which the MP lore provides a number of the story arcs.

[ElectronicPostingInterface]

"You'd end up still having people complain about it, including many of the same, so at that point we're really just sloshing the disgruntlement around. We can ask how Collectors can be turned to the light side, or ask where a few thousand Protheans conveniently came from."

Sure, of course. It's odd either way and wouldn't solve every problem. I suppose the perspective I come at it from is that the Protheans appearing nowhere would be contrived, and I could sort of just imagine personally what actually happened, with Bioware leaving enough unexplained elements for it not to appear totally contradictory.

This change confuses me as to the base identity of what it means to be a Collector, and in some ways, a Reaper troop. I would be curious as to the follow up for that and how it would work, but I fear it's just a throw away line they might not ever expand upon. There are interesting questions raised, but no implied future answers incoming. (A Reaper War spinoff game would be a neat way to go through and play with all these plot threads, though. I rather like that.)

Basically this idea of awakening reaper troops has a larger impact on how I view the events of Mass Effect than say, the goofy resurrection of some people who will die off for more goofy reasons.

[Dean_the_Young]

PKchu wrote...

"You'd end up still having people complain about it, including many of the same, so at that point we're really just sloshing the disgruntlement around. We can ask how Collectors can be turned to the light side, or ask where a few thousand Protheans conveniently came from."

Sure, of course. It's odd either way and wouldn't solve every problem. I suppose the perspective I come at it from is that the Protheans appearing nowhere would be contrived, and I could sort of just imagine personally what actually happened, with Bioware leaving enough unexplained elements for it not to appear totally contradictory.

This change confuses me as to the base identity of what it means to be a Collector, and in some ways, a Reaper troop. I would be curious as to the follow up for that and how it would work, but I fear it's just a throw away line they might not ever expand upon. There are interesting questions raised, but no implied future answers incoming. (A Reaper War spinoff game would be a neat way to go through and play with all these plot threads, though. I rather like that.)

Basically this idea of awakening reaper troops has a larger impact on how I view the events of Mass Effect than say, the goofy resurrection of some people who will die off for more goofy reasons.

Well, if I were that writer, I'd feel proud of making you rethink these things. [/smug joy]

That said, I've had similar musings on what it means to be a Cerberus trooper. They talk: they maintain individuality: they even express curiosity, question the necessity of their orders (without questioning the legitimacy of the orders), and express emotional attachment and reaction.

I really, really wanted Omega to delve into that: how does an occupational Cerberus interact when not in direct conflict? What would a commander like Petrovsky do to humanize his men? What do Cerberus troopers do when they aren't on a mission? What sort of ideology do they have in their indoctrinated minds, and what visions of the future do they have?

But, alas, what we got was-

[simonrana]

It doesn't fit well at all OP. But then I figured it's a handwave for MP fun and not expected to be treated as canon (same as the sudden flood of EDI-bots out of nowhere).

[ElectronicPostingInterface]

"Well, if I were that writer, I'd feel proud of making you rethink these things. [/smug joy]"

There is value in that, yes. Changing perception or re-evaluating a story you've already experienced in a new way can be a really rewarding experience.

In this case though: when there's an excess of guessing and just not being able to know many details, the fact that you just end up with confusion where there was a sense of clarity can be frustrating. From my perspective as a player and someone watching the final days of this "era" of Mass Effect's timeline, I desire a sense of final resolution to the events. The game being over but more DLC possibly coming out and changing bits and pieces of the story has been a weird experience, sort of like thawing a character out of limbo.

There are interesting artistic and mental exercise bits that could be explored, but there's also a simplistic desire on my end to just have my fun game and see the fullness of what happened in the world I liked to follow.

I'm sure new events in sequels of various types will cause different impact on the narrative in retrospect, but in some sense, indirect sequels are deattached from what was originally there more and more due to needs of those game's plots, different writers unrelated to the older vision of ideas in the series, etc.

---

I would have loved to see your musing on Omega as a focus of that DLC. Infiltrating part of the city as a civilian and interacting among the poor of the city, watched over by troopers, could have been really intriguing.

There's a lot of things they could do as books because a lot was left unexplained. TIM's mindset and some of his thinking, Cerberus behind the scenes on the Citadel coup, would all be interesting to read about.

...Can't really disagree with your description of what we got.

Modifié par PKchu, 27 février 2013 - 11:53 .

[jkflipflopDAO]

justafan wrote...

I really hope this description is not suggesting the Collectors are capable of free will, let alone the capacity to "fight for the memory of their people". Because that should not be possible.

From the brilliant minds that brought you such classics as "Rachni?! We forgot about those!"  and "Starchild: Destroyer of the Trilogy" comes the lore-shattering expansion to the hit game Mass Effect 3 - "Husks Need Hugs, Too!".

[Mathias]

So Deception, then ME3's ending, then Paragon Lost, and now this. They obviously do not care about consistancy in the franchise's lore anymore. And for what? So we can play as a Collector in MP? Really? Was there that much of a fan outcry to play as a Collector?

As far as I know though, MP is considered canon isn't it? It's suppose to fit in with the SP story because of the Galactic Readiness.

[Jadebaby]

Bill Casey wrote...

Jadebaby wrote...

Well the character's description will settle this debate.

When the Reaper-killer known as Leviathan fought the Collectors, it severed their connection to Harbringer with a thrall device. Most Collector forces died as a result, but a few survived. Now, these rare individuals fight for the memory of their people, a proud race broken by the Reapers.

Protheans appointed avatars to embody and model a single virtue for their society. The Awakened Collectors' virtue is vengeance.

Are you telling me this is the character description?

When did the Leviathan fight the collectors exactly?