223 réponses à ce sujet

[sH0tgUn jUliA]

and be sure to give me an add to your friends.

[sH0tgUn jUliA]

Thank you erezike for replying to Silverexile. I'm not ending the game by having the character talking to god and being given the choice of one of solving three problems that never existed during the entire story just to end the war... oh and your character gets to die in all three choices.

I would write a parody ending first.

[silverexile17s]

erezike wrote...

The nitpicking points you brought up are all from the original version of mass effect 3.
We are rewriting mass effect 3 to continue to events of mass effect 2 seamlessly. meaning that all the comics that took place after me2 along with the entire plot of mass effect 3 will be retconn by us.
this doesnt mean that we will now portray the reapers weaker than we last seen them. soveriegn was able to withstand the combined fire of many alliance cruisers, 1 alliance dreadnought( hackett command ship) frigates and fighters for long period of times. we have no idea how much longer they would have needed to shoot soverign if it handt took control of saren corpse. we also know the reapers have to be numerous for they have been harvesting the galaxy for millions or maybe even billions of years.

in order to even the field the galaxy must either become stronger or the reaper must be weaken due to their consistent faliures in me1&me2. or both. mass effect 3 pushed their arrival too soon when they were still not playing close to an even field. which is why bioware had tp pull out the curcible.

To say something was never to be believeable or that this is simply a video game and things happen because its a video game. is a diservice to the story. a good story cannot turn a blind eye to issues by claming its only a game. a good story has to come up with good reason for including something withing it. the reapers being acient, powerful and wiping out everything every 50,000 years makes perfect sense. they are more powerful but they arent perfect. they have plans that fail, they had casualties in the past. they have weakenesses.

If the reapers truly were capable of flying to the galaxy there had to be some sort of cost. they had to be weaken in such a way that field would have been even. enough for the galaxy to have a change of winning. the way things turned out to be in me3. the reapers arrived without any clear cost. and the galaxy were underminded to be even weaker for their arrival with cerberus turning indoctrinated, the quarrians attacking the geth. and the entire batarian nation being conquered without anyone knowing anything about it. the writers did all they could to prevent the field from being evened in me3.

the concept of the crucible is very different from the other concepts( vigil data file, saren husk psi-link backfire, reaper iff, lazarus project) because its a game breaker. first what it does demeands a lot more suspense of disbelief than the other achievements, its reveal is too convienent and its effects are too extreme. if we compare it to sports. its the difference between a bad referee call during a match. to the league management deciding a certian team should be made champion even though they were planned to drop a leage.

Me2 was only redunant because the way me3 turned out to be. it was a great game, best i ever played. it developed tools for fighting the reapers, gave shepard new technologies, new intel and had valuable information important for uniting the galaxy later on. mass effect 2 was the meat.

- If the reapers could arrive without the citadel, then what stopped them to swarm from darkspace, why risk exposure through saren actions. it was a high risk, low reward for them to assault the citadel the way they did. their attack on the citadel feels in the original me3 like they wanted to give the galaxy a chance. to know they are coming and prepare with the newly gained soveriegn pieces. in me3 soverign attack is portrayed as a careless rush. which cost many reapers their lives due to the wide spread of the thanix canons.

The citadel trap failing gave the galaxy a chance, but in me3 that chance was portrayed as meaningless.  since all the progress the galaxy has made was rendered not important. the crucible footprints could have been revealed by vigil and it all would have been the same.

And are the same in your "re-write." And are actually from the previous games, not ME3. These are things present in ME1 and ME2. So you can't just wish them away.

Impossible. No simpler term then that. Because you're missing all the important points. The problem wasn't in the ideas. Just how they were executed. You can't do that without blurting out the events of Omega, From Ashes, and everything else. And retconning those events can't be done without retconning connecting events in the past two games. You'd have to rewrite the entire trilogy to make your plan work. There would be no "seemless transition."

Wrong. According to Hackett in ME2: Arrival, the entire alliance space fleet went up against Sovergein. That's eight full fleets of ships - at least six dreadnoughts, and seventy crusiers. That's not even counting the pre-battle losses sustained against the geth fleet that guarded Sovergein, and the extra losses sustained if you opt to save the crippled Destiny Ascension - losses they're still realing from three years later. Before that, the turians already lost twenty crusiers (confirmed by Shepard in ME2 during interview with Al-Jalini on the Citadel).
The simple fact is, if not for the shields going down from the backlash of the Saren-Husk, Sovergien would never have gone down. The ships back then didn't have the weapons that could affect them, or knowledge of what the hell they were fighting against. And now it's too late for any of that to matter because now the Reapers are here in force.

At least a billion years the Reapers have been around. 1.2 billion at the most. That would equal out to around 24,000 Sovergein-Class Reapers - one per cycle. With around five or six Destroyer-Class per cycle created from the "lesser races." That would be 14,4000 Destroyer-Class at max, which would corrilate with the Codex discription of the majority of the Reape fleet being Destroyer-Class.
Final tally = 14,4000 Destroyer-class, 24,000 Sovergein-Class.

Wrong. Until this point, every conventional action has only ever slowed them, not stopped them. That's always been the case. The status que has always been that the Reapers have been superiour to us in conventional fighting -- that's what made them so threatening to begin with. Your plan to change that would ruin the very thing that makes the Reapers worth fearing -- the idea that they can't be killed using the normal rules. Because they never have before. The status que of "Reapers superiour, we must fight to survive" has been maintained throughout the series. If anything, the Reaper's strength being greater then ours was the one thing that stayed consistant through and through.
And if anything, ME3 pushed their arrival too far back. They Created the mass effect system. They can make ME fields that can resist the pull of black holes, for God's sake. Take that into account, plus the fact that their considerable weapons and shield power were diverted to FTL for the duration of the trip, and the fact that it's never once specified just how far beyond the edge of the galaxy the Reapers are, it's a wonder they weren't here sooner.
And FYI, the Crucible was the plan from the get-go, because Drew Karpyshyn was the one that created it as the central plot point of his original storyline. BioWare didn't  "pull it out" because it was already a plot-point as far back as ME2. One that was cannonized by Liara's mention of the protheans having other plans and more out there, back in "Lain of the Shadow Broker." It's been a cannon point since ME2, and has been part of the planned plotline of ME since the second game's development. Hell, ME3 development started pretty quickly after, so there wasn't any real "ass-pulls." The Crucible was the plan from the start. It was since the mid-development of ME2. It stayed that way when writing of ME3 began. Drew started that off, and Mac just picked up on what Drew left behind.

Again, wrong. Just look at what's happened already. In ME1, we had the Prothean beacon, Vigil's deus ex machina Data file, the Conduit being a mini mass relay, and the Saren-Husk's psychic backlash stunning Sovergein into helplessness. In ME2, we had the Lazarus Project, the Reaper IFF, the Collectors being prothean-husks, and the Reapers being organicly-grown machines made from human smoothies.
What exactally makes a doomsday device that uses Dark Energy as a weapon so unfesible compared to all the above? It's no less crazy or implasuible compared to what''s been done in the previous games. Saying the Crucible is any less plausible then the Lazarus Project or the Saren-Husk psi-link backlash is the epitimy of "pot calling the kettle black."
And those weaknesses were always Deus Ex Machina's. Always. Proof: Vigil's data file/Saren-Husk psi-link backlash combo saved the day from Sovergein. Why would it be any different now against the rest of the Reapers, when all we've been told from day flipping one is that there is zero conventional chance to beat them?

Dude, they created the mass relays. [/u]They created ME tech -- you think they wouldn't have solved things like discharge problems by now? We've likely only figured out barely 5% of ME tech's true capabilities compared to the 100% the Reapers have, having created the tech to begin with. You keep thinking of the Reapers as conventional enemies. They aren't. And even if they did need to vent, they were in dark space. Nothing to harm by discharging in the open without stopping, and avdanced enough to compensate for any feedback. They likely didn't ever need to stop or break pace at all during their trek, and likely began that trip the moment Sovergein failed. And again, you assume that they would just charge in the moment they got here? That would be stupid -- they'd likely rest for a moment and collect themselves before attacking, thereby invalidating your claim.
Wrong. We could fight. We knew they existed at last. We had the Relays under our control and not theirs. We had a chance - we just needed to capatalize on it with the one thintg that could beat them: The Crucible. And in regards to the batarians, they were always isolated from the galaxy -- it's no surprise no one knew. Just like it's no surprise that no one even knew the quarians attacked the geth until after it happened (which by the way, happened after the Reapers arrived. Not before.) And Cerberus was dabbling in Reaper Tech way before ME3. Hell, they were experimenting with it even back in ME2, as the novels showed. Besides, I doubt anyone didn't expect Cerberus to turn on Shepard.
And the entire point of all three games was that the fight would never BE on an even field. That's what made the fight so compelling a story -- your fighting against fate. You aren't going to win this with the normal rules -- you have no choice but to take a long shot, just like you always have in the previous games. Fight against Sovergein -- uneven field. And you only won through deus ex machina of Vigil's data file, and the psi-backlash from Saren-Husk's death. Fight against Collectors -- uneven field. And again, you only won through deus ex machina of the Lazarus Project, and the Reaper tech combo of Sovergein-based EDI, and Reaper IFF.
The field was never MENT to be evened. That was the entire point of the fight for survival is winning on an uneven field. We've been told from the very start that this would never, ever be won by conventional means. By Saren, by Hackett, By Anderson, by The Illusive Man. And you're surprised when that actually turned out to be the case?

No it isn't. It explisitly isn't. Especally not when compared to things like the Lazarus Project, or the Saren-Husk psi-backfire. That's the long and short of it.
the Crucible uses a known science -- Dark Energy. AKA biotic mass effect fields. Gathering dark energy and condensing it into a giant biotic grenade was the basic design of the Crucible, with the mass relays able to bounce the shockwave of energy to another, hitting any target area. That's not a stretch of the imagination to weponize dark energy, It's just a tech-based version of a biotic warp attack, just macro-sized. That doesn't even come close to being a "game breaker." Nor is the effect "too extreme" compared to reviving someone from clinical brain-death, or a psychic beacon, or a mental backlash from the implants of a dead husk stunning a 2 kilometer ship into submission.
I think you need to re-evaluate your definition of a foul. Because your doing exactally what you've just said with all the other faults in the game.

Wrong.
(Warning: ME2 bashing incoming. Read at your own risk. Disclamer: These are my personal feelings on ME2, and mine alone.)

ME2 was redundant right from the flipping get-go. It resolved nothing. Solved nothing. Acomplished nothing. Nothing it did connected to the goal of taking the fight to the Reapers. Nothing in it had any link to the prospect of building a foundation for galactic war. NO tools for fighting the Reapers were developed, because they were all specified and subsiquently used up against the Collectors.    NO new technologies were developed for Shepard, because they were all pre-existing tech that were developed as a result of actions taken in ME1, not actions taken in ME2. It was a massive side-quest and gave zero information that we didn't already know, because we still didn't get any clear-cut idea of how to stop them. It wasn' t the meat, it was a treat. It was a waste of effort, an optional side-quest that didn't build on anything from ME1 or lay any kind of real foundation for ME3. And many of the problems in ME3 stem from poor management of plot-pacing in ME2. Ideas like the Crucible are so out of place because they weren't in ME2, where you treated the symptom rather then the cause, and by the time you get back to the cause, you need to sprint to catch up and it becomes akward. It would need complete re-write [/b]of ME2's plot in regards to fighting the Reapers to make your plan work. End of story.

How many times must we go over this? Tactical convience. Anyone with half a brain would take an instant win over slogging it out. Say you're completely invunerable and immortal. WOuld you slog through millions of defenders just because you could? When a completely painless instant win is avalible to you? Of course not, The Reapers run on logic. The best way for me to describe it would be: Just because you can survive jumping off a brigde doesn't mean you'd do it." The Citadel trap was convient. It allowed the Reapers to win instantly by decapitating the governments and shutting down the relays to organic access.
And there was no initial risk. Eden Prime would have been an attack by rouge geth and their highly advanced warship, hunting for the prothean beacon. Sovergien would have been classed as a geth warship (like it was already) and no-one would have been the wiser. Shepard getting the beacon info and saving the colony and the evidence ruined what was a simple, efficant plan. There was no major risk, and high reward in taking the Citadel and bringing in the invasion. Besides, Sovergein took said risk because it didn't anticipate failure. It thought that it would succeed and bring the Reapers into the galaxy, thus completely ending the need for secrecy. It's not that complicated. You act like Sovergein thought it would lose. That was the last possible thing it ever expected to happen. It thought it had won. It thought it had brought the Reapers though. It tought the harvest had began and that secrecy was thus no longer needed because the Reapers were already coming through.
Honestly. think.

Wrong. The fact that there's a fight at all is proof it wasn't meaningless. If the trap succeeded, [u][b]there wouldn't be a fight to begin with. The relays would be sealed off to organics and the governments would have all fallen in the first day.
Also, you assume Vigil knew about the Crucible. Ilos went dark the moment the Reapers came through, so they never knew about it's construction. And the facility was isolated, so they likely never even knew about the Crucible to begin with. Add that to 50,000 years of crrosion and decay, and your surprised Vigil didn't know anything? He himself said his databanks were all but gone, and Liara comments that Vigil is on it's last legs and likely won't be around long. Something confirmed in ME2 when you are told the V.I. had already shut down by the time people got to Ilos following the Citadel attack.

Modifié par silverexile17s, 25 septembre 2013 - 07:42 .

[Erez Kristal]

1) our rewrite is based on me1&me2 and doesnt retconn known facts presented in those games.

2) some ideas presesented in me3 were ok. things have to stay fresh in the story in order to keep it interesting which is why we cannon present a fixed version. the crucible was a reaper off switch. and we are better off without one.

3) "Using the central console, Shepard uploads Vigil's program and gains control of the Citadel. With advice from the team, Shepard opens a communication channel and gets Joker... who has the Fifth Fleet just waiting for the commander's word once the mass relays are unlocked. Shepard has to decide between sending the Fleet to defend the Destiny Ascension and save the Council, " the citadel fleets were only engaged with the geth. a conclusion that if saren wouldnt have been destroyed the fifth fleet wouldnt have been able to destroy soveriegen is only an assumption. it is also safe to assume that sovereigen was hard pressed by the fleet which is why it took control and tried to kill shepard and his squad in the first place. if it was indeed invincible. it wouldnt need to take control of saren.

4) i know the reapers can be numerous, while i could argue your calculation. it isnt the point of this discussion. their numbers have been adressed to in our story in a logical fashion.

5) in the ending of mass effect 2. how can you be sure you havent stopped them? harbinger gives a nice speech how they will find another way. but will they really?
I think they will. but the story will also make sense if they end up stuck in darkspace or arrive 1000 years later.

6) mass effect 1&2 left hints for many things. the protheans had other plans in motion, but that could mean anything. drew use of dark energy plot was completely changed in mass effect 3 as it didnt have enough teeth by the end of mass effect 2. he may have one planned to use a similar idea. but that doesnt make it a good idea.

7) the crucible is different because it breaks the game. while those other technological feats merely ballance the game by performing small gestures. the crucible changed the entire game.
a better comparsion would be if the crucible improved the performance of the galactic defence against the reapers. boosted their eneregy output and defence. in a way that strategy and sacrifice would still be meaningful. and not just an auto win button.

8) if the reapers only needed time to collect themselves then with their knowledge of the galaxy and what isnt mappen with mass effect fields they could have had a safe place to do so. resting unharmed. soveriegn attack ended up in giving their tech to their enemies. it was a pointless risk.

9) the batarians are isolated, but they still have illegal trades with other races. there is the stg, n7, asari commando. do you think it make sense that no one was spying on the batarians?

10) it was known that the quarrian were preparing for war. shepard being railroaded to other things, also railroaded him/her to arrive only after it started.

11) cerberus were studying reaper tech but if were they to be saviors, villians or somewhere in between was up to the writers of me3 to decide. me3 needed humanoid mooks to shoot and the reapers to be made even more unbeatable for the crucible to work. so cerberus were called to the enemy flag.

12) " the entire point of all three games was that the fight would never BE on an even field" the entire point was to save the galaxy. how it was to be achieved was never revealed up until me3.
Your best not quoting me3 as your examples of not being able to defeat the reapers in other means because thats the direction me3 choose to go.
Saren choose to surrender to the reapers. in the end shepard can convince him otherwise.

13) the effect of the cucible is too extreme because of its ramafictations. while the battle against soverigen was hard. it was on an even field. 1 reaper vs 1 human fleet. the crucible arrive at a convienent time and wipes out the reapers single handed. there is not fight, no hard choices and no sense of sacrifice. its an auto win button.

14) mass effect 2 was a glorified sidequest because of mass effect 3. if mass effect 3 was different. you would have looked upon mass effect 2 differently. in the end of me2 harbinger yells we will find another way. why doesnt harbinger say that? because mass effect 2 was supposed to be about the reapers looking for a way to enter the galaxy. it was about showing character development and strength buildup on the galaxy part. the normandy is a symbol for that development. you finish me1 and start me2. with the sr1 a great human innovation. you get hacked to pieces by a collector cruiser without giving back a fight. at the end of me2 you take off that cruiser and defeat reaper hacking attempts almost without a scratch. you have become stronger. and not just you. during that time personal weapons have become stronger, potential number of fleets have become greater with the geth. reaper based weapons are now the new standard for ships. the galaxy have had a significance military boost in me2. and lets not forget the multiplie prothean artifacts you can find. the collector base and the multiplie people reasearching the reapers ever since the battle of the citadel.
In D&D -Baldurs gate terms. mass effect 2 was the time you spent killing bandits in the woods and shutting off cloakwood mines. it was story progress where you got stronger and also hindered your enemy plans. just like me1 was.

15) but the trap wasnt instant any more. it was underminded by the protheans. a solution was needed to be found. soverigen chosoe to attack the citadel directly at a high risk and expose the reapers to the rest of the galaxy. if the reapers could have just arrive to the galaxy at a low cost with no chance of faliure. it makes the assault extremely questionable. while initially soverigen thought it would win. the constant faliures it faced on eden prime, virmire, noveria, and feros would led it to believe otherwise maybe even decided the risk wasnt worth it. with its buddies just three years away.
Soverigen knew the risk of being captured in enemy space. it could be that once it started its insane plan it had no choice. it was between the hammer and the anvil. if it stopped the geth would have forsaken it. and left to believe another deity.

16) the reapers could have simply took the control of the citadel if they flew from dark space and then shut the relays. soverigen attack on the citadel was pointless as long the reaper could arrive from darkspace without any price to pay for it.

[Redbelle]

@silverexile.

Keeping the established canonof 1 and 2 for a moment and playing with 3, and what the crucible is and does.

What if.... The crucible was a device, built by the other races as a doomsday weapon designed to lure Reapers. nullify mass effect fields, and collapse the star? A weapon of desperation and last resort. Intended to be used as a trap during conception..... but after cycles and cycles of innovation and speculation on it's purpose, is now uncertain as to how it will perform.

I mention this as Haelstrom's destablised star is the perfect candidate to fire off such a device and destroy the Reapers by taking advantage of.

1. The concept that all things spaceworthy require mass effect fields to perform, and without them the Reapers are, still juggernaut's, but floundering juggernauts.

2. It brings back the game to a known location that seemed important, with future relevance to the story, but got buried. Now Haelstrom has a point, other than being the place where game mechanics were redeveloped to make moving in shadows important.

3. The notion of how setting off such a device, while fine in principle and the consequences desired, can be the container for much drama. Setting it off how? By remote? By someone being there to flip a switch? Do the Reapers figure out what's happening and try to stop them? What are the distances involved? Can a Reaper cross the distance in time to laser the crucible or is it more practical to send harvester's laden with Reaper forces?

Getting the balance right between what scenes are meant to convey, and the nitty gritty detail of how they arise, is important..... But not getting bogged down in the details before writing something is omre important to progess the project.

Much of what is written may just go to lay on the floor. But provide a path to understanding what is actually required. Writing a scene, when re-read, may inspire the writer to write a better scene.

So keep up with the critisism. It's good to see the rationale behind what a person thinks. but keep in mind that this project is huge in scope. I've been keeping an eye on it and seeing where things are going. And it's been fun to see how all these writers are tackling these hurdles.

But this is a rewrite. And it's a rewrite to allow the possibility of success in a way that shows the galaxy has in fact been been paying a bit more attention to the Reaper threat, behind the scenes, than each game has otherwise implied.

This is building on Garruses action's in strengthening Turian response times and supply lines.

The certain STG member's are not as skeptical as otherwise led to believe by the Dalatrass.

Shepard has reached out and touched so many that only those in positions of political power, who find Reaper's to be inconvienient to their own goals, dismissed them out of hand. They are to focused inward to think otherwise.

Other's whose job is to be ready in a military capacity, might otherwise think. What if he's right, or we one day face an enemy like he described.... how wold we prepare for that? And begin planning to fight an entirely new kind of warfare in order to learn lesson's on being effective that cold lead to other innovation's that could put them ahead of their current rivals.

Shepard has been a mover and shaker of those who are settled in routine. But not everyone will remained settled if Shep walks up and says, have you considered......

Modifié par Redbelle, 25 septembre 2013 - 10:50 .

[Redbelle]

Something I've never understood when it comes to ME2 and those who bash it.... Why say it is not in line with the story of the Reaper threat?

ME2 may not have Reaper's per se as the main antagonist, but what ME2 does is cleverer and more nuanced.

It pits you against the world that the Reaper's will force upon all. In ME2 you are fighting against the consequences that having Reapers exist, at all, actually means.

And it does so in a way that is not obviously clear, but many hail as the attraction of ME2. It's characters.

In ME2 you play alongside the largest ensemble of character's ME has ever fielded outside of Citadel DLC. And as you go through the game, you fight against what the Reapers would make of them. These finally crafted and compelling individuals would, under Reaper rule, either be vaporised, goo'd, or turned into, what some would call, an immortal slave to their cause. You then discover that the Reaper influence does not end there and that the Human Reaper is the final affront to individual freedom and dignity as they slowly transform the human race into their version of what the human race ought to be like.

ME2 is all about what Shepard and his friends will turn into if they fail to stop the Reapers in the future.

And this in itself is yet another problem with the ending. We saw Protheans theat had been mutilated into collectors. The methods the Reaper's directed the collectors to take to acquire humans from defensless colonies. ME2 showcases the horrer's that Reaper's are capable of.... and yet, the Reaper's themselves are light years away. Not yet here. But there presence is being felt, which begs the question.... how bad can it get when they finally arrive.

ME2, therefore, was tied into the main trilogy. But in a subtle and inventive way that focused on being a great game to play as a video game first.

[silverexile17s]

Redbelle wrote...

@silverexile.

Keeping the established canonof 1 and 2 for a moment and playing with 3, and what the crucible is and does.

What if.... The crucible was a device, built by the other races as a doomsday weapon designed to lure Reapers. nullify mass effect fields, and collapse the star? A weapon of desperation and last resort. Intended to be used as a trap during conception..... but after cycles and cycles of innovation and speculation on it's purpose, is now uncertain as to how it will perform.

I mention this as Haelstrom's destablised star is the perfect candidate to fire off such a device and destroy the Reapers by taking advantage of.

1. The concept that all things spaceworthy require mass effect fields to perform, and without them the Reapers are, still juggernaut's, but floundering juggernauts.

2. It brings back the game to a known location that seemed important, with future relevance to the story, but got buried. Now Haelstrom has a point, other than being the place where game mechanics were redeveloped to make moving in shadows important.

3. The notion of how setting off such a device, while fine in principle and the consequences desired, can be the container for much drama. Setting it off how? By remote? By someone being there to flip a switch? Do the Reapers figure out what's happening and try to stop them? What are the distances involved? Can a Reaper cross the distance in time to laser the crucible or is it more practical to send harvester's laden with Reaper forces?

Getting the balance right between what scenes are meant to convey, and the nitty gritty detail of how they arise, is important..... But not getting bogged down in the details before writing something is omre important to progess the project.

Much of what is written may just go to lay on the floor. But provide a path to understanding what is actually required. Writing a scene, when re-read, may inspire the writer to write a better scene.

So keep up with the critisism. It's good to see the rationale behind what a person thinks. but keep in mind that this project is huge in scope. I've been keeping an eye on it and seeing where things are going. And it's been fun to see how all these writers are tackling these hurdles.

But this is a rewrite. And it's a rewrite to allow the possibility of success in a way that shows the galaxy has in fact been been paying a bit more attention to the Reaper threat, behind the scenes, than each game has otherwise implied.

This is building on Garruses action's in strengthening Turian response times and supply lines.

The certain STG member's are not as skeptical as otherwise led to believe by the Dalatrass.

Shepard has reached out and touched so many that only those in positions of political power, who find Reaper's to be inconvienient to their own goals, dismissed them out of hand. They are to focused inward to think otherwise.

Other's whose job is to be ready in a military capacity, might otherwise think. What if he's right, or we one day face an enemy like he described.... how wold we prepare for that? And begin planning to fight an entirely new kind of warfare in order to learn lesson's on being effective that cold lead to other innovation's that could put them ahead of their current rivals.

Shepard has been a mover and shaker of those who are settled in routine. But not everyone will remained settled if Shep walks up and says, have you considered......

No. The original plans for the device are actually detailed in the Codex. The Crucible was ment to focus dark energy into a tangible weapon. Like a beam, or a cannonball. The Relays were then ment to bounce that from one relay to the next until it hit the target area and detonated, shredding ME fields and eezo cores of whatever was there. At least, that was Liara's base understanding of the weapon. The fields weren;t anywhere near powerful enough to collapse a star -- because it fired the artifically created fields of ships, and left natural dark energy fields like the gravity of a star completely untouched.

Also, Tali herself already invalidaed that proposal on the Migrant Fleet in ME2, saying it would be a collosal waste of resources and time for an ineffective means of warefare. Not to mention that at the current rate of decay, Haestrom wouldn't go supernova for another few thousand years -- the galaxy wouldn't have that much time. You'd likely need six Crucibles to make that happen. And since the Crucible is a one-shot device..... that plan's just plain unfeisable.

1. Irreilivent. Even without me fields, the Reapers outstrip us in firepower. They'd still outlast us if they gathered everything up. Besides, the Reapers never condolese their entire fleet in a single point -- it's bad stratagy to have forces just sitting in one spot when they can be advancing campaigns somewhere else.

2. No. The fact that the Reapers didn't go after the Crucible after taking
the Citadel in ME3 is proof that you wouldn't be able to lure them out
there - the Citadel is key to the thing working. The Reapers wouldn't need to go there, because the Crucible would have to be with the Citadel, not at
Haestrom. And because the Citadel needs to stay open for the Crucible to
dock, the Reapers would simply target that instead of any ships at
Heastrom and ignore the trap entirely.It would all, once again, be irrelivent.

3. There never was an actual, clear-cut detonation sequence. It was likely assumed that the Catalyst would be the thing that set off the detonation. You either have to destroy a regulator to unleash the destructive blast, or interface with it yourself by either tapping into the network, or merging with the core of the thing.

But that's something that's been a problem since ME2 -- the pacing on the main plot's been screwed since then. Too much time elaborating on unessessary things in ME2, not enough time to elaborate on important things in ME3.

There are too many to tackle. They think that this can be done by just rewriting ME3. It can't, because many of the problems also stem from the lack of foundation provided in ME2.

The entire poimt was that it didn't. It's not supposed to be a fair fight. That's the entire point of what made the Reapers a threat -- that it's a 100 to one fight. Little chance of success. And in regards to "paying attention," I actually can't begrudge the Council for being sceptical about giant space squids coming to kill us all. Hell, Shepard himself/herself says that he/she wouldn't believe it either without seeing it with his/her own eyes. You can't exactally blame the Council for not wanting to make choices that affect trillions of lives without valid, solid proof that there's actually a threat.

The Primarch didn't believe any of what Garrus said. Garrus himself said it was little more then a token force -- I doubt it was much bigger then what he had on Omega.

They're STG. Their job is to be sceptics for everything -- that's what makes them the best spies.

When? Because he/she wasted so much time in ME2 doing favors for Cerberus, there wrere no such foundations laied. After all, being a member of one of the galaxy's leading terrorist cells, which attacked a major independent faction (the quarian migrant fleet), as well as multiple inhumane acts, isn't the best point to make friends from. Tali herself comments that the majority of Shepard's old friends would shoot the commander on sight now, rather then talk it out. And the rest would likely be loath to trust him/her.

That's what the Spectre's and STG already were doing. And espeinoge does little to nothing against Reapers. You aren't breaking any new ground with that idea.

Didn't work in ME1 with Saren. And after all that in ME1, none of that made a difference in ME2 - they didn't believe you about the Collectors when you said "have you considered...." because they always ask in return "where's the proof?" Which you either don't have, or is suspect of being faked by either the enemy, or untrustworthy associates (Cerberus). Sorry, but it's never, ever been that easy.

[silverexile17s]

Redbelle wrote...

Something I've never understood when it comes to ME2 and those who bash it.... Why say it is not in line with the story of the Reaper threat?

ME2 may not have Reaper's per se as the main antagonist, but what ME2 does is cleverer and more nuanced.

It pits you against the world that the Reaper's will force upon all. In ME2 you are fighting against the consequences that having Reapers exist, at all, actually means.

And it does so in a way that is not obviously clear, but many hail as the attraction of ME2. It's characters.

In ME2 you play alongside the largest ensemble of character's ME has ever fielded outside of Citadel DLC. And as you go through the game, you fight against what the Reapers would make of them. These finally crafted and compelling individuals would, under Reaper rule, either be vaporised, goo'd, or turned into, what some would call, an immortal slave to their cause. You then discover that the Reaper influence does not end there and that the Human Reaper is the final affront to individual freedom and dignity as they slowly transform the human race into their version of what the human race ought to be like.

ME2 is all about what Shepard and his friends will turn into if they fail to stop the Reapers in the future.

And this in itself is yet another problem with the ending. We saw Protheans theat had been mutilated into collectors. The methods the Reaper's directed the collectors to take to acquire humans from defensless colonies. ME2 showcases the horrer's that Reaper's are capable of.... and yet, the Reaper's themselves are light years away. Not yet here. But there presence is being felt, which begs the question.... how bad can it get when they finally arrive.

ME2, therefore, was tied into the main trilogy. But in a subtle and inventive way that focused on being a great game to play as a video game first.

Wrong. It doesn't tie in like that at all.

The story deviated from fighting the Reapers completely. Instead of trying to build a foundation for galactic war, you're running around in the shadows, doing nothing to prep the galaxy at large.

If by "clever and nuanced," you mean "wasting time, money and resources trying to fight the symptoms rather then the cause itself." Seriously? You spend the entire game fighting bugs. Ones too weak to make their presance public. You spend time tracking them down and bringing down their fortified base and it does nothing to prepare the rest of the galaxy in the long run.

We already saw that. With what the geth turned humans into on Eden Prime. The Collectors are just the prothean equivilant of the same thing. And the Human-Reaper was something we could have learned regardless,, since Legion (your friendly geth) admits the geth, at the very least, suspected the Reapers were organically-grown. He also admits that the True Geth have information form Sovergien, which the Reaper left them with. The same information the Heretics had that made them join Sovergein. Yeah, thanks for sharing that, buddy. Coucldn't have coordinated with Mordin to learn more about that theroy and the info.<_<

That was ME2's Flaw. It was too centrilized on a personal storyline rather then an overreaching one. It was too self-contained and did little to nothing in terms of preparing the larger galaxy for the Reapers. You prepare your 12-man squad for it, but not the trillions of others out there. You haven't spent any tim solving racial tensions among them or building up trade routes or settling scores in advance of the coming threat. And everything your praising ME2 for? Already done in ME1. Nothing that was built up to in ME2 couldn't have been found out in another way. Hell, James Vega discovers the exact same information through one stray prothean beacon on Fel Prime (Mass Effect: Paragon Lost). Meaning that because James found it all out himself, there was no need to do that damed suicide mission to find out about Reaper conversion in the first place.

It was all a waste of time to do all that for Cerberus because of the above.

It was anything but tied into the main trilogy -- it was isolated, self-contained, built on nothing from the first game and did noithing to lay a foundation for the third game. The game itself may have been good stand-alone, but it failed in terms of being part of a trilogy.

[Erez Kristal]

Silverexile, its good that you have your opinions. but you cannot write something is wrong base on your opinion. there things which are irrefutable such as: shepard chasing saren in me1 and fighting the collectors in me2.
But there is the personal opinion in regards to the theme. underlining one thing doesnt make it more true. repeatedly saying me2 was bad and had its falses doesnt make it more so.
It was great and beloved for many reasons and not just the characters.

We will have to agree to disagreee here in regards to how the story of mass effect 3 could have been better.

Here in the mass effect 3 rewrite group we see mass effect 2 has an extremely important and fun part of the me universe. we write our version of me3 to continue the story created in me1&me2 in a meaningful, fun, logical and coherent way. we feel it is more than possibile. only time will tell if the me2 skeptics will agree.

[sH0tgUn jUliA]

@ Silverexile - I have changed my name to Mackenzie Walters. Now where is CaseyH? The rule of cool is in. As the lead writer on this project, I can tell you that we are doing several things differently. We are expanding on the lore that already exists and taking a lot of the mumbo jumbo out of it. We are doing away with the "good is dumb" trope. Some good people are dumb as rocks, but some good people are pragmatic and intelligent.

I cannot commit to saying "nothing in the lore is going to be retconned." This project probably will never see the light of day, so no I cannot make that commitment. Well it technically may not be retconned, but I reserve the right to amend it.

[silverexile17s]

erezike wrote...

1) our rewrite is based on me1&me2 and doesnt retconn known facts presented in those games.

2) some ideas presesented in me3 were ok. things have to stay fresh in the story in order to keep it interesting which is why we cannon present a fixed version. the crucible was a reaper off switch. and we are better off without one.

3) "Using the central console, Shepard uploads Vigil's program and gains control of the Citadel. With advice from the team, Shepard opens a communication channel and gets Joker... who has the Fifth Fleet just waiting for the commander's word once the mass relays are unlocked. Shepard has to decide between sending the Fleet to defend the Destiny Ascension and save the Council, " the citadel fleets were only engaged with the geth. a conclusion that if saren wouldnt have been destroyed the fifth fleet wouldnt have been able to destroy soveriegen is only an assumption. it is also safe to assume that sovereigen was hard pressed by the fleet which is why it took control and tried to kill shepard and his squad in the first place. if it was indeed invincible. it wouldnt need to take control of saren.

4) i know the reapers can be numerous, while i could argue your calculation. it isnt the point of this discussion. their numbers have been adressed to in our story in a logical fashion.

5) in the ending of mass effect 2. how can you be sure you havent stopped them? harbinger gives a nice speech how they will find another way. but will they really?
I think they will. but the story will also make sense if they end up stuck in darkspace or arrive 1000 years later.

6) mass effect 1&2 left hints for many things. the protheans had other plans in motion, but that could mean anything. drew use of dark energy plot was completely changed in mass effect 3 as it didnt have enough teeth by the end of mass effect 2. he may have one planned to use a similar idea. but that doesnt make it a good idea.

7) the crucible is different because it breaks the game. while those other technological feats merely ballance the game by performing small gestures. the crucible changed the entire game.
a better comparsion would be if the crucible improved the performance of the galactic defence against the reapers. boosted their eneregy output and defence. in a way that strategy and sacrifice would still be meaningful. and not just an auto win button.

8) if the reapers only needed time to collect themselves then with their knowledge of the galaxy and what isnt mappen with mass effect fields they could have had a safe place to do so. resting unharmed. soveriegn attack ended up in giving their tech to their enemies. it was a pointless risk.

9) the batarians are isolated, but they still have illegal trades with other races. there is the stg, n7, asari commando. do you think it make sense that no one was spying on the batarians?

10) it was known that the quarrian were preparing for war. shepard being railroaded to other things, also railroaded him/her to arrive only after it started.

11) cerberus were studying reaper tech but if were they to be saviors, villians or somewhere in between was up to the writers of me3 to decide. me3 needed humanoid mooks to shoot and the reapers to be made even more unbeatable for the crucible to work. so cerberus were called to the enemy flag.

12) " the entire point of all three games was that the fight would never BE on an even field" the entire point was to save the galaxy. how it was to be achieved was never revealed up until me3.
Your best not quoting me3 as your examples of not being able to defeat the reapers in other means because thats the direction me3 choose to go.
Saren choose to surrender to the reapers. in the end shepard can convince him otherwise.

13) the effect of the cucible is too extreme because of its ramafictations. while the battle against soverigen was hard. it was on an even field. 1 reaper vs 1 human fleet. the crucible arrive at a convienent time and wipes out the reapers single handed. there is not fight, no hard choices and no sense of sacrifice. its an auto win button.

14) mass effect 2 was a glorified sidequest because of mass effect 3. if mass effect 3 was different. you would have looked upon mass effect 2 differently. in the end of me2 harbinger yells we will find another way. why doesnt harbinger say that? because mass effect 2 was supposed to be about the reapers looking for a way to enter the galaxy. it was about showing character development and strength buildup on the galaxy part. the normandy is a symbol for that development. you finish me1 and start me2. with the sr1 a great human innovation. you get hacked to pieces by a collector cruiser without giving back a fight. at the end of me2 you take off that cruiser and defeat reaper hacking attempts almost without a scratch. you have become stronger. and not just you. during that time personal weapons have become stronger, potential number of fleets have become greater with the geth. reaper based weapons are now the new standard for ships. the galaxy have had a significance military boost in me2. and lets not forget the multiplie prothean artifacts you can find. the collector base and the multiplie people reasearching the reapers ever since the battle of the citadel.
In D&D -Baldurs gate terms. mass effect 2 was the time you spent killing bandits in the woods and shutting off cloakwood mines. it was story progress where you got stronger and also hindered your enemy plans. just like me1 was.

15) but the trap wasnt instant any more. it was underminded by the protheans. a solution was needed to be found. soverigen chosoe to attack the citadel directly at a high risk and expose the reapers to the rest of the galaxy. if the reapers could have just arrive to the galaxy at a low cost with no chance of faliure. it makes the assault extremely questionable. while initially soverigen thought it would win. the constant faliures it faced on eden prime, virmire, noveria, and feros would led it to believe otherwise maybe even decided the risk wasnt worth it. with its buddies just three years away.
Soverigen knew the risk of being captured in enemy space. it could be that once it started its insane plan it had no choice. it was between the hammer and the anvil. if it stopped the geth would have forsaken it. and left to believe another deity.

16) the reapers could have simply took the control of the citadel if they flew from dark space and then shut the relays. soverigen attack on the citadel was pointless as long the reaper could arrive from darkspace without any price to pay for it.

1) Yes, it does. You can't make an effective re-write of ME3 without rewriting ME2, because many of the problems in plot pacing for ME3 stem from poor plot placement in ME2. It's impossible. ME2 didn't provide enough of a foundation for a galactic war. You'd need to go all the way back and fix that first.

2) No, you aren't. Because that's how the Reapers have always been beaten was with an off-switch. I didn't here complaining about the "magic off-switch" that Vigil's data file was for Sovergien's Citadel Takeover plan. The Crucible is the same as that, just on a larger scale. It's the pot calling the kettle black to say one is less "a convient off-switch" then the other, and a massive waste of time and effort scrapping something that could be just edited to fit better into the story.  We've never, ever been better off without one. If we had, we wouldn't have needed a magic "off-switch" datafile to get the Citadel back from Sovergein. It's a hypocritical arguement you're making on that.

3) A magic data-file that instantly breaks Sovergein's hold on the station, closes up the relay activation sequence, and allows the fleet to attack the Reaper full-on with one button press, and you're trying to push that it's not a convienent off-switch?
Wrong. Accordint to the War Asset screen in ME3, and Hackett in ME2: Arrival, the entire Alliance space-force -- eight full fleets - was involved in that. The Fifth fleet was the one that led the charge - not the only one there. The First, Second, Third, Forth, and Fifth fleets are all listed as taking casualties. The first, third and fourth are all listed as having lost one third of their ships apice, and only are able to recope that if you didn't save the Council, levaing more ships intact and more money to rebuild. The Second and Forth likely sustained similar losses. The sixth, seventh and eight were back-up regiments. The Fifth Fleet led the charge on Sovergein while the remaining ships engaged the geth. Also, I must remind you that Vigil said his data-file would "temproraraly" wrest control from Sovergien. Meaning the Reaper could potentally re-gain control before the Alliance coul bring it down themsleves.
Sorry, but if "hard-pressed," it wouldn't have bothered in the first place with splitting it's concentration. The Alliance was an annoyance. Shepard was a problem.

4) I doubt that. They have at least a billion years of life. One Reaper every 50,000 years. 1 billion divided by 50,000 is 20,000. 1.2 billion (the max time they've been around) dividied by 50,000 is 24,000. And it's confirmed in the Codex entry on Destroyer-Class ships that Destroyers make up the bulk of the Reaper fleet, and are created by the harvesting of all the other races not chosen to be a Sovergien-Class. Meaning at least 5, 6 or even seven Destroyers per-cycle. At least 144,000 total.
That's the best estimite of the Reaper's strength. And logically, their strength outstrips ours ten to one since one Reaper can take three to five ships in it's same class. It takes three to four dreadnoughts to take one Sovergein-Class Reaper. The math wins -- the Reapers win the conventional battle hands down. There isn't any other logical outcome. You need an alternitive means of victory. The only thing that can do that is the Crucible.

5) They already have. ME3: Citadel confirms their return. The Reapers actions speak for themselves, both now, and in the past games.
1,000 years? Wow, you really have no grounds in reality here, do you?
The Reapers have been travaling here on foot the entire time. Ever since Sovergein failed. The Human-reaper wasn't ment to replace Sovergein - it was just getting an early head-start on the new Sovergein-Class Reaper. Nothing more and nothing less.
The Reapers created ME fields strong enough to resist black holes. In ME1, they were demonstrated as able to produce ME fields that could completely nullify their mass. The Reapers could make themselves completely and utterly weightless. That's far beyond what we can currently do with it. And by diverting all their considerable power of their weapons and shields to FTL engines, it's a wonder they weren't here sooner. Your estimate is beyond unrealistic, as it competely ignores everything we know about the Reapers from their demonstrations in ME1 and ME2.
They got here in three years. Mayeb three years and four months. End of story.

6) No, it really couldn't. Drew Karpyshyn was already making plans for ME3 by that point, and they also involved the Crucible as the key element of the Dark Energy plot. Google it yourself and see. The Crucible was the planed element from the get-go. It's too late to change that, and a waste of time and effort to try. It's better to re-write the device's functions rather then scrap it.

7) No more then anything we've seen before. Lazarus breaks the game by bringing people back from the Dead. Saren-Husk backlash breaks the game because it basically says ship-to-ship victory is impossible. Vigil's data-file breaks the game because it completely switches everything with one button-press. All these things convey that improbable and fastatsical means are needed to overcome the Reapers. These things changed the entire game FIRST and are no less game-breaking. Your making a fuss over something no worse then what we've already seen, and was in the plan since the beginning. An auto-win button wasn't complained about in ME1. This is that on a larger scale, so complaining about it is just plain hypocricy.

8) They did. Remember the big dead spot in the galaxy where the Alpha Relay blew up? A place no one would go near due to the massive radiation levels cause by the supernova? A place where the Reapers could quicklt stop for a minute before continuing on to the rest of the galaxy. After all, if the timer in Arrival is right, the Reapers arrved at the remains of the system minutes after the supernova. Meaning they were already nearly to the nearist Mass Relay. Six months later, they launch a three-pronged attack through batarian and human space, taking Kar'Shan, and Earth. The final prong hits turian space.
Again, completely and utterly wrong.  Last I checked, instant victory isn't a "pointless risk." Especally when the chance of failure is less then 1%. Shepard beat astronomical odds in stopping Sovergien -- it's defeat was completely out of left field. It's not as complicated as you'rwe making it out to be -- it thought it won, so it thought there wasn't a need for secrecy anymore, because it thought the Reapers were going to swarm through the Citadel relay at any second.

9) No. The only race they are regerstered as having traded with is the Hanar. Who they broke contact with after an Alliance team raided the batarian's labs. And the Batarians never trade directly with the rest of the galaxy -- they trade with the terminus priates, who then trade with the Citadel Races. They work through intermediaries -- they're a very paranoid race. And they have spy sattiltes over every world and an instant death policy to non-batarains. The Council explisitly doesn't spy on them to avoid the Batarians causing termoil in the Terminus systems. The Council is paranoid of anything that could cause a war with the Terminus.

10) Wrong. According to the Spectre newsletter, the quarians war preperations began after Earth fell, not before. The Reapers arrival panicked them and they believed they needed a world to hunker down on. One isolated and secure that they could actually breathe on. Rannoch is the only world that fits that bill, and the geth have been publiclly listed as irrdeimably hostile enemies of the galaxy for three years since their attack on the Citadel.

11) Cerberus has always been selfish and uncaring to the general galaxy as long as it's goals are acomplished. Just look at ME1. And in ME2, we were still cleaning up their messes. And TIM just cared about getting the Reaper Tech the Collectors had -- even Miranda was finally forced to acknowldge that Cerberus wasn't what she believed it was.

12) And it was never going to be done by fair play. That was the entire point. Just look at how Sovergien died. That never would have happened if not for the magic off-switch Vigil gave you. ME1 set that tone, not ME3. You want to ignore that, re-write ME1 too and it's rendition of Sovergien's strength. Because right from the get-go, we've needed back-doors and alternitive unconventional means to stop them.
And Sovergien took his body and made that choice of Saren's suicde irrlivent. Shouldn't that tell you that normal means don't do jack against them?

13) No it isn't. It utilizes the dark energy flow of the Citadel, which is a giant mass relay. It has a giant emitter through the Citadel with which to blast fools with concentrated Dark Energy (warp fields). The way it's done needs tuning, but the concept itself is sound. Gut Synthesis for one. Control's prospect of transfering your will through the Dark Energy wavelengths has been done before (Morinth's biotic "Domination" power" in ME2). And Destroy is the baseline result of the uncontroled warp field. Minus Synthesis, the effects aren't that outlandish compared to what biotics have done in small-scale already.
No it wasn't. It was anything but an even field. It was one Reaper vs THREE fleets. With the Reaper winning, and only failing because of the Saren-Husk psi-backlash. With the death "at a convient time" to render Sovergein vunerable.
Sound fimiliar? It should, because this is what the Crucible does to the rest of the Reapers -- just a larger scale of what already happened in ME1. Vigil's data-file + Saen-Husk psi-backlash = auto-win button. The only way to beat something like that is to get an auto-win button, because a fair victory is completely impossible. That's all we've been told since day one.

14) WRONG. ME2 was a glorified side-quest because of ME1. Many of ME3's failings came form ME2's failure to make efficant use of connecting to the overall plot, not the other way around.
The game failed to build upon what the first game set up. You go out to find a way to stop the Reapers. But you don't. You instead go out of your way to play black-ops with a symptiom of the problem rather then finding a way to stop it's cause.
FYI, Harbinger's "another way" was likely "Arrival." And hell, he could just be talking about another way to harvest humanity, not arrive in the galaxy. You're reading too much into absolutly nothing.
That ended up being it's biggest Flaw. The game was too centrilized on single characters and an internalized storyline that it failed to be part of an overreaching story. When was there ever any of this "galactic build-up" you keep talking about? because the entire game was more about shadow-play then actually doing anything. I didn't see Shepard setting up alliances or building infrstructure for galactic war. The game spent too much time agains the minions and no way of finding out how to stop the big bads waiting in the backdrop. You ran around doing chores and fighting mercs that you'd like need to fight alongside later.  And you start the game with a forced death sequence and deus ex machina resseruection that served no real purpose besides shock-value. Also, you defeat those Reaper hacking attempts because your A.I. EDI is Reaper-based. You do jack-squat in that regard. You start your character all over by having to recover and regain lost levels from the tramua of being killed and rebuilt.
Personal weapons became stronger as a result of events in ME1, not ME2. ME2 was simply a demonstration of what ME1 yielded, but did nothing to improve those advancements in itself. Also, the geth stayed in isollation, and had no intent to leave the veil. Legion said they'd oppose the Reapers, but never said they'd do so alongside organics. And BTW, why not try to reconcile the two sides in ME2, rather then wait till there's a war in ME3? Reaper-baesd weapons are actually not the norm, because the Thanix on the Normandy is a PROTOTYPE. One Garrus smuggled out from the turian military. Not in public use or develiopment by the time of ME2, and again, a result of events in ME1. The galaxy is facing signifigant decrease in military since either the Council races (Dead Council) or Alliance (Saved Council) is struggling to recoup losses from the Battle of the Citadel, on top of tryingt to bring order back to the galaxy after Saren smashed it with a ban-hammer. Prothean artifacts that only Shepard can use, since Shepard has the prothean cipher. And that info on the Collectors? -- James Vega got the same info from one beacon on Fel Prime, making that trip near-pointless.
Face it, ME2 dropped the ball in regards to prepping the galaxy for the Reapers. It spent too much time being it's own stroy that it forgot it was part of a larger one. It wasn't the "meat." It was filler. Good filler, but filller nontheless.

15) Re-activating it was better then spending three years getting there on foot, because then they have to go the inconvinent hassle of sloging thorugh the entire galaxy. It's a major pain and a bother that can be avoided completely by activating the Citadel Relay. It attacked the Citadel only when the risk was negligable, because Saren was on the inside to make sure it would be sealed in and safe. And why do you think the geth were so useful to Sovergein? Because it could blend in with them. Sovergein could pass for being a geth construct and no one would be the wiser. After all, Sovergein never planned to fail. And AGAIN, no cost is better then low cost. It's not that complicated. Eden Prime was unexpected. Noveria was irrilvent. Feros succeeded as far as Sovergein was concerned - it got the info from the Thorian. Shepard just arrived sooner then expected. Virmire was unexpected.
And AGAIN, it thought the Reapers would be coming through anyway. Say Sovergien did win. And the Reapers came through the Citadel relay. The Reapers would be here and we would already have lost. Sovergien moved the way it did because it believed we'd already lost. It believed that from Eden Prime onward, and didn't realize otherwise until the very end when Saren-Husk died.

16) Wrong. If they tried that, the Citadel would have just closed up and locked them out. That's whay Sovergein needed Saren in the first place -- to make sure the Citadel didn't lock it out. Because if the Citadel locks up on them, they're screwed -- it's quantum-locked like the Relays and thus, impervious to damage, and they can't fire on it without risk of screwing themelves majorly. They can't retake the Citadel and thus, can't seal off the relays and isolate the galaxy. They have to do this the old-fashoned way through conquest.
That is, until the Illusive Man replicates Saren's feat and allows the Reapers to finally reclaim the Citadel.

Modifié par silverexile17s, 25 septembre 2013 - 08:50 .

[Abraham_uk]

 An idea for a questline.

Warpath Description:

Ever since the attack on the Citadel at the end of Mass Effect 1, a group of Salarians, Turians and Asari have been working together to build their own Reaper. This involved using technology used by the Reapers, schematics from ancient Prothean weapons, and the latest state of the art technology from the council races.

The imitation Reaper named "Warpath" was not built to prepare the galaxy against future Reaper attacks. It was actually built to maintain the supremacy of the three council races. There had been worries about Krogan uprisings, Baterian vendettas, and Geth incursions. The "Warpath" was supposed to neutralise entire armadas within a matter of minutes.

With the Reaper arrival, the Council had a much more powerful enemy to test their new toy against. Trouble is, the Warpath is incomplete.
__________________________________________________________________________________

Where you come in:

Now during the events of Mass Effect 3, this weapon is almost complete. Now the team behind the project simply known as "Warpath" want Shepard's help. There are missing components needed to complete the drive core. Once the drive core is complete this imitation reaper (about the size of Soverign) will finally be able to move.

__________________________________________________________________________________

Shepard will be sent to:

Amun in the Eagle Nebula
Lusam in Cresent Nebula
Therum (the planet where you found Liara T'Soni)
And unfortunately Kar'Shan (which is problematic because of the Relay incident in the Arrival DLC)
There is also Warpath itself.


Missions will require you to travel around different locations in either the Hammerhead or Mako, mine for materials for the drive core, fight Thresher Maws and also engage in diplomacy with the Baterians of Kar'Shan.


Each of the worlds you are sent to are hub worlds, each with new areas to visit.

Enemies include the Collector types from ME 3 multiplayer
Geth Collossus, Armatures and regular Geth footsoldiers
Baterians (if you don't manage to negotiate peace with the Baterians of Kar'Shan they will attack you).

__________________________________________________________________________________
The interior of "Warpath".

Inside Warpath, you will be required to use puzzle solving skills to help forge components for the drive core using the materials you've found. There will also be puzzles that involve use of biotics and tech powers, so for Soldier Shepard, bringing Liara and EDI is essencial (unless you have kept other biotic and tech squadmates alive).
__________________________________________________________________________________

Where to find Warpath:

To find the almost complete imitation Reaper (Warpath) you must travel to Illium. Near Illium there is a makeshift Mass Relay that will take you to a heavily defended region of space that is actually somewhere outside the Milkyway.  Here you'll find a star with no orbiting planets and the incomplete imatation Reaper.

__________________________________________________________________________________
Inside Warpath:
There is are new hacking and decription minigames.
Brand new minigames involveing use of biotics.
New NPC's to talk to, who may send you on sidequests

A brand new shop that sells armor modules for both utility and asthetic purposes
A brand new shop that sells special pistols taylored to tech and biotic users
A brand new shop where you can purchasse new bonus powers (like the ones from the multiplayer)

There is also a broadcaster that will give real time updates on the Reaper Invasion. They will give reliable and up to date information on how much damage the Reapers have caused, and also let you know if any Reapers have been destroyed. 

Your galactic readiness and war assets will affect the broadcasts. The broadcasts will tell you what the war assets are doing, and will notify you on all victories and defeats that have come their way.
__________________________________________________________________________________

Once the Warpath is completed:

You can send the Warpath to travel across the galaxy to kill reapers!
But note that if Warpath is destroyed, you will gain a game over screen.

Fight alongside Normandy and the Turian millitary to ravage Reapers.

Please note that there are some Reapers that Warpath in it's initial state won't be able to scratch. So you will be sent on further missions to find upgrades by salvaging already destroyed reapers. Eventually the Warpath will be powerful enough to defeat all Reapers.

Killing Reapers with the Warpath is going to contribute towards victory, but since there are so many Reapers about, the Warpath alone is not enough to ensure victory.

__________________________________________________________________________________
The idea behind Warpath: 

I wanted Shepard and company to have an optional questline that actually affects the outcome of the war.
I wanted this questline to not interfere with the overall story (since other writers have their ideas of what to do with the main plot), whilst also having a questline that will affect the story too.

Puzzle solving, ME 1 style exploration and the dialogue options from the trilogy are all here.
Players would be expected to figure suff out, as there would be no quest markers on each of the planets you visit. Only vague descriptions on where to go.

So what do you think?

Modifié par Abraham_uk, 25 septembre 2013 - 09:07 .

[silverexile17s]

erezike wrote...

Silverexile, its good that you have your opinions. but you cannot write something is wrong base on your opinion. there things which are irrefutable such as: shepard chasing saren in me1 and fighting the collectors in me2.
But there is the personal opinion in regards to the theme. underlining one thing doesnt make it more true. repeatedly saying me2 was bad and had its falses doesnt make it more so.
It was great and beloved for many reasons and not just the characters.

We will have to agree to disagreee here in regards to how the story of mass effect 3 could have been better.

Here in the mass effect 3 rewrite group we see mass effect 2 has an extremely important and fun part of the me universe. we write our version of me3 to continue the story created in me1&me2 in a meaningful, fun, logical and coherent way. we feel it is more than possibile. only time will tell if the me2 skeptics will agree.

I'm just telling you that what you percieve as faults streatch all the way back to ME2.
It was a good game, but completely and utterly failed as being a bridge to a trilogy. It was too self-contained. It was filler. And no matter how good the filler, it's still filler --- it doesn't have any real impact on the overall plot. It may be "fun" but it's not "extremely important" in regards to the overall story of fighting the Reapers. You can't re-write ME3 without making ME2 more relivent to the overreaching plot. It's Not possible otherwise.

[silverexile17s]

sH0tgUn jUliA wrote...

@ Silverexile - I have changed my name to Mackenzie Walters. Now where is CaseyH? The rule of cool is in. As the lead writer on this project, I can tell you that we are doing several things differently. We are expanding on the lore that already exists and taking a lot of the mumbo jumbo out of it. We are doing away with the "good is dumb" trope. Some good people are dumb as rocks, but some good people are pragmatic and intelligent.

I cannot commit to saying "nothing in the lore is going to be retconned." This project probably will never see the light of day, so no I cannot make that commitment. Well it technically may not be retconned, but I reserve the right to amend it.

That would mean you're re-writing ME1 too? Because the "good is dumb" trope streatches all the way back to Vigil's magic off-switch for the Citadel.
I'm just saying that ME2 needed to be more relivent to the overall story. It was too self-contained.

[Abraham_uk]

What do you think of Warpath questline?

[Redbelle]

So Warpath was built by the council to put down unrest, and is essentially a juggernaut of mass destructive power? Built to represent a Reaper so that the council can deny knowledge or involvment in taking action against certain groups....

It's an interesting idea.

While I'm not dismissing it, I would ask how such a ship could be built when something the size and mass of a Reaper is outside of the realm of generally accepted ship building wisdom. You'd need a designer who is the ME equivalent of Isambard Kingdom Brunel to carry this vision forward.

Just a few observation's..... As a tool, does the council really need it?

They already have Spectre's and Spectre status, whereby they are above all but the council. Able to do what needs to be done, sometimes in secrecy.

When it comes to a military force, they have the strongest military force in the galaxy in the form of the Turians.... Soveriegn was a rude wake up call, and the geth mega ship is likewise a hint of what the council may one day have to face.... So bigger and badder war ships is a reasonable progression. But why a Reaper?

Something this big would be hard to hide away. And, would rather, be seen as an expression of the councils strength vs the strength of other ships. Destiny Ascension was meant to be that ship and it nearly got destroyed with the human fleet's needed to bail it out. Clearly, it's not the baddest warship on the block anymore.

[sH0tgUn jUliA]

silverexile17s wrote...

sH0tgUn jUliA wrote...

@ Silverexile - I have changed my name to Mackenzie Walters. Now where is CaseyH? The rule of cool is in. As the lead writer on this project, I can tell you that we are doing several things differently. We are expanding on the lore that already exists and taking a lot of the mumbo jumbo out of it. We are doing away with the "good is dumb" trope. Some good people are dumb as rocks, but some good people are pragmatic and intelligent.

I cannot commit to saying "nothing in the lore is going to be retconned." This project probably will never see the light of day, so no I cannot make that commitment. Well it technically may not be retconned, but I reserve the right to amend it.

That would mean you're re-writing ME1 too? Because the "good is dumb" trope streatches all the way back to Vigil's magic off-switch for the Citadel.
I'm just saying that ME2 needed to be more relivent to the overall story. It was too self-contained.

No I'm not rewriting ME1. I'm not rewriting ME2. As the Lead Writer on this project, I'm appending and amending things. It's not like Bioware has never retconned anything before either. We are also using material in the books.

You also can't take things in the games too literally (except for the ending of ME3).  There are things in the games that are simply there for "videogamey logic" and would otherwise not be there in a book. They are there because it would take too long and require too many resources to actually play them out in a manner that would make sense. Vigil's magic off switch in ME1 is an example - requiring you have someone like Tali in your party at the time spend 10 minutes hacking the panel to open the Citadel while you and your squadmate held off Saren and waves of Geth would have cost money, and that was something Bioware was running short of at the time. Plus that would have impinged on people's role playing choices such as squad selection. The game needed to go out and sell. Thus you got the magic key to open the Citadel. Video games, because of this, are not a very good story telling medium.

The reapers should be beatable. Why? We know they are coming. If you think that every government is sitting around idly doing nothing dream on. All of the information about the reapers was classified so as not to panic the general public (Citadel DLC - Sovereign is in the archives, thus one can assume the other knowledge is there too). Thus. I'm making tech tree research available. You will have choices to make. 

The previous cycles did not know they were coming. That's how they got beat. They were surprised. We'll be surprised, too, but maybe not so much.

That depends upon you and what you researched, who you made allies with, who you alienated, what you did. And then there's the overall back drop. You're just one person. There are other things going on, too. So you might have other fires to put out, and you'll have to make choices.

I'm not going to argue any further about this. Suffice it to say we are excited about this project. The story has a very different flavor to it than the original ME3. 

[silverexile17s]

sH0tgUn jUliA wrote...

silverexile17s wrote...

sH0tgUn jUliA wrote...

@ Silverexile - I have changed my name to Mackenzie Walters. Now where is CaseyH? The rule of cool is in. As the lead writer on this project, I can tell you that we are doing several things differently. We are expanding on the lore that already exists and taking a lot of the mumbo jumbo out of it. We are doing away with the "good is dumb" trope. Some good people are dumb as rocks, but some good people are pragmatic and intelligent.

I cannot commit to saying "nothing in the lore is going to be retconned." This project probably will never see the light of day, so no I cannot make that commitment. Well it technically may not be retconned, but I reserve the right to amend it.

That would mean you're re-writing ME1 too? Because the "good is dumb" trope streatches all the way back to Vigil's magic off-switch for the Citadel.
I'm just saying that ME2 needed to be more relivent to the overall story. It was too self-contained.

No I'm not rewriting ME1. I'm not rewriting ME2. As the Lead Writer on this project, I'm appending and amending things. It's not like Bioware has never retconned anything before either. We are also using material in the books.

You also can't take things in the games too literally (except for the ending of ME3).  There are things in the games that are simply there for "videogamey logic" and would otherwise not be there in a book. They are there because it would take too long and require too many resources to actually play them out in a manner that would make sense. Vigil's magic off switch in ME1 is an example - requiring you have someone like Tali in your party at the time spend 10 minutes hacking the panel to open the Citadel while you and your squadmate held off Saren and waves of Geth would have cost money, and that was something Bioware was running short of at the time. Plus that would have impinged on people's role playing choices such as squad selection. The game needed to go out and sell. Thus you got the magic key to open the Citadel. Video games, because of this, are not a very good story telling medium.

The reapers should be beatable. Why? We know they are coming. If you think that every government is sitting around idly doing nothing dream on. All of the information about the reapers was classified so as not to panic the general public (Citadel DLC - Sovereign is in the archives, thus one can assume the other knowledge is there too). Thus. I'm making tech tree research available. You will have choices to make. 

The previous cycles did not know they were coming. That's how they got beat. They were surprised. We'll be surprised, too, but maybe not so much.

That depends upon you and what you researched, who you made allies with, who you alienated, what you did. And then there's the overall back drop. You're just one person. There are other things going on, too. So you might have other fires to put out, and you'll have to make choices.

I'm not going to argue any further about this. Suffice it to say we are excited about this project. The story has a very different flavor to it than the original ME3. 

But like I said, that's not possible. Not with the lack of plot development from ME2, which didn't provide an adiquate foundation for the galactic war in ME3. And to clarify, only one book was retconned. None of the others were.

Yet everyone takes ME3's Reaper off-switch from the Crucible more seriously then ME1's Reaper off-switch from Vigil. The Reaper's strength being bigger and better in conventional battle has been a fact since ME1, and you can't re-write that without changing aspects of ME1 & ME2. And in ME2, Tali figured out Collector tech relitively fast when in the tunnel as my specialsit during the attack on their base. Besides, Vigil had 50,000 years to program it, and it was likely left-over codes from his creators -- the Ilos Scientists. Making it oundlandish, but still in the relm of acceptible cannon. Yet when the Crucible uses the same formula, everyone blows a gasket.

No, they shouldn't. Why? Because they never were before. The entire thing that made them threatening was that they could cursh us like ants. Making them able to fight conventionally is the absolute worst thing you can do to their image. They were protrayed as a force of nature, not simple enemies. We've never, ever been able to beat them conventionally.. One Reaper chewed out the five main Alliance fleets, and if not for the psychic backlash of the Saren-Husk's death, Sovergein would have outlasted the Fleet - hell, they already were sounding pull-back requests while Shepard was fighting Saren-Husk.
In ME2, there was no proof they were coming that anyone could validify. Even then, the Council would be suspicious that it's some sort of Cerberus trick -- that's how they reacted to Anderson and Sanders when they presented the "Reaperfyed" body of Paul Grayson to the Council. There was no actual proof.
If you think people are going to comit resources, ships, personal, and affect the lives of trillions across the galaxy for a rumor, expecally off the back of you comitting genocide at the Alpha Relay and siding with one of the worse terrorist orginizations in galactic history, then think again. There was a reason the Alliance jailed Shepard, you know. Besides, in the Citadel DLC, we learn they suspected. They didn't know, but they kept the possibility open. And subsiquently buried it as shown in the meeting with them in ME2.
I don't really think there's any point to "tech tree research" since the Reapers aren't going to give you the time to make that research tangable. Besides, not enough fragments of Sovergein were recovered to make any real advances besides the Thanix, which was just starting private production in ME2. Only a quick resolution would save the galaxy -- you have to make the fight as quick as possible, because as the protheans proved, wars or attrition always failed in the end -- no matter what technology you have, the Reapers powered through by sheer numbers and strength. The Crucible was created as a plot-point because they figured out that conventional victory just isn't possible -- they made a fact out of that with Sovergien in ME1.

We still can't beat them by going head-on. The fight with Sovergein proved that. We have to look for alternitives, or we will lose just like all the rest did.

Not really. You didn't build any sort of foundation with the many factions during ME2. Just inidviduals from their general species. Getting on Tali's good side doesn't mean you're going to have the Migrant Fleet at your beck and call - they've got problems too. Helping out Garrus isn't going to make the turians come running to save you -- they have their own battles. And we all know what helping out Legion amounted to with the "getting the geth to help" plan.<_<. Besides, that's close to what we already are doing in the original game -- putting out fires where they appear and making choices on who to appise.

From what I can tell, the current flavor of this doesn't really taste all that different. If anything, it's the same exact ingrediants in a different shape.

Modifié par silverexile17s, 26 septembre 2013 - 03:04 .

[sH0tgUn jUliA]

You're nit picking.

1) I don't care about their image. I'm not the reaper's PR agent. They can hire a Madison Ave firm if they need help.
2) I never said anything about conventionally. Did I say conventionally? Did I? Where? Please point it out.
3) We're writing new back stories.
4) Sovereign was overpowered video game logic. It was just stupid. They are tough enough to beat without requiring an entire fleet to kill one of them. When my fleets fire they don't sound "derp derp derp".
5) There was sufficient evidence by ME2. The Council was playing the dummy card because you had two Cerberus agents in the room with you who didn't have Spectre clearance. Plus you were working for Cerberus, a terrorist organization. That's why you were shut out of everything. You were Commander Shepard, the terrorist -- thank you Drew. There are ways of working around things like this, trust me, there are plenty of ways. My dad worked in the defense industry for years on top secret stuff during the cold war.
6) Again forget everything about ME3 you've played. It does not apply.

[Erez Kristal]

Silveexile I appriceate your high concerns for this project. we obviously have our differences in regards to what direction this rewrite sould go. if you wish to start an initiative to rewrite me2 as well as me3 or patch me3 in a different form. by all means do so.

The goal of this intitative is to continue the events of mass effect 2 seamlessy. our direction is very different from the direction of the original me3 and we feel that so far we managed to maintain a higher level of logic and plot coherency.

Modifié par erezike, 26 septembre 2013 - 11:32 .

[silverexile17s]

erezike wrote...

Silveexile I appriceate your high concerns for this project. we obviously have our differences in regards to what direction this rewrite sould go. if you wish to start an initiative to rewrite me2 as well as me3 or patch me3 in a different form. by all means do so.

The goal of this intitative is to continue the events of mass effect 2 seamlessy. our direction is very different from the direction of the original me3 and we feel that so far we managed to maintain a higher level of logic and plot coherency.

There is no way to "seemlessy" continue the events, because ME2 was too decentrilized from the main plot. The Direction ME3 went in wasn't the best, but it's the only way the events of ME2 left it. There wasn't a sizable enough foundation in ME2 for any sort of "seemless" rewrite. It's just not possible without retconning or rewriting aspects of ME2's plot. The lack of logic and coherency that started in ME2 carried over to ME3, in that we spent so much time dealing with symptioms rather then the cause. Any "higher level" you create will ultimitely fall through and fail because there was too much to catch up on then could fit into one game. ME2 didn't do enough to prepare for the Reapers arrival. You're dealing with the consiquences of that in ME3. You can't change that without rewrite of both games.

[silverexile17s]

sH0tgUn jUliA wrote...

You're nit picking.

1) I don't care about their image. I'm not the reaper's PR agent. They can hire a Madison Ave firm if they need help.
2) I never said anything about conventionally. Did I say conventionally? Did I? Where? Please point it out.
3) We're writing new back stories.
4) Sovereign was overpowered video game logic. It was just stupid. They are tough enough to beat without requiring an entire fleet to kill one of them. When my fleets fire they don't sound "derp derp derp".
5) There was sufficient evidence by ME2. The Council was playing the dummy card because you had two Cerberus agents in the room with you who didn't have Spectre clearance. Plus you were working for Cerberus, a terrorist organization. That's why you were shut out of everything. You were Commander Shepard, the terrorist -- thank you Drew. There are ways of working around things like this, trust me, there are plenty of ways. My dad worked in the defense industry for years on top secret stuff during the cold war.
6) Again forget everything about ME3 you've played. It does not apply.

I believe I made a diclaimer about that, saying I knew full well in advance that these were nit-picks. Besides, nit-picks or not, they're still major flaws.

1) Then you'd have to completely discredit ME1 as being part of your timeline. Because that game displayed the Reapers as impossible to take on conventionally, and they stayed that way in the following games. Changing that means you can't say ME1 or ME2 are part of your cannon. It wouldn't be the "seemless trasnition" @erezike thinks it would be. Make the Reapers defeatible in conventional fights, and good-bye "seemless transtition."

2) The reapers should be beatable. Why? We know they are coming. If you
think that every government is sitting around idly doing nothing dream
on. All of the information about the reapers was classified so as not to
panic the general public (Citadel DLC - Sovereign is in the archives,
thus one can assume the other knowledge is there too). Thus. I'm making
tech tree research available. You will have choices to make.
^Those were your own words. Doing any of the above without the Crucible implies you think ship-to-ship combat would have any effect on their advance. The Bolded sentance above is proof of that ideal. You yourself said they should be beatable, and not need the Crucible. Care to tell me how that doesn't equate to conventional warefare?

3) Which would discredit other aspects of the existing books, as well and any comics and backstroies that take place before the games.

4) That's how the Reapers always were. The Reapers in ME3 reflected how strong the Reapers were based on Sovergein. If anything, the Reapers in ME3 should be stronger then what we saw. And the fleet's going "derp,derp, derp" against the shields of Reapers was how it was since the very beginning. The Protheans should be proof of that. And EDI in ME2 makes notations on the Derelict Reaper about how their shields are completely impervious to dreadnought fire. What happened in ME3 is pretty damn accurate of how well ship-to-ship battles would end out, no matter how much new tech you make.

5) No there wasn't. Not until after ME2. And even then, given that the source is Cerberus, hardly any of it would be acceptided as admissible evidence. The Council wasn't "playing dummy" -- they seriously didn't consider the Reapers a real threat because they didn't have enough evidence to consider them a real possibility. They filed that idea away in the archives and buried it. And to clarify, I've done that mission with Garrus and Samara in the room/ Hell, I've gone to the meetting alone without any squadmates, and got the same responce. They just don't believe in the Reapers. The Books confirm this too. Anderson himself said that not even half of Sovergein was recovered from the battle, and Vigil had shut-down by the time they could investigate. Anderson himself takes you aside and tells you they've completely discounted the Reaper's existance.
They only proof the Reapers existed was Shepard's word -- not worth much after Shepard seemingly faked his/her death (the general asumption of the majority of the galaxy), and joined up with Cerberus. And committing Genocide at the Alpha Relay probably didn't help much either, because now if the Council does back Shepard's word, the batarians will get pissed and attack, and that will ignite conflict between the Terminus and Council.
So, no, there's no validifiable proof, And Shepard's become too much of a hotsopt to openly support without risking galactic war.

6) But that's not the problem. The problem is that thus far, the rewrite requires having everything from the past two games not appliying either. And thus far, the baseline concept is the same because the past games have given it no other route to take. It's basically the same thing rearranged thus far.

Modifié par silverexile17s, 26 septembre 2013 - 09:57 .

[Redbelle]

@silverexile

As long as you can write an ending where martrydom doesn't take place, because in a game that kind of stuff really sucks balls, when you could be enjoying 15 mins of button pushing mayhem..... feel free to add what you like to the ME3 rewrite cause.

Because even though your kinda off msg with the inititive, it's always good to get another perspective that can change the perception of past events.

[Erez Kristal]

silverexile, you sound rather furious and discontent. have some faith.

[Fatiguesdualism]

Not a member of this party, but was wondering is the consensus here that the codex (pre-ME3 at least) was 'holy writ' (so-to-speak) and established exactly what was/the one true truth. Or was it more of an 'Encyclopaedia Universe' in that it could be mistaken about certain details on entries?