If you assume that all warships are constantly ready for battle, sure. Else this thing called "physics" gets in the way - if an enemy capable of FTL travel attacks then your ships will get hit before you see the enemy. In ME, the attacker always has the element of surprise.The Reapers lost the element-of-surprise since ME1.
Suppose you are the Reaper commander
Débuté par
RadicalDisconnect
, mars 17 2013 04:23
#126
Posté 20 août 2013 - 12:25
AlexMBrennan
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#127
Posté 20 août 2013 - 09:42
CrutchCricket
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[quote]HYR 2.0 wrote...
How did you reach that conclusion?[/quote]
Bwcause that's the sole purpose of everything Saren does in ME1.
[quote]
If they don't know what it is, they have no way of knowing if it's the difference between win and loss. As it happens, a backdoor entrance to the Citadel (what the Conduit turned out to be) really isn't something that the Reapers cannot win without. If that were the case, why didn't they destroy it from the other side.[/quote]
Sure they do, if they assume it's a powerful weapon like we do. Clearly Sovereign can't just charge in with the geth, or else it would've done so, centuries ago.
[quote]
Sovereign needed to know what the Protheans did to screw with the Keepers. It was a hole in the Reapers' established system [/quote]
...which it needed to plug, to finally be able to invite its buddies to the party, right? And if the only way to figure that out is the Conduit (whatever that is) it still means he can't win without it.
[quote]
... they did breach it.
. They just weren't successful in their ultimate goal of opening the relay.
[/quote]
You do realize we're going in circles right? They only breached it because of the Conduit, something that isn't likely to work twice. This is getting tiresome.
[quote]
So nothing, then. Gotcha.[/quote]
Yep. An assumption. But one that's grounded in some reasoning and not being passed off as fact.
[quote]
... Someone (Kahlee, I mean) who was not "nearly dead" either.[/quote]
But she was autistic. And 12. And one person.
[quote]
People can believe what they want, but there's nothing to refute my hypothesis, so the possibility I've supposed is not out-of-the-question. I'll only accept someone's rejection, though, if they can put forward a better explanation. One that: (1) makes sense; (2) is not contradicted by in-world info; (3) works in-world (i.e. -- not a cop-out like "bad writing").
To clarify, I'll accept "bad writing" if no workable explanation exists at all. I do not believe that's the case here, though.
Again, not everything is "bad writing" and you'll excuse me for not always accepting it so readily.[/quote]
I've given you several, neither of which mentioned "bad writing". If you don't want to accept them and would rather just blanket all my statements with "bad writing" then I think we're done here.
[quote]
It screams of a double-standard when you write-off the idea of [TIM's powers being capable of taking control of more than one target at once... never mind the fact we see that it does] because we do not know enough about the nature of his powers, but turn around and declare [TIM's powers have limits] as though you do know enough to make that claim.[/quote]
Not at all. TIM's powers have limits because his body has limits. Even decked out it's still human. My statement was predicated on pure definition. Finite power means said power must be greater than the resistance it's being used against in order to succeed. The resistance of a severely weakened Shepard and Anderson just isn't that impressive. And still, when Shepard raises his gun he doesn't shoot right away. Why? Is it just TIM being dramatic? Or is Shepard actually able to resist, even if only for a moment? If it's the latter, then I really don't think TIM's a destroyer of worlds. You can assume that if you wish but I don't think it's a reasonable assumption given the only test we have for it is pretty pathetic.
[quote]
This is off-topic, but whatever...
It's possible that the Reapers didn't think Sanctuary would get past controlling husks but still saw that as enough of a problem to intervene, but I think they saw it as as much of a threat as the Crucible itself. After all, the Crucible did lend itself to allowing Shepard to control the Reapers, and I don't see why the Reapers would not try to keep themselves from being controlled.[/quote]
You brought it up...
But for the record, I don't think so. The Crucible, despite the fact that it's somehow possible to build by us primitives in the middle of a war, is tech lightyears ahead of our own and is made to interact directly with the Citadel, also way past our tech level. Which, as we learn, is also ground zero for Reaper intelligence. The difference between them is like trying to hack the White House or the Pentagon, and some script kiddies playing with some DoS attacks in their basements. Yes DoS attacks can still cause problems but nowhere near in the same league. They can also be taken out far easier when they do get too uppity (as Sanctuary eventually is).
[quote]
As to my positions, NO, it's not laughable. Reaper strength and numbers is what makes conventional victory (nearly) impossible, but those are not issues you'd deal with in trying to seize direct control of them. To say nothing of the fact that's essentially what happens in the end -- Shepard basically hacks the Catalyst with... himself -- not sure what's "laughable" about trying to find/exploit a ****** in their system over taking on 240,000 super-dreadnoughts straight up.[/quote]
It's not just numbers or firepower that makes them unbeatable, it's what Reaper intelligence should really be. Processing power should be nearly incalculable. Next to them, we might as well be still using punch-cards and vacuum tube cooling. I've linked a post about it to you before.
And Shepard doesn't so much "hack" the holokid as get told "fine, you do it better". One, it let him take control, and two it was the Crucible (also advanced to nearly space-magicy levels) that made that happen in the first place.
I'm not saying the idea of trying to hack them is laughable. I'm saying any attempt we can make unaided is. A lot more so than just trying to face them head-on.
[quote]
Why not? Last time, Cerberus just shot everyone in their way the first time they tried to take the Citadel, and they were actually fairly successful at it (only Kai Leng failed to execute). It's established that Cerberus can outgun Alliance marines, so what's a few cops and Citadel civilians in their path? Shoot everything between Point A and Point B.[/quote]
Probably because that's what they did last time? No one's gonna fall for the same trick twice. Plus if they start shooting in the docks, there's still the turrets to consider. First assault trooper gets off a shot, the rest get turned to slag before they even get off their ride. Which, if it's the Cerberus we know and love, will also be pimped out with their logo as visibly as possible.
[quote]
Or, there may have been an alternative route to it that C-Sec didn't know about, but the Reapers did (which TIM would effectively learn through them). Hence, Anderson/Shepard's confusion on their exact location before encountering him.[/quote]
Yeah at that point it's established the Citadel is capable of shifting its internal structure and has done so. Not something that would've happened when everyone was still alive and well.
[quote]
And the idea behind citing the older script is -- among other things -- to prove that more thought goes into it than many anti-enders choose to believe. It's not all "hurr they weren't think at alllll." Some things get cut, and then the writers' intention is lost in translation. You can even see that now with Zaeed's content in the vanilla game. There was a more clear explanation in the leaked scripts what his gripe with Cerberus is. That information does not make it to the game, but between some things he says and his war-asset dossier, it's an explanation that would make a lot of sense things if it had. I don't dismiss those kind of explanations, though, without the game clearly refuting it.[/quote]
Hey for what it's worth I understand that a good part, maybe even the majority of flaws in the main game came from rushed deadlines. If they had more time to work on it, maybe a lot more would make sense. But the final product is the final product. It should stand on its own, not require cut content or after credits explanations for why things happened a certain way. And some of it definitely does not make sense.
That being said, some of it is just dumb, even if they did think it through. But that's a whole other thing.
[quote]
If you have something to say about it, then... sure[/quote]
I think it speaks for itself. Fly to/from the US recently?
[quote]
I think the idea here is that Leng and a handful of Phantom's would be outmatched by Shepard, squad, and C-Sec.[/quote]
I think the more key idea is why it came down to just Leng and a handful of phantoms. I don't know about you, but I didn't kill that many.
[quote]
And I'm not saying they're "dumb," so much as I'm saying they're not water-tight.
A resourceful enough person can get past just about any kind of security. TIM's character is a very determined one.[/quote]
They're not. But they don't have to be if you claim TIM just starts mindscrewing them left and right after they've said "Halt this is a restricted area".
And while they may not have guard mechs they do have biometric checkpoints at major security areas which will send an alarm if the guards somehow fail to. There's just too much security, and while it's not perfect, it's enough, no matter how determined he might be. TIM didn't star is his own version of Mission Impossible while we were out fighting the Reapers.
[quote]
It was your claim that C-Sec would be guarding a restricted area with particular caution. Saren's back-door entrance does not change that. Hell, we see him walk up to the control panel uncontested. Where was C-Sec then?[/quote]
Dead after going "whoa is that a mecha-turian and some geth that just came out of that relay monument?" instead of just shooting him straight up. There's something to be said for the element of surprise and that sight would be pretty unexpected.
And once the geth kept pouring through, C-Sec had their hands tied.
[quote]
So they use anti-aircraft guns. How does that indicate they have defenses in place to take out an infiltrator?
[/quote]
Idea of automated weaponry+security paranoia+ the fact that they were infiltrated before (twice) and nearly lost everything?
[quote]
Again, the evidence is TIM standing right there at the end of the game.
If C-Sec has this plethora of sound defenses in place that you say, how do you explain him standing there at all?
[/quote]
Circumstantial.
TIM was standing there because the Reapers killed everyone. He wins by default.
[quote]You've literally said the Reapers didn't take the Citadel because "art" with the second post. First post echoes that.
And that is your explanation for this: it's just stupid art/bad-writing™.
[/quote]
And I stand by it. There is no logical reason the Reapers didn't take the Citadel the moment they arrived. But in case you haven't noticed we're arguing two main ideas:
TIM's role in the takeover
The Reapers taking the Citadel from the start.
According to you my position on the second is also my position on the first (and apparently everything else). That's stereotyping, handwaving, refusing to acknowledge arguments... all the stuff you claim to hate, yet can't seem to stop doing.
[quote]
Not exactly sure what that's supposed to mean. Resistance?
When the Reapers are on top of you in force, the resistance is over before it begins...[/quote]
Really? So is there no hope once the Reapers attack or do they always need someone on the inside to open the door? Make up your damn mind already.
[quote]
Not if you know/expect they'll come. In which case, there will be one.
Even the Alliance knew Earth was going to be attacked well before it happened, but they were on their own.
The Citadel is of joint-interest to many species. The Reapers will take unnecessary casulties by trying to take it.[/quote]
Reapers take over Citadel.
Relay network shut down.
No reinforcements.
Business as usual for the harvest.
Why do I have to spell this out for you?
[quote]
The Reapers lost the element-of-surprise since ME1.
[/quote]
Clearly you don't remember the Council and every other official government being in denial over the whole thing. You're in denial of denial. Hilarious.
How did you reach that conclusion?[/quote]
Bwcause that's the sole purpose of everything Saren does in ME1.
[quote]
If they don't know what it is, they have no way of knowing if it's the difference between win and loss. As it happens, a backdoor entrance to the Citadel (what the Conduit turned out to be) really isn't something that the Reapers cannot win without. If that were the case, why didn't they destroy it from the other side.[/quote]
Sure they do, if they assume it's a powerful weapon like we do. Clearly Sovereign can't just charge in with the geth, or else it would've done so, centuries ago.
[quote]
Sovereign needed to know what the Protheans did to screw with the Keepers. It was a hole in the Reapers' established system [/quote]
...which it needed to plug, to finally be able to invite its buddies to the party, right? And if the only way to figure that out is the Conduit (whatever that is) it still means he can't win without it.
[quote]
... they did breach it.
. They just weren't successful in their ultimate goal of opening the relay.[/quote]
You do realize we're going in circles right? They only breached it because of the Conduit, something that isn't likely to work twice. This is getting tiresome.
[quote]
So nothing, then. Gotcha.[/quote]
Yep. An assumption. But one that's grounded in some reasoning and not being passed off as fact.
[quote]
... Someone (Kahlee, I mean) who was not "nearly dead" either.[/quote]
But she was autistic. And 12. And one person.
[quote]
People can believe what they want, but there's nothing to refute my hypothesis, so the possibility I've supposed is not out-of-the-question. I'll only accept someone's rejection, though, if they can put forward a better explanation. One that: (1) makes sense; (2) is not contradicted by in-world info; (3) works in-world (i.e. -- not a cop-out like "bad writing").
To clarify, I'll accept "bad writing" if no workable explanation exists at all. I do not believe that's the case here, though.
Again, not everything is "bad writing" and you'll excuse me for not always accepting it so readily.[/quote]
I've given you several, neither of which mentioned "bad writing". If you don't want to accept them and would rather just blanket all my statements with "bad writing" then I think we're done here.
[quote]
It screams of a double-standard when you write-off the idea of [TIM's powers being capable of taking control of more than one target at once... never mind the fact we see that it does] because we do not know enough about the nature of his powers, but turn around and declare [TIM's powers have limits] as though you do know enough to make that claim.[/quote]
Not at all. TIM's powers have limits because his body has limits. Even decked out it's still human. My statement was predicated on pure definition. Finite power means said power must be greater than the resistance it's being used against in order to succeed. The resistance of a severely weakened Shepard and Anderson just isn't that impressive. And still, when Shepard raises his gun he doesn't shoot right away. Why? Is it just TIM being dramatic? Or is Shepard actually able to resist, even if only for a moment? If it's the latter, then I really don't think TIM's a destroyer of worlds. You can assume that if you wish but I don't think it's a reasonable assumption given the only test we have for it is pretty pathetic.
[quote]
This is off-topic, but whatever...
It's possible that the Reapers didn't think Sanctuary would get past controlling husks but still saw that as enough of a problem to intervene, but I think they saw it as as much of a threat as the Crucible itself. After all, the Crucible did lend itself to allowing Shepard to control the Reapers, and I don't see why the Reapers would not try to keep themselves from being controlled.[/quote]
You brought it up...
But for the record, I don't think so. The Crucible, despite the fact that it's somehow possible to build by us primitives in the middle of a war, is tech lightyears ahead of our own and is made to interact directly with the Citadel, also way past our tech level. Which, as we learn, is also ground zero for Reaper intelligence. The difference between them is like trying to hack the White House or the Pentagon, and some script kiddies playing with some DoS attacks in their basements. Yes DoS attacks can still cause problems but nowhere near in the same league. They can also be taken out far easier when they do get too uppity (as Sanctuary eventually is).
[quote]
As to my positions, NO, it's not laughable. Reaper strength and numbers is what makes conventional victory (nearly) impossible, but those are not issues you'd deal with in trying to seize direct control of them. To say nothing of the fact that's essentially what happens in the end -- Shepard basically hacks the Catalyst with... himself -- not sure what's "laughable" about trying to find/exploit a ****** in their system over taking on 240,000 super-dreadnoughts straight up.[/quote]
It's not just numbers or firepower that makes them unbeatable, it's what Reaper intelligence should really be. Processing power should be nearly incalculable. Next to them, we might as well be still using punch-cards and vacuum tube cooling. I've linked a post about it to you before.
And Shepard doesn't so much "hack" the holokid as get told "fine, you do it better". One, it let him take control, and two it was the Crucible (also advanced to nearly space-magicy levels) that made that happen in the first place.
I'm not saying the idea of trying to hack them is laughable. I'm saying any attempt we can make unaided is. A lot more so than just trying to face them head-on.
[quote]
Why not? Last time, Cerberus just shot everyone in their way the first time they tried to take the Citadel, and they were actually fairly successful at it (only Kai Leng failed to execute). It's established that Cerberus can outgun Alliance marines, so what's a few cops and Citadel civilians in their path? Shoot everything between Point A and Point B.[/quote]
Probably because that's what they did last time? No one's gonna fall for the same trick twice. Plus if they start shooting in the docks, there's still the turrets to consider. First assault trooper gets off a shot, the rest get turned to slag before they even get off their ride. Which, if it's the Cerberus we know and love, will also be pimped out with their logo as visibly as possible.
[quote]
Or, there may have been an alternative route to it that C-Sec didn't know about, but the Reapers did (which TIM would effectively learn through them). Hence, Anderson/Shepard's confusion on their exact location before encountering him.[/quote]
Yeah at that point it's established the Citadel is capable of shifting its internal structure and has done so. Not something that would've happened when everyone was still alive and well.
[quote]
And the idea behind citing the older script is -- among other things -- to prove that more thought goes into it than many anti-enders choose to believe. It's not all "hurr they weren't think at alllll." Some things get cut, and then the writers' intention is lost in translation. You can even see that now with Zaeed's content in the vanilla game. There was a more clear explanation in the leaked scripts what his gripe with Cerberus is. That information does not make it to the game, but between some things he says and his war-asset dossier, it's an explanation that would make a lot of sense things if it had. I don't dismiss those kind of explanations, though, without the game clearly refuting it.[/quote]
Hey for what it's worth I understand that a good part, maybe even the majority of flaws in the main game came from rushed deadlines. If they had more time to work on it, maybe a lot more would make sense. But the final product is the final product. It should stand on its own, not require cut content or after credits explanations for why things happened a certain way. And some of it definitely does not make sense.
That being said, some of it is just dumb, even if they did think it through. But that's a whole other thing.
[quote]
If you have something to say about it, then... sure[/quote]
I think it speaks for itself. Fly to/from the US recently?
[quote]
I think the idea here is that Leng and a handful of Phantom's would be outmatched by Shepard, squad, and C-Sec.[/quote]
I think the more key idea is why it came down to just Leng and a handful of phantoms. I don't know about you, but I didn't kill that many.
[quote]
And I'm not saying they're "dumb," so much as I'm saying they're not water-tight.
A resourceful enough person can get past just about any kind of security. TIM's character is a very determined one.[/quote]
They're not. But they don't have to be if you claim TIM just starts mindscrewing them left and right after they've said "Halt this is a restricted area".
And while they may not have guard mechs they do have biometric checkpoints at major security areas which will send an alarm if the guards somehow fail to. There's just too much security, and while it's not perfect, it's enough, no matter how determined he might be. TIM didn't star is his own version of Mission Impossible while we were out fighting the Reapers.
[quote]
It was your claim that C-Sec would be guarding a restricted area with particular caution. Saren's back-door entrance does not change that. Hell, we see him walk up to the control panel uncontested. Where was C-Sec then?[/quote]
Dead after going "whoa is that a mecha-turian and some geth that just came out of that relay monument?" instead of just shooting him straight up. There's something to be said for the element of surprise and that sight would be pretty unexpected.
And once the geth kept pouring through, C-Sec had their hands tied.
[quote]
So they use anti-aircraft guns. How does that indicate they have defenses in place to take out an infiltrator?
[/quote]
Idea of automated weaponry+security paranoia+ the fact that they were infiltrated before (twice) and nearly lost everything?
[quote]
Again, the evidence is TIM standing right there at the end of the game.
If C-Sec has this plethora of sound defenses in place that you say, how do you explain him standing there at all?
[/quote]
Circumstantial.
TIM was standing there because the Reapers killed everyone. He wins by default.
[quote]You've literally said the Reapers didn't take the Citadel because "art" with the second post. First post echoes that.
And that is your explanation for this: it's just stupid art/bad-writing™.
[/quote]
And I stand by it. There is no logical reason the Reapers didn't take the Citadel the moment they arrived. But in case you haven't noticed we're arguing two main ideas:
TIM's role in the takeover
The Reapers taking the Citadel from the start.
According to you my position on the second is also my position on the first (and apparently everything else). That's stereotyping, handwaving, refusing to acknowledge arguments... all the stuff you claim to hate, yet can't seem to stop doing.
[quote]
Not exactly sure what that's supposed to mean. Resistance?
When the Reapers are on top of you in force, the resistance is over before it begins...[/quote]
Really? So is there no hope once the Reapers attack or do they always need someone on the inside to open the door? Make up your damn mind already.
[quote]
Not if you know/expect they'll come. In which case, there will be one.
Even the Alliance knew Earth was going to be attacked well before it happened, but they were on their own.
The Citadel is of joint-interest to many species. The Reapers will take unnecessary casulties by trying to take it.[/quote]
Reapers take over Citadel.
Relay network shut down.
No reinforcements.
Business as usual for the harvest.
Why do I have to spell this out for you?
[quote]
The Reapers lost the element-of-surprise since ME1.
[/quote]
Clearly you don't remember the Council and every other official government being in denial over the whole thing. You're in denial of denial. Hilarious.
Modifié par CrutchCricket, 20 août 2013 - 09:52 .
