97 réponses à ce sujet

[jamesp81]

AlanC9 wrote...

jamesp81 wrote...
To use antimatter weaponry you have to be able to 1) product the antimatter, 2) contain the anti-matter, and 3) deliver it to target.  The Codex flat out states that the Citadel races already do 1 and 2 (antimatter is used as fuel).  3 wouldn't be that hard to to come by since delivery systems already exist.  Modification of such systems, while not a trivial task, is not terribly difficult either (certainly it wouldn't be as difficult as building a space magic colored beam machine).

There are a lot of ideas like this floating around. The problem with techs that can blow up any ship  regardless of defenses is that if these techs work, space battleships don't work and you ought to organize your fleet around drones, fighters, missile boats, etc. Which is a problem when your series is about space battleships.

Which brings me back to my previous point: the writers didn't think about it all that much.  The whole thing woudl make more sense if Reapers were more durable and standard antiship weapons of the day were considerably more powerful (but still of limited effectiveness against Reapers).  At least this way, we wouldn't have a situation where a ship's fuel tank is a better weapon than its actual weapons.

Though I postulated before using antimatter warheads launched from mass accelerators or fitted to disruptor torpedos, it occurs to me that if you had to, you could build cheap, disposable spaceships and use them as kamikazes if you had to.  The ship itself would deliver it's fuel tank as a weapon to the target.  The human cost of that is high, but it's expedient and and in the calculus of war, it works.

On a side note, I think your vision of drones / missile boats is probably what futuristic space combat will really look like.  I expect it to be dominated by swarms of disposable drone fighters packing low yield nuclear weapons.  The only big ships you'll see will be the carriers that tend the drones and transports.

Modifié par jamesp81, 22 janvier 2014 - 04:42 .

[AlanC9]

Don't forget that they hear Saren and Benezia talking about the Conduit and the Reapers. Somehow the recording isn't irrefutable about that part.

@jamesp81: you're probably right. But people like space battleships.

Modifié par AlanC9, 22 janvier 2014 - 04:12 .

[Bfler]

The Leviathans with their Reaper control ability would be the best possibility to explain a conventional victory, if included in the main plot instead of the Crucible.

[ImaginaryMatter]

I always took the evidence gathering part of ME1 against with a grain of salt because it was probably done for the sake of pacing. If that whole part played out 'realistically' it probably would have taken half a galactic year for the whole sequence.

Modifié par ImaginaryMatter, 22 janvier 2014 - 05:42 .

[jstme]

If developers wanted to tell the conventional victory story in ME3 - they would have had no problems writing one. They did not want to,for various reasons.
Trying to prove with bits of fiction that were written to support certain outcome that different outcome due to different story is not possible - is pointless.
Also,synthesis. Saying that something is not possible in the narrative that allows for Godlike powers (creating out of thin air infinite amount of complex matter capable of beneficially interacting and integrating into various vastly different complex lifeforms, almost simultaneously all over the galaxy) is beyond pointless.

[FlyingSquirrel]

ImaginaryMatter wrote...
Well if we stick to the ME1 convention that the Reapers arrive every 50k years and the difference in technological advancement between cycles doesn't vary too much, one factor could be that the current cycle is at least 2000 years late (given that the Rachni wars were instagated by Sovereign when it realized something was wrong). Throw in the notion that anti-matter technology is relatively new and you have a handwavy reason.

I thought the Leviathans were responsible for the rachni wars....

Also, I don't think the Reapers run on an unchangeable 50,000-year clock. I'm thinking the Catalyst instructed them to watch for certain stages in the development of civilization (such as widespread use of synthetic intelligence) and begin the harvest when these conditions are met. They'd probably start early or late if one cycle proved to be developing especially quickly or slowly, respectively.

[FlyingSquirrel]

Mangalores wrote...
Essentially the problem of the story (a lot of BW games and also Hollywood. here a nice link concerning the screenwriters problem in Hollywood. Everyone only wants to tell that same generic story).

It's typical stake inflation so any resolution becomes a joke because you need ridiculous contrivances to give the hero a chance against the odds you drummed up all the time.

Yeah, stories about "the end of the world as we know it" often run into this problem. In reality, it would take an immense group effort to solve these sorts of problems, such that the efforts of any one single person would likely just be a small fraction of any eventual success. But in terms of storytelling, we probably respond more to stories focusing on a few main characters rather than collective efforts by millions of people at once.

[ImaginaryMatter]

That's why I'm going off of where ME1 left things off... and a little bit of ME2. The Leviathans being the true instigator behind the Rachni was basically a retcon, probably placed in the DLC to connect the Leviathans to the rest of the series (in my opinion it was rather clumsy as it left the huge problem of why the Leviathans would do such a thing).

Similarly, the number 50,000 was thrown around fairly often in ME1 and ME2.

[IntoTheDarkness]

We shouldn't be able to. Each cycle is 50k years long. Humanity has only been space faring for, like 200 years. Coucnil was formed only 2500 years ago. If the last reaper cycle happened just before humanity started exploring the space, humanity would have been spared of reaper abduction, leaving humans 50k years to develop before the next cycle.

If humans that have been spacefaring for 200 years can conventionally beat the reapers -> WTF? Reapers would have been annihilate long ago by other species. Reapers must be at least 50k years technologically advanced to keep the cycle going.

One might argue that this cycle is special, but it isn't. Reapers leave ample evidences and evidence their presence in various places with relics and previous cycle's recordings, and that should hvae been enough for an event like Shepard's discovery of Sovereign to occur in one of 20000 cycles.

Protheans making the crucible and mass relay is a joke because they should be so primitive to make such those things if the aforementioned statement(reapers should be at least 50k years more advanced than any non-spacefaring organics) is true.

[ImaginaryMatter]

IntoTheDarkness wrote...

We shouldn't be able to. Each cycle is 50k years long. Humanity has only been space faring for, like 200 years. Coucnil was formed only 2500 years ago. If the last reaper cycle happened just before humanity started exploring the space, humanity would have been spared of reaper abduction, leaving humans 50k years to develop before the next cycle.

If humans that have been spacefaring for 200 years can conventionally beat the reapers -> WTF? Reapers would have been annihilate long ago by other species. Reapers must be at least 50k years technologically advanced to keep the cycle going.

One might argue that this cycle is special, but it isn't. Reapers leave ample evidences and evidence their presence in various places with relics and previous cycle's recordings, and that should hvae been enough for an event like Shepard's discovery of Sovereign to occur in one of 20000 cycles.

Protheans making the crucible and mass relay is a joke because they should be so primitive to make such those things if the aforementioned statement(reapers should be at least 50k years more advanced than any non-spacefaring organics) is true.

Can you reword that?

[AlanC9]

IntoTheDarkness wrote...

We shouldn't be able to. Each cycle is 50k years long. Humanity has only been space faring for, like 200 years. Coucnil was formed only 2500 years ago. If the last reaper cycle happened just before humanity started exploring the space, humanity would have been spared of reaper abduction, leaving humans 50k years to develop before the next cycle.
.

We don't actually know that the Reapers leave civilized but non-spacefaring cultures alone, do we? Anyway, humans wouldn't have had 50K years. They would have had until Sovereign or his replacement brought the hammer down.

[JonathonPR]

Alot of power fluctuation in the setting can be attributed to not having hard stats for the ships or having an understanding of real world science. A similar problem can be seen in Star Wars, Babylon 5, Star Trek. The writers of Babylon 5 admitted that distances and speeds where flexible. The fighter craft could take hours or minutes to reach a location based on the needs of the plot. Star Trek was inconsistent on how shields worked, weapon damage and power requirements. Star Wars just does not know how much energy is actually needed to do damage so it always went for excessive. Just look at the power output for different ship weapons.

The writers of Mass Effect kept those traits and thought nothing of it. For me the story ends up like one of the imagination kid fights. "I cut you with my sword." "No I have super armor." "While my sword cuts super armor." "But I dodged." you get the idea. There are too many examples of writers changing the rules of a setting just so they can tell a story exactly how they want rather than allowing the rules to force creativity. There are plenty of ways that the Reapers could have been defeated over the course of the series and even in the third game. However characters and technology were changed. They acted to justify warping the world to make the player feel special rather than finding ways to accomplish heroic acts within the rules of the setting unsullied.

[Mangalores]

FlyingSquirrel wrote...

Mangalores wrote...
Essentially the problem of the story (a lot of BW games and also Hollywood. here a nice link concerning the screenwriters problem in Hollywood. Everyone only wants to tell that same generic story).

It's typical stake inflation so any resolution becomes a joke because you need ridiculous contrivances to give the hero a chance against the odds you drummed up all the time.

Yeah, stories about "the end of the world as we know it" often run into this problem. In reality, it would take an immense group effort to solve these sorts of problems, such that the efforts of any one single person would likely just be a small fraction of any eventual success. But in terms of storytelling, we probably respond more to stories focusing on a few main characters rather than collective efforts by millions of people at once.

You can still do that without sacrificing it though. Based on ME1 and ME2 the great "weakness" of the Reapers is that they need a very contrived way to get into the galaxy. Create a reason why that is (extradimensional transgalactic gateway to a parallel universe whatever Mc Guffin) and none has to fight more Reapers than the galaxy has a chance of stopping simply by sabotaging said Mc Guffin because two of the three games were about the Reapers being very complicated and longwinded on how to set off their invasion.


Bonus: You'd still have them as these sinister demon force that can be Cthullu villains in a sequel!

[AlanC9]

Mangalores wrote...

Bonus: You'd still have them as these sinister demon force that can be Cthullu villains in a sequel!

Is this a bonus, or a fatal flaw?

[IntoTheDarkness]

ImaginaryMatter wrote...

IntoTheDarkness wrote...

We shouldn't be able to. Each cycle is 50k years long. Humanity has only been space faring for, like 200 years. Coucnil was formed only 2500 years ago. If the last reaper cycle happened just before humanity started exploring the space, humanity would have been spared of reaper abduction, leaving humans 50k years to develop before the next cycle.

If humans that have been spacefaring for 200 years can conventionally beat the reapers -> WTF? Reapers would have been annihilate long ago by other species. Reapers must be at least 50k years technologically advanced to keep the cycle going.

One might argue that this cycle is special, but it isn't. Reapers leave ample evidences and evidence their presence in various places with relics and previous cycle's recordings, and that should hvae been enough for an event like Shepard's discovery of Sovereign to occur in one of 20000 cycles.

Protheans making the crucible and mass relay is a joke because they should be so primitive to make such those things if the aforementioned statement(reapers should be at least 50k years more advanced than any non-spacefaring organics) is true.

Can you reword that?

You should get the gist of what I'm saying even if it's a rant. In short,

1. each cycle is 50k years long.
2. Humans have been spacefaring since 1960s for roughly 200 years.
3. Humans already possess technology that can destroy a reaper capital ship with 4 dreadnaughts.
4. Imagine a species that's been spacefaring for 49k years after the last harvest, assuming that they bearly avoided the harvest last time because they didn't develop space technology at that point. If humans with 200 years of space history can fight the reapers, what do you think species that have been developing space tech for 49k years can do?
5. It incurs a stupid plothole. In order to make the cycles work, the reapers should be at least 50k years more advanced than ANY spacefaring species otherwise they risk being out-teched between cycles.
6. Assuming the premise of 5 is true, Protheons and Ceberus shouldn't have been able to copy the reaper tech which is over 50 millenia years more advanced than theirs. It's like monkeys trying to emulate humans and develope nuclear weapons. However, protheans unveiled the secret of mass relays and Ceberus successfully studied indoctrination against all plot coherence.
7. Another broken logic in ME universe. Not surprising, IMHO.

Modifié par IntoTheDarkness, 23 janvier 2014 - 06:34 .

[AlanC9]

Again, you're assuming that the cycle always has to take 50K years, and that the humans in the era of the Roman Empire were not advanced enough to be harvested. Neither assumption has any real foundation.

[IntoTheDarkness]

AlanC9 wrote...

Again, you're assuming that the cycle always has to take 50K years, and that the humans in the era of the Roman Empire were not advanced enough to be harvested. Neither assumption has any real foundation.

1. "Every 50k year" is a term repeately mentioned in codex and dialogues. There is not a single line that suggests otherwise. I am not going to develop a head canon to defend a story oversight.

2. How about humans in -10000 bc when civilization didn't exist? They still have 38000 years before the next cycle. Compared to what humanity has achived in 200 years, that seems like enough time to out-tech the reapers. I'm not restricting my argument to humans either. There are plenty of chances that in 20000 cycles any species could have had margin of tens of thousand of years before the next cycle. It only makes sesne if the reapers are so advanced that even 30~50k years of technological advancement doesn't grant organics an edge in the fight against the rpaers. However, considering how easily Cerberus and Protheans copy the reaper tech, the point is moot. It's just another broken logic in ME universe.

Modifié par IntoTheDarkness, 23 janvier 2014 - 06:43 .

[ImaginaryMatter]

AlanC9 wrote...

IntoTheDarkness wrote...

We shouldn't be able to. Each cycle is 50k years long. Humanity has only been space faring for, like 200 years. Coucnil was formed only 2500 years ago. If the last reaper cycle happened just before humanity started exploring the space, humanity would have been spared of reaper abduction, leaving humans 50k years to develop before the next cycle.

We don't actually know that the Reapers leave civilized but non-spacefaring cultures alone, do we? Anyway, humans wouldn't have had 50K years. They would have had until Sovereign or his replacement brought the hammer down.

In ME3 they do specifically mention that the Reapers skipped over the Yagh planet. It's not exactly conclusive but I think they included that little tidbit to support that idea.

[Wayning_Star]

the problem with conventional (one problem "win" against the reapers is that they are just ships containing old species, not species themselves. They're not the ones in charge either, independent to a point (harvest only,all else central computer) but the catalyst is an unknown, we've no idea how to defeat it, or even IF it could be conventionally destroyed. The citadel is/or seems to be it's main digs, but that's not ever really proven or intel supplied that would verify that any assault upon the citadel would lead to any advances against the reaper ships themselves. Shep doesn't even know of the catalyst for sure up until the leviathan, who only hint about it and then actually meeting up with it on "its" invitation only. From the get go, militaries were manipulated, via tech, to not know what to do about the catalyst and it's forces/thralls.

Of course this is only a small instance of the many theories that could infest the ideals of conquest of the Apex Leviathan.. who happened to design and build the catalyst, it's tech and charter as well.

[AlanC9]

IntoTheDarkness wrote...


1. "Every 50k year" is a term repeately mentioned in codex and dialogues. There is not a single line that suggests otherwise. I am not going to develop a head canon to defend a story oversight.

So the Vanguard Reaper would just sit there and let a spacefaring culture develop rather than call in the harvest early? Then what's the point of having one? 

2. How about humans in -10000 bc when civilization didn't exist? They still have 38000 years before the next cycle. Compared to what humanity has achived in 200 years, that seems like enough time to out-tech the reapers. I'm not restricting my argument to humans either. There are plenty of chances that in 20000 cycles any species could have had margin of tens of thousand of years before the next cycle. It only makes sesne if the reapers are so advanced that even 30~50k years of technological advancement doesn't grant organics an edge in the fight against the rpaers. However, considering how easily Cerberus and Protheans copy the reaper tech, the point is moot. It's just another broken logic in ME universe.

Oh... so your argument really is Reapers are idiots, full stop. OK... we're done here.

Modifié par AlanC9, 23 janvier 2014 - 08:00 .

[AlanC9]

Unless I misread it and that was an "ME1's plot is silly" argument.

[NeroonWilliams]

Let's do a little analogizing to understand this "50,000" year long cycle, shall we?

How long ago were the 9-11 attacks?
How long ago did WWII end?
How old is the United States?
How long ago was the Norman conquest of Britain?
How long ago did the Roman Empire fall?
How long ago did the Sumerians rule Mesopotamia?
How long ago did humans start using agriculture?

If you are like more than 99% of all people, you just answered these questions with approximate answers with varying degrees of accuracy. Most likely you thought:

10 years (off by 3)
70 years (off by 1)
200 years (off by 38)
1000 years (off by 52)
1500 years (off by 38)

for the first 5 questions. The last two are even more interesting because they are derived even closer to how the fall of the Protheans is dated. The Sumerians are dated to roughly 3100-2500 BC and the rise of agriculture to between 10,000-7000 BC. For these we can easily say 5000 years ago and 10,000 years ago respectively.

Can we please stop putting a stopwatch to this 50,000 year long cycle? In this case by the standards we have just laid out, this could EASILY mean anywhere from 45,000-55,000 years. That kind of flexibility to your thinking will greatly improve your reasoning.

[Wayning_Star]

don't forget that the leviathan survived/escaped harvest over the time it took since they built the catalyst and it took over for them. How many other, statistically, survive harvest? Technologically capable races/beings rocks and stick figures?