61 réponses à ce sujet

[GimmeDaGun]

StreetMagic wrote...

GimmeDaGun wrote...

There's nothing realistic about it. It was one of the most ridiculous ideas and worts written parts in the whole trilogy. That idea shouldn't have been implemented at all, just like the whole ME2 story-line and being forced to join Cerberus... I mean come on. No matter how entertaining ME2 is, it's just a cheap filler with lots of action flick cliche characters with their boring daddy issues and the option to turn the Normandy into a playboy-love boat.

How did you manage to make it to ME3 with this opinion?

Lazarus still sucks, but goddamn.

I loved the first game. I enjoyed ME2 too, no mistake, but I found its story and most of its characters time wasting filler. If I could make a remake, I'd automatically scrap characters like Miranda, Jacob, Thane, Grunt, Samara, Jack. The whole idea of the (not so) Suicide Mission and the reason Shepards joins Cerberus due to the "galaxy threatening terror" of the collectors. I mean, come on! Those bugs only dare to kidnap human colonists from the terminus and have literally no fire-power which would match an Alliance cruiser's, let alone a whole Alliance colony... and Harbinger, the most annoying, ridiculous and stupid villian ever... it always remindes of Skeletor form that stupid cartoon show, Masters of The Universe. The Lazarus project... just plain stupid. And I generally dislike some of the very forced space-opera, action hero flick cliches. Otherwise, as a game it is quite good.

IMO, despite its flaws ME3's plot eats ME2' story for breakfast. Plus, I don't get how can those people who say that ME3's story is weak and its ending is the worst piece of writing find ME2's story of a load bs. a masterpiece.

In short: ME2 works very well as a game, but it does not work as a story and as a middle chapter of trilogy.

Modifié par GimmeDaGun, 05 février 2014 - 11:55 .

[Dean_the_Young]

Huh. Funny I just typed this up in another thread.

I can't find it now, but I remember once proposing an alternative opening in which Shepard was highly crippled by the Collector attack. Unable to act or move, the Council and Alliance basically just hid their hero in a Citadel medical facility and tried to forget about it as a sort of shame for cripples. Shepard is ignorred, and considered uncomfortably embarassing to the point of being under a sort of house arrest in the name of medical care.

Shepard's friends didn't abandon, per see, but they were left to go on with their lives and careers: Tali returned to the Fleet, Wrex left for Tuchanka politics, Garrus wen back to Citadel and got fed up again, and the VS and Liara are gone for long durations trying to fill Shepard's void in the Alliance and trying to find more evidence of the Reapers. Your Love Interest visits, but the distance and separatation and stress are having a toll... a hardship only increased by Shepard's growing frustration, upset, and anger at how no one is addressing the Colony Abductions that Shepard has been seeing in very obscure news. This frustration comes to bear as Shepard lashes out at the VS (or Liara, if LI) about how even they are ignorring the Reapers, a regretful outburst that just shows how bad things have gotten for the wounded veteran.


In comes the Lazarus Foundation: a not-for-profit medical charity for Alliance veterans, funded and supported by a number of leading Human corporations. With a mandate for expanding the limits of medical science to benefit all mankind, their target demographic is extrelemely wounded people who modern medical science can't handle, by using highly experimental techniques and procedures to give a chance where nothing else could. There are risks- sometimes the surgeries carry a significant risk of death, while cybernetic implants and biotic brain surgery have been known to have even more debilitating effects. All participants, test subjects for the advancement of medical science, are volunteers who sign a waver.

Or so explains Lazarus Foundation Manager Miranda Lawson, introduced to Shepard by Anderson after Anderson was introduced to the charity by other contacts. Anderson believes it's Shepard's best chance to get back to their old life. The Lazarus Foundation, besides itself being a not-for-profit charity and unconcerned with profit, both is interested in helping the First Human Spectre for its own sake and admits that the PR for success could boost their renown andstanding. But most importantly, Shepard knows they could get back on their feet.

Shepard agrees, and goes under the knife. Repeatedly, for some time.

Reclass? Extreme surgery. Level reset? Rehabilitation therapy and retraining, managed by Lazarus Foundation member and trainer Jacob Taylor. The Lazarus Project mission will naturally be recast as Shepard's rehabilitation, a point at which Shepard is back in the game.

By the point the narrative resumes from the time skip, Shepard is preparing for release and express a seeming comfort (if not friendship) with Jacob, as talking-buddies about the Colony Abductions in the Terminus and how no one is doing something. Jacob drops significant foreshadowing that there are some people trying to do something, and that getting Shepard back on his feet is part of his contribution. Shepard, visibly interested, wants to know more. Jacob promises to tell Shepard more once Shepard passes the rehabilitation exam.

The tutorial is Shepard's rehabilitation exam, and the initial training course takes a turn for the worse when the medical machines and synthetic assistants and guards go haywire, killing doctors and patients alike and throwing the foundation into chaos. At this point the scenario returns to the ME2 of canon, with Shepard escaping through the Foundation space-station and discovering there's more than meets the eye. The funding records are excessive and make no sense for a charity group, Miranda talks about how there's only one patient on the station and everyone else we saw glimpses of were just test subjects for Shepard, and there's references to The Boss as a previously never-referenced person above Miranda who is asking for in-depth updates on Shepard.

Eventually Jacob admits that Lazarus Foundation is a Cerberus Front Company, that Cerberus is the one behind Shepard's recovery and not (as Shepard previous alludes, the Alliance), and that all this is to help get Shepard chasing the Reapers and colony abductions.

We escape, we meet TIM, and all is back on track, with equivalent narrative justifications for Shepard's isolation.

Willingness to work with Cerberus? Colony abductions and initial goodwill remain.
Frictionwith Alliance and Council? Established frustration of watching them not address Reapers for years while hiding him away.
Departure of squadmates? Letting them return to their own lives when Shepard can't lead the team.
Friction and distance with love interest? Pre-rehabilitation stress of a crippled veteran relationship, followed by months of isolation during Shepard's time with Lazarus and the VS/Liara being on a deep cover deployment/off-grid archeological hunt when Shepard recovers.


And... bam. Back on track. The VS can deserve some new dialogue, with the prologue tensions/argument still ringing when the VS doesn't trust Cerberus and is concerned they could have done something to coerce/control Shepard, and Shepard drops a justification that Cerberus chose to help them when the VS and Alliance couldn't. Oops. Come Illium, Liara is distracted/uninterested in accompanying Shepard because she's pursuing related to the Protheans and the Reapers, something that she can't even tell Shepard in case she (or Shepard) are being spied upon. She can't even let Shepard accompany her, because doing so would tip Cerberus off and endanger her lead even more than this explanation. The only other thing you can get out of her, if you do her little quests, is that she thinks this could be big, big enough that she has to put archeology before Shepard, but she does hope they can reunite after she finishes her thing.

Which, with a recas Shadow Broker, would be revealed/foreshadowed as her discovering the Crucible/Superwapon plans

And so the plot rumbles on.

[Dr_Extrem]

@ dean_the_young

i really could get behind this. your alternate route makes sense, explaines the tensions between shep and the council and almost everything else.

its good.


if you take the character out of the story for a couple of years, this is a good idea on how to do it.

[o Ventus]

DeinonSlayer wrote...

When I saw the flare around Shepard, I didn't interpret it as a sign of reentry. It looked to me like (s)he exited the planet's shadow, with the oxygen which leaked from the suit trailing along, illuminated in the vacuum. Sort of like how Jim Lovell was able to look out the window and see Apollo 13's oxygen spilling out into space.

Seriously, the idea that any part of Shepard bigger than a cough drop was recoverable after tearing through an atmosphere and striking a mountainside at a hundred meters per second is too stupid for words. The damage described in audio logs refers to long-term exposure to vacuum and subzero temperatures, not dismemberment associated with a high-speed impact.

This.

[Lomskis]

DeinonSlayer wrote...

When I saw the flare around Shepard, I didn't interpret it as a sign of reentry. It looked to me like (s)he exited the planet's shadow, with the oxygen which leaked from the suit trailing along, illuminated in the vacuum. Sort of like how Jim Lovell was able to look out the window and see Apollo 13's oxygen spilling out into space.

Seriously, the idea that any part of Shepard bigger than a cough drop was recoverable after tearing through an atmosphere and striking a mountainside at a hundred meters per second is too stupid for words. The damage described in audio logs refers to long-term exposure to vacuum and subzero temperatures, not dismemberment associated with a high-speed impact.

Why do you think it was a ballistic re-entry as opposed to free fall (~50m/s or 120mph)? If it’s the latter, every bone in the body would be shattered, however body itself, tightly packed into an advanced space armour would still be there.
Also, what sort of “deep space freezing” are we talking about? On the contrary, I would expect black space suit to heat up, no cool down, as being relatively close to the star.

[Stalker]

The only way Lazarus would ever be truly realistic or believable is with a successful clone, yes.

Shepard obviously fell onto the planet. The suit would have to do wonders in order to even maintain something you could identify as a body:

• It would have needed safety seals that detect a leaking suit and make Shepard suffocate rather than dying a horrible death in the vacuum. Codex entries even contradict the possibility of this, stating that he was in fact directly exposed to space.
• It would need to be built in a way that it's able to withstand the temperature and pressure during atmospheric entry.
• If 2) worked, it would have to be able to finally weaken the effects of the incredibly powerful impact on the body. By the speed he was going, he would otherwise just be mush.
• Shepard was clinically dead for a respectable amount of time before someone found him, meaning that the brain cells who make Shepard "Shepard" are likely dead beyond recovery anyway, even if the brain survived the atmospheric entry through the wonder suit.

The whole scenario would have been vaguely feasible if he either came down with the Normandy or floated around in space, but crashing onto a planet without any protection whatsoever, laying there dead for several days and recovering afterwards was just ridiculous. Spectacular, but ridiculous.

Modifié par Mr Massakka, 05 février 2014 - 03:14 .

[TuringPoint]

Death in space in a vacuum is peaceful. If you managed to survive exposure, you'd be hurting bad if you woke up later.

We've seen how much was left of him. Bioware employees have repeatedly come into discussions like these and suggested they intended for it to seem impossible. It seems clear, without such commentary from the story itself, that if they wanted to indicate circumstances had protected his body from trauma that would have been explained.

Think about this. The Reapers, Collectors are able to extract conscious makings of a Reaper from liquified people. Or, at least it uses DNA, and can extract it from raw organic material, which is considerable. Such a technology could believably be adapted for bringing Shepard back to life, and it may be the Collectors had prepared his body in some way to eventually study his memories, to determine if the Protheans had made further contingencies. They would also want to use his genetic material, so they may have made preparations for that as well.  He was in some sort of pod, probably a stasis pod after being found.  We don't know when he was found or by whom.

Also, humans invented medi-gel.  Medi-gel has all sorts of properties that would help in reviving a person who was dead.  An application can regenerate limbs in living tissue, so if some internal tissue survived, they could mechanically revive those parts.  Repair cell structures that had frosted over, use DNA and something derived from medi-gel and/or Collector technology.

Modifié par Alocormin, 05 février 2014 - 03:56 .

[Dr_Extrem]

you can easily freeze to death in space. the only thing you need, is a small hole in your suit

evatoration needs energy and this energy is drawn away from the surrounding matter. when liquids (like water) evaporate, adjacent matter cools down.

water boils at 100°C ... but water at 100°C does not necessarily boil. it still needs this little bit of energy to make the 100°C-water evaporate.


so ... yeah ... shepard can easily feeze to death in space, since the suit was damaged. the biggest problems miranda had to deal with, were freezer burns.

[JasonShepard]

Lomskis wrote...

Why do you think it was a ballistic re-entry as opposed to free fall (~50m/s or 120mph)? If it’s the latter, every bone in the body would be shattered, however body itself, tightly packed into an advanced space armour would still be there.

Shepard is a long way away from the planet at the start. That gives the Commander a lot of gravitational potential energy. If planetfall happened, that energy went somewhere. Either it went into the impact, or it went into burning Shepard up as the atmosphere slowed the descent. Either way, I wouldn't expect there to much left of the Commander.

That's why I can't accept a planetfall theory short of "somehow made it inside the Mako" or "somehow was still within the Normandy's mass effect field during descent".

Also, what sort of “deep space freezing” are we talking about? On the contrary, I would expect black space suit to heat up, no cool down, as being relatively close to the star.

Well, that would just make it worse. Shepard is in orbit around a planet. Behind the planet? Sub-zero temperatures. In front of the planet? Soaring temperatures from exposure to a star without a protective atmosphere.

So long as we aren't going for the cryogenically-frozen-by-space answer though, extra damage to the body from regular temperature changes wouldn't really be a problem. All you need is that the brain is somehow preserved.

***

Mr Massakka wrote...

Shepard obviously fell onto the planet.

How obviously? Because I've yet see it directly stated within canon.

Modifié par JasonShepard, 05 février 2014 - 03:57 .

[The Night Mammoth]

I like Dean's idea, if we're talking about sticking really close to the Lazarus metaphor. Personally, I'd prefer Shepard didn't die at all, but is instead split from her team in sensible ways (Garrus goes off to be a Spectre, Ashley goes off to become an officer), and chooses to work with Cerberus because it's truly the best, maybe the only, solution to fighting the Collectors. There's an interesting angle to explore there that I don't think was given adequate consideration in Mass Effect 2.

[TuringPoint]

There's a sign of atmospheric entry, we don't see anything beyond that.

The atmosphere would prevent him from being mush when he hit the ground. He might land in pieces, and his armor would be worn down by the atmospheric entry.

That said, I don't put it past them to show atmospheric entry for visual impact mostly. It may be possible that he skimmed the atmosphere, but seems unlikely. If he was going fast enough, it would be possible for him to skim the atmosphere and end up out in space, maybe in orbit. If he was still in orbit it seems to my inexpert mind he'd likely be in an unstable parabolic orbit. 

If he's moving this fast, anything that hit him would dismember him. The appearance of his body suggests this happened, a few times. It would take considerable time or resources to find him like this as inert organic matter.  He'd probably need to be in orbit, or on the planet, unless someone has tech to find such a small amount of inert organic material.  Or, the scavenger had the means to predict where he landed, using recovered logs from the Normandy which had information on the last moments where he was tossed in to space.  That would at least narrow down somewhat where they would look.

It's also possible he administered medi-gel to himself, or his suit did, which could conceivably regenerate some of this damage while it happened. His brain was never damaged by anything other than exposure. After being frozen, he could be found, put in some sort of stasis, and protected until the Lazarus Project found a way to thaw his cells without causing damage to their internal structure. It may be that some mechanism saved his internal cells from frost, for example drying out his cells.

It's funny you mention the boiling of liquid in exposure to vacuum. That might reduce the amount of moisture to cause cellular damage. It would not eliminate it. His skul would need a mechanism for venting the moisture before he froze. Perhaps small, fast moving debris penetrated his suit, and went through his skull, missing significant memories and experiences that would maintain his identity.

Modifié par Alocormin, 05 février 2014 - 04:23 .

[CrutchCricket]

dreamgazer wrote...

Is Lazarus better or worse than revealing Shepard to be an unknowing alien, or a literal cyborg with his/her heroic consciousness---with the Prothean cipher intact, I assume---crammed in a machine?

Depends on how it was done and what consequences that would have.

[JasonShepard]

CrutchCricket wrote...

dreamgazer wrote...

Is Lazarus better or worse than revealing Shepard to be an unknowing alien, or a literal cyborg with his/her heroic consciousness---with the Prothean cipher intact, I assume---crammed in a machine?

Depends on how it was done and what consequences that would have.

True. My biggest gripe with Lazarus is not its impossibility, it's how little attention was paid to the fact that Shepard was dead. I mean, sure, they dropped it into conversation from time to time, but just as a sort of "Oh yeah, I was dead."

A conversation like the scene with Ashley that's rumoured to have been cut from ME3 would have gone a long way towards making me happier. (Although Shepard's comment about "Maybe I'm just a VI that thinks it's Commander Shepard" was appreciated...)

[Stalker]

JasonShepard wrote...

Mr Massakka wrote...

Shepard obviously fell onto the planet.

How obviously? Because I've yet see it directly stated within canon.

He was certainly close enough to be in the planets' gravitational field, so he couldn't have just floated around in space. In the last seconds we see him, he is clearly heading towards it. He had no speed or direction to orbit around it.

It's common sense that he did. I really don't see how you want to debate it... and please tell me your argument is "we haven't clearly seen it or have it written in stone somewhere, so I believe what I want". That's a plain stupid way to look at it.

Modifié par Mr Massakka, 05 février 2014 - 04:59 .

[AlexMBrennan]

Is Lazarus better or worse than revealing Shepard to be an unknowing alien, or a literal cyborg with his/her heroic consciousness---with the Prothean cipher intact, I assume---crammed in a machine?

Would that be some kind of ancient conspiracy? There are dozens of points where this should have been noticeable in the first game (e.g. shouldn't have Dr Chakwas picked up on Shepard not being human?).

When I saw the flare around Shepard, I didn't interpret it as a sign of reentry. It looked to me like (s)he exited the planet's shadow, with the oxygen which leaked from the suit trailing along, illuminated in the vacuum.

Then how do you explain that the SB's forces were only able to discover "meat and tubes"? And I guess the Blue Suns mercs just decided to dump Shepard's helmets near the Normandy's crash site after recovering him for the lulz?

We don't know when he was found or by whom.

I know Redemption is bad, but you can't just dismiss canon you don't like.

He was certainly close enough to be in the planets' gravitational field, so he couldn't have just floated around in space. He had no speed or direction to orbit around it

You have no idea how close Shepard was to the planet, or how fast he was moving, or how fast the Normandy was moving relative to the planet, but I guess I can't argue with "It looked like Shepard was falling towards it"

Modifié par AlexMBrennan, 05 février 2014 - 04:52 .

[Fixers0]

If Mass Effect were to be saved we'd have to go all the way back to the very start of ME2's creative process. Everything but ME1 and the revelation novel will have to be ditched and then we can start again. Of course, as it's currently not possible to travel back in time this will not happen.

[shodiswe]

The crash landing without a vehicle is the part that gave me serious issues with their concept.

1. one would expect Shepard to burn up in the atmosphere leaving nothign that can be resotred, never mind the suffocation happening in space, that would have been bad enough.
After that, what kind of poisonus atmosphere and gasses were there on that planetoid. thirdly, the encounter with the Ice and rockface of the planet.

Either there is plenty of atmosphere to slow down the fall, but then you burn instead... or there is very little atmosphere to slow your fall and you get smashed like in a matter accelerator.

My solution to get past that was to ignore that whole incident. Since it doesn't make sense.

Modifié par shodiswe, 05 février 2014 - 05:09 .

[Stalker]

AlexMBrennan wrote...

He was certainly close enough to be in the planets' gravitational field, so he couldn't have just floated around in space. He had no speed or direction to orbit around it

You have no idea how close Shepard was to the planet, or how fast he was moving, or how fast the Normandy was moving relative to the planet, but I guess I can't argue with "It looked like Shepard was falling towards it"

Indeed, we can't know for sure how close he was, but he was clearly depicted heading towards it. Sooner or later he's going to move into the gravitational field. Besides, the Normandy landed there, did it not? So that he floated around until someone found him is damn near impossible.
Then there is the orbit: to enter a planets' orbit you need a specific entry direction and a whole lot of speed. An object as small as a human without any chance to seriously adjust the direction or speed has no chance at achieving that. He's just going to fall towards the planet like the debris around him.

Conclusion: No choice but to fall onto the planet.

Modifié par Mr Massakka, 05 février 2014 - 05:15 .

[JasonShepard]

Mr Massakka wrote...

He was certainly close enough to be in the planets' gravitational field, so he couldn't have just floated around in space. In the last seconds we see him, he is clearly heading towards it. He had no speed or direction to orbit around it.

The moon is in Earth's gravitational field. At certain times of the month, it's even moving towards us. It hasn't hit us yet. (In fact, overall it's slowly moving away from us - despite moving towards us at times.)

Shepard will have had some angular momentum relative to the planet. That angular momentum isn't going anywhere (no friction in space), and it makes an orbit more likely than planetfall. Planetfall will only happen if the angular momentum is small enough that the orbit goes within the planet's atmosphere.

True, the cinematic shows Shepard moving towards the planet - but it also shows the Commander moving laterally (Shep moves from left to right across the screen). Since I really don't want to the full maths of orbital mechanics while deriving my figures from an in-game cinematic - especially since I don't know if the camera is stationary compared to the planet - I view the cinematic as inconclusive.

It's common sense that he did. I really don't see how you want to debate it... and please tell me your argument is "we haven't clearly seen it or have it written in stone somewhere, so I believe what I want". That's a plain stupid way to look at it.

Well, if I haven't seen it clearly written into canon somewhere, why shouldn't I make it up? Especially if it helps my Willing Suspension of Disbelief?

[TuringPoint]

If he was moving fast enough, to maintain orbit or break it, he would be going tremendously fast. He has a pretty good boost from the momentum of the Normandy when it's destroyed.  He could have been moving fast enough to remain in orbit, maybe break from it if the Normandy was trying to escape.

His speed would have to be enormous to pass through the atmosphere and not land. 

As for "frying" from exposure, it would be safe to assume his armor is to some degree insulated well enough to manage such exposure, much like a modern day space suit.  I'm not sure if, after getting punctured, the suit would become totally useless against the sun.  It would eliminate his insulation, but not the shielding of the physical suit itself.

If he does land on the planet, I would suggest that debris assaulted his suit, placing him into a vacuum and boiling some of the water from his blood into space.  He then landed on the planet, already dead, perhaps on a snowdrift. 

It sounds absurd on the face of it.  If I knew more about how fluids boil in space, and if it were possible for them to "vent" as a result of punctures...  it's total speculation.  

Sort of fun trying to figure this out.  I wouldn't guess Bioware actually calculated this in-depth, considering their lack of research in numerous other scientific areas.

All that said, there is in canon the established fact that there was considerable cellular degeneration.


Another thought (I figure people are ignoring me to continue their argument, but so what): If Shepard was tracking him, agents might have come in to find his body or rescue him after the Normandy was attacked.  These agents may have been ambushed by Shadow Broker or Collector agents, and from there the body would pass through many hands.  Or perhaps the Collector's themselves retrieved his body, put it in stasis, and it was stolen from them briefly by Cerberus agents or some other interested entity.  It's ambiguous who found him first, or how.

One more thing that this resurrection adds to the story.  It ties in the fact that the Reapers are able to extract knowledge and genetic material from vast numbers of beings, while killing them in the process.  They preserve life through extinction, etc.  They can actually use LESS than the Lazarus project has to revive Shepard.

Modifié par Alocormin, 05 février 2014 - 06:31 .

[grey_wind]

GimmeDaGun wrote...
IMO, despite its flaws ME3's plot eats ME2' story for breakfast. Plus, I don't get how can those people who say that ME3's story is weak and its ending is the worst piece of writing find ME2's story of a load bs. a masterpiece.

Maybe because some people preferred the increased focus on the characters, their personal stories and the universe's setting in ME2 over the generic, rubbish excuse of an overarching plot that's plagued all three games?

You know, different people with different opinions, and all that jazz...

[Village_Idiot]

As ImaginaryMatter stated earlier, my main problem with Lazarus isn't its implausibility from a scientific perspective (sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic, yada yada yada). What irked me about it is how it had very little weight in ME2.

Shepard him/herself seems to adjust ridiculously quickly to the fact they've just been resurrected after losing two years of their life, and are quickly thrown into the plot without so much as a breather. The closest we come to Shepard reflecting upon the situation doesn't come until near ME3's conclusion, aboard Cronos station.

As for other characters, no-one seems to be particularly bothered (beyond slight initial surprise) by the walking miracle that is Shepard. I don't know about you, but if I was confronted by a person who I had believed to be dead for two years only to find them not only alive, but working with an extremist group they had previously violently opposed, I'd be highly skeptical that that person was who they said they were. I never any sense of disbelief from Shepard's former companions, and they seemed all too ready to accept the Commander for who they were within a short period of time.

Instead, most reactions amounted to "Shepard? But you're dead!" "I got better." "Oh, OK then." Like I said: no weight. No impact. This guy/gal has come back from the dead, and yet no-one can manage anything more than mild surprise. It's bizarre, immersion-breaking even. I understand they wanted to take Shepard out of the loop for a few years and clean the slate plot-wise, but it needed to be better handled.

Modifié par Shadrach 88, 05 février 2014 - 09:05 .