946 réponses à ce sujet

[KaiserShep]

This is indeed a disturbing universe.

[MassivelyEffective0730]

Miranda: "We pretty much replaced all the internal organs, and some of the more disgusting external ones. Except for Shepard's spleen, which will be inflated and used for general recreation, and esprit du corps."

 

When I was in Afghanistan, there were some local children playing a game with a dead bat as a ball.

[Mordokai]

Lets give this a shot and bear with me.

 

1) Because it's Shepard's own helmet? There's a difference between Shepard keeping his or her own helmet and Liara keeping a piece of his or her armor displayed in her apartment. Especially if you're not in a relationship with her. She really comes across as rather obsessive about Shepard. And I'd like the chance to not be happy about Liara's feelings. I could talk to Legion about his piece of my armor, why can't I talk to Liara about it? I am very bothered by what Liara is doing. I'd be a bit disturbed if a female friend of mine kept a piece of my helmet that got destroyed when I was in Afghanistan.

 

This one I'm chalking down to personal preferences. To me, it's much creepier to have something of which I died in(or almost died in, however you want to look at it) to look at in my room than for the same thing to happen with my friend. Once I'm dead, what do I care what you do to my body, much less my worldly possession. If it brings peace of mind to somebody to have a memento from my life in their room... let them have it.

 

2) Yeah, you're not an expert (no offense). I'm not either but these things tend to stay together. If Shepard's armor shattered and broke apart in different places on impact, then his body would have had to have fit into several trashbags instead of a body bag. Looking at what Legion did, she'd have had to have recovered the armor from his corpse, be it on Alchera, Omega, or given to her by Miranda.

 

None taken. And this one is point of some content, I'll give you that. Random Cerberus scientist says in third game(as seen on video log) that the helmet kept the brain in one piece. So, either the body stayed in the armor all the time, or the head was separated from the body. Which, I guess, is also a possibility.

 

And I simply don't get what you're trying to say with second part. If we presume that the body was given to Miranda, it's still a possibility that she removed the armor. How does that change anything? Or what am I missing?

 

3) This leads to a discrepancy on how Legion acquired his own piece of armor, and he states he gained it at Shepard's place of death.

 

That one was always weird to me, but I can't fault the character to writing inconsistencies.

 

4) I agree, it's out of character in that regard. However, Liara does have an abnormal connection to Shepard that borders on disturbing fixation, especially if her feelings aren't reciprocated. Tali does too, to an extent. Maybe it's because she's an alien, or maybe it's because she's an emotional virgin who never really got involved with people before (leaving her physical virginity if unromanced aside). That said, it's not human, and I find it to be a problem. I'd imagine my Shepard gives her a talk about how its unhealthy to have such a fixation on him, and to move on, since it's never going to be as Shepard doesn't feel that connection to Liara. To him (my Shepard), she's a friendly acquaintance who has a tendency to finagle her way into his affairs unnecessarily.

 

I don't see the abnormal connection you mention. She saved the body of a friend who saved her life on Therum, to be able to give her(you'll forgive me if I use the other gender pronoun, to me, Shepard is a woman) a burial. There need be nothing romantic in that. She says herself in comic that's her redemption.

 

5) It's rather biased, yes, but so is your opinion that there's nothing wrong with her fixation on Shepard, to a level where she's hanging pieces of his armor - the armor that he died in - in her apartment. I don't know about you, but to me, that's kind of morbid. Reminds me of Miss Havisham and her wedding dress.

 

Once again, not seeing the fixation and not familiar with the movie(?) in question, so I can't confirm or deny anything in good faith.

[Mordokai]

6) It may well be an alien thing. That said, I'm not seeing a lot of precedent for it with other Asari. I can see how it might make sense to a Shepard who romances Liara or is close to her as a friend, but for a Shepard who is vaguely aware that there's an irritating and naive (and just plain weird) Asari in the medical storage area of the ship in ME1, as my Shepard views her? It doesn't come across as very healthy or mentally balanced. It's sentimentality for a person who didn't like you. What would give her cause to hold Shepard in such a romanticized view as to hang a piece of his armor in her apartment?

 

Because we've soon so many insides of asari apartments other than Liara's?

 

As for romanticized view... asari thing in general? Liara's world view? You may not see the world in that way, she does? And once again, she was saved by her, I'm guessing that helped? Perhaps a case of hero worship? She's hardly the only one in Shepard's crew guilty of that.

 

 

7) Yes, it would be, but you're making the stakes a bit higher for that out of, I suspect, personal incredulity and bias to the existing. The simple fact that Liara even bothered to recover Shepard for more than a monetary profit or tangential benefit from Cerberus is disturbing, considering he personally (my Shepard) didn't hold her in high regard and wasn't a very kind or appreciative person to her.

 

At the risk of repeating myself, it was her personal quest for redemption and a chance to give friend a burial she deserved. I see nothing disturbing in that.

 

The whole point I'm making is that just because someone else's customs are different does not mean we should not be allowed to judge them one way or another. Those are extreme examples, yes, but what I'm ultimately saying is that being different does not, and should not, immunize one from scrutiny or criticism.

 

It can help you understand, at least.

[sH0tgUn jUliA]

I'm back now. I do have a say in the matter now. It's not at all like people who keep a loved one's ashes. Liara wasn't a loved one, or even a liked one. I never treated her kindly. All I did was save her (and I threatened to take her back and leave her where I found her). I even told her in very intentionally insensitive terms to get over her mother's death. Why the hell is she treating me reverently now? Liara isn't 'bad' for this, but it's disturbing how her fixation with me has led to her hanging my body armor that I died in in her personal apartment, full of her most cherished possessions and mementos. And your last statement is very whiny towards me. You get over yourself. I'm going to be critical about a shitty implementation in this game, and disappointed with how I couldn't call out Liara for her issues regarding me.

 

 

Okay let's play along with what should have happened.....

 

Feron: We've found Shepard's body. The Shadow Broker has him.

 

Liara: Shepard? Who cares? I've got an information brokerage going and quite a successful one. Let it go.

 

Feron: He's going to sell Shepard's body to the Collectors!

 

Liara: Why should I care? He treated me like s***. Threatened to take me back to Therum and leave me on that f***ing rock. Forget about it. Now there's something I'd like you to look into. I've heard rumors of a Prothean artifact on blah blah blah. Check it out.

 

******

 

Meanwhile on the Shadow Broker ship.

 

Shadow Broker: Yes, Collector General, I'll have Shepard's body delivered to you. It is on its way to these coordinates as we speak.

 

Collector General: Your payment will be tranferred to your account on the Citadel at Barla Von's bank.

 

Shadow Broker: Thank you. It's been a pleasure.

[KaiserShep]

Can you actually threaten to take her back to Therum? Pretty funny if true.

[von uber]

Miranda: "We pretty much replaced all the internal organs, and some of the more disgusting external ones. I've even made sure to replace his penis exactly so, because I will probably want to sleep with my own creation."

 

Could be a lot worse, yes.

[Mordokai]

That's not respect for the dead. That's morbid fixation and borderline obsession. I'm not calling it respect for the dead; I'm calling it desecration of the dead. Liara is a nobody to my Shepard. She's a convenient tool (that doesn't work right most of the time in ME1), and he can be pretty vocal about how he feels in that regard. Trust me, I tried; it is very possible to be a complete jerkass to her in ME1. Which would make her fascination with Shepard to a point where she can't accept or overcome his death in between ME1 and ME2 very disturbing indeed.

 

 If you're ever the only person that's seeing the writing on the wall over something, that typically means your either A.) Delusional B.) Lying C.) Wrong D.) Insane.

 

This coming from a guy who would gladly glaze his entire species if it would be slightly convenient to him? And you have the gal to accuse me of insanity?

 

Ho boy...

[ImaginaryMatter]

Well this is going to end well.

[MassivelyEffective0730]

Can you actually threaten to take her back to Therum? Pretty funny if true.

 

I last played it a few weeks ago. You can threaten to turn the ship around and put her back where you found her.

[sH0tgUn jUliA]

So I'm seeing a pattern here.

 

Bioware shouldn't have killed Shepard at the start of ME2. Not doing that would have solved a multitude of problems. Yet it would not have made Shepard "partly synthetic" nor would have 

Spoiler

Infected Shepard with the taint of reaper tech turning him/her into the Grey Warden of Mass Effect.

 

They also should have had squadmates leave the ship if Shepard treated them poorly. Of course that would have made writing sequels more difficult

 

So you guys just have to accept the canon friendships and deal with it. This is a computer RPG, not a pen and paper RPG. 

[jtav]

It's keeping the armor that comes off as too much for me. It's supposed to be a sign of Liara's devotion, but even my romancing Shepsfelt like there was enormous pressure to be equally devoted and they just weren't.

[MassivelyEffective0730]

Okay let's play along with what should have happened.....

 

Feron: We've found Shepard's body. The Shadow Broker has him.

 

Liara: Shepard? Who cares? I've got an information brokerage going and quite a successful one. Let it go.

 

Feron: He's going to sell Shepard's body to the Collectors!

 

Liara: Why should I care? He treated me like s***. Threatened to take me back to Therum and leave me on that f***ing rock. Forget about it. Now there's something I'd like you to look into. I've heard rumors of a Prothean artifact on blah blah blah. Check it out.

 

******

 

Meanwhile on the Shadow Broker ship.

 

Shadow Broker: Yes, Collector General, I'll have Shepard's body delivered to you. It is on its way to these coordinates as we speak.

 

Collector General: Your payment will be tranferred to your account on the Citadel at Barla Von's bank.

 

Shadow Broker: Thank you. It's been a pleasure.

 

In all liklihood, this is indeed what should have happened to my Shepard. Hell, I'd have preferred if they left Liara uninvolved with the whole recovery of Shepard's body and left it between Cerberus and the SB. They could say that if Liara romanced Shepard, she spent some time trying to find his bodies whereabouts without success. I think it would have worked better for the story and made Liara appear no less dedicated, but not have (in my opinion) undue or unnecessary importance on the plot. Or alternately, make her a part of Cerberus action to recover the body if she was romanced. That way, here romance can play an important role without it being one of overly contrived importance on Liara.

[MassivelyEffective0730]

It's keeping the armor that comes off as too much for me. It's supposed to be a sign of Liara's devotion, but even my romancing Shepsfelt like there was enormous pressure to be equally devoted and they just weren't.

 

Sure. Imagine how it might seem to a non-romanced Shepard who holds Liara in a negative light (or even a neutral or faintly positive one). It can easily come across as not only devotion, but a fixation and obsession.

[MassivelyEffective0730]

So I'm seeing a pattern here.

 

Bioware shouldn't have killed Shepard at the start of ME2. Not doing that would have solved a multitude of problems. Yet it would not have made Shepard "partly synthetic" nor would have 

Spoiler

Infected Shepard with the taint of reaper tech turning him/her into the Grey Warden of Mass Effect.

 

They also should have had squadmates leave the ship if Shepard treated them poorly. Of course that would have made writing sequels more difficult

 

So you guys just have to accept the canon friendships and deal with it. This is a computer RPG, not a pen and paper RPG. 

 

How is this indicative of having canon friendships? I'm legit not sure if this is a Davidian satire or not, since it sounds remarkably like something David would say. If so, then bravo. If not, then you're making solutions, denouncing them, and telling us to accept things as they are. You could just not have the squadmate in particular play a role in that respect and not deal with the canon friendship issue at all. There are a lot of ways to write around it to be honest.

[jtav]

DA actually does fairly well at "no canon friends." Primarily because a character's plot significance is separate from how the PC feels. If I throw Morrigan out, the DR is still offered. I think the trick is not having a character's role in the plot depend on their relationship with the PC. It's a war for galactic survival, Liara doesn't have to be devoted to me to want to help. Or vice versa.

[MassivelyEffective0730]

DA actually does fairly well at "no canon friends." Primarily because a character's plot significance is separate from how the PC feels. If I throw Morrigan out, the DR is still offered. I think the trick is not having a character's role in the plot depend on their relationship with the PC. It's a war for galactic survival, Liara doesn't have to be devoted to me to want to help. Or vice versa.

 

Hell, that's actually pretty good of a point.

[DeinonSlayer]

DA actually does fairly well at "no canon friends." Primarily because a character's plot significance is separate from how the PC feels. If I throw Morrigan out, the DR is still offered. I think the trick is not having a character's role in the plot depend on their relationship with the PC. It's a war for galactic survival, Liara doesn't have to be devoted to me to want to help. Or vice versa.

Inb4 Bobvid starts howling that removing Liara as a canon friendship would mean removing all emotion and themes from the writing.

[jtav]

Yeah. I think you have to draw a distinction between Liara being plot significant (Prothean expert, finding Crucible plans, etc) and things like "I couldn't let you go" the meeting on Mars, and the chats in the cabin. The first is more or less BW'ss prerogative. The second should depend on her relationship with Shep. "I saved you because I heard a rumor the Collectors were after you, and the Alliance brushed me off." Everyone wins.

[ImaginaryMatter]

Inb4 Bobvid starts howling that removing Liara as a canon friendship would mean removing all emotion and themes from the writing.

 

He's also probably going to chalk this up as us being delusional or trying to punish BioWare.

[CrutchCricket]

In short, you're applying biased view and human measures to an alien who can't be judged by those measures. Your conclusions are ultimately flawed because of this.

 

This is a favorite argument of mine when discussing fundamentally different alien intelligences, like the geth or the rachni. The asari on the other hand, are anything but. They're very much just blue chicks that happen to live for a thousand years. All the things that should be explored about them like how their longevity impacts their perspective, or their monogenderedness, none of that is touched upon. From a metaphysical and psychological perspective, this differentiation is never made. Nor is it made from a cultural perspective. We have zero information about asari culture, beyond Justicars and ardat-yakshis, courtesty of Samara's arc.

 

Actually, a slight amendment. We do have a slight clue into their psyche from the longevity perspective. Asari talk about about how their mates' lives are so much shorter than their own and how each of them learns to not dwell on the inevitable loss, to just enjoy the time they do have together and to let go when that time comes to an end. Things which would seem to go against your hypothesis that asari culturally keep odd mementos of passed loved ones.

 

I gotta ask, what do you really have against Vasir that makes you hate her? She's a minor boss in a DLC, and she's your ally for 2/3rds of her her appearance.

 

Also, said facilities would be pretty useless since they aren't being used. Liara's not using them. Hell, it'd be a lot more secure than the Normandy to use them. I remember Liara said the Yahg broker had enough of an ego to not install any kind of security system in his operation regarding his own access. She makes it clear he never expected to be found out. He had no kind of back-up system or security system for his electronic organization. What makes you think he had a back-up base or facility? I'm not saying it doesn't make sense, I'm saying that the Yahg didn't predict anything would exist outside his desires, such as someone else getting into his system.

 

You've asked before, and the answer hasn't changed. I hate everything about her, from the minute we start chasing her to the last time I'm not allowed to empty my clip in her stupid face. Her annoying fight, her smug taunts, all magnified by Shepard being a retard through out most of it, who's unable to retort her bullshit or again, empty his damn clip. I wouldn't be surprised if it was a test run for a nemesis character, like what Leng is supposed to be. But while Leng is ridiculous to the point of hilarity, Vasir makes me want to punch my screen till my skin shears off, while it's on fire. The skin or the monitor you ask? **** it, both.

 

As for the Shadow Broker I've already said I accept the yahg's overconfidence as a character flaw. But he's not the original Broker. And I would expect the original Broker to know better.

 

I've never understood this sentiment in general. Should the Council not judge the Yahg on account of their having slaughtered the first contact team? It's a point of Yahg culture that they should have submitted themselves to the stronger party on sheer principle; getting murdered for failure to do so was clearly their own fault. Wasn't it? Should we simply accept that slavery is a part of Batarian culture and not retaliate when they raid human colonies?

At the risk of setting the thread on fire, should the Spaniards not have judged the Aztec practice of human sacrifice as an appalling monstrosity (not that I'm defending what they did - we're talking pre-conquest here)? Should the British not have judged the Indian practice of burning women alive with their dead husbands (there was a great quote there - "You say it is your custom to burn widows. Very well, we also have a custom: when men burn a woman alive, we tie a rope around their necks and we hang them. Build your funeral pyre; next to it, my carpenters will build a gallows. You may follow your custom, and then we will follow ours.")? This isn't to say we shouldn't reexamine our own moral principles from time to time - we absolutely should - but what standards should we be expected to apply to any given situation but our own?

 

It is very much an on-going argument in both the fictional and real-life examples. In terms of the latter, sure most people today condemn human sacrifice, slavery and so on. But the question remains: why are our moral principles superior to theirs? Simply because we're the majority? Because we have the bigger guns, or the economic power to enforce them? Yeah, probably. Morality is subjective and more often than not it's simply majority decision. I have not found any convincing arguments for an objective morality or indeed that the concept even need extend past humanity.

 

In today's day and age, because equality is itself a concept that's part of the majority's view on morality, we try to allow for other beliefs as long as they don't contradict ours too much. But if they do, watch those other beliefs go poof!

[MassivelyEffective0730]

Lets give this a shot and bear with me.

 

 

This one I'm chalking down to personal preferences. To me, it's much creepier to have something of which I died in(or almost died in, however you want to look at it) to look at in my room than for the same thing to happen with my friend. Once I'm dead, what do I care what you do to my body, much less my worldly possession. If it brings peace of mind to somebody to have a memento from my life in their room... let them have it.

 

And I simply don't get what you're trying to say with second part. If we presume that the body was given to Miranda, it's still a possibility that she removed the armor. How does that change anything? Or what am I missing?

 

 

I don't see the abnormal connection you mention. She saved the body of a friend who saved her life on Therum, to be able to give her(you'll forgive me if I use the other gender pronoun, to me, Shepard is a woman) a burial. There need be nothing romantic in that. She says herself in comic that's her redemption.

 

 

Once again, not seeing the fixation and not familiar with the movie(?) in question, so I can't confirm or deny anything in good faith.

 

1). What about a Shepard who doesn't hold Liara to be a friend in ME1? Especially one that treats her like crap, like my Shepard? Where the hell is the spurge of loyalty coming from? I'm not one for leaving memento's behind. If I'm dying of cancer and my friend asks for my Suzuki bike, I'd consider letting them have it. That said, I probably wouldn't approve of it, and I do personally have a request in my own will (I'm a Soldier, I basically have to have one), that all my material possessions that weren't inherited be auctioned off. If somebody has a problem with getting over my death in that manner, tough. Let them get over it.

 

2) How did Legion get the armor piece? I essentially asked the same question in 3. How come I can call out Legion but not Liara?

 

3) For my Shepard, she wasn't a friend. I distinctly remember from my playthrough less than 3 weeks ago that I could be very mean-spirited and unpleasant to Liara, which makes her connection to Shepard unjustified (hence abnormal). And what does she need redemption for? She's a virginal, naive, innocent Asari Archaeologist who, at the beginning of the Redemption comic, has only been looking for Shepard for a month (It's been exactly one month since the Normandy was destroyed). What the hell is she needing of redemption for? She's never done anything.

 

4) It's from Charles Dickens 'Great Expectations'. Miss Havisham is a very wealthy old woman who was, years before the novel began, left at the alter on her wedding day by her true love (who was a con-artist who only wanted her money). Aside from growing to utterly despise men and wanting revenge by making young boys suffer by introducing them to her cold-hearted but beautiful adopted daughter Estella and making them fall in love with her only for Estella to cruelly break their hearts, she spends almost all of her time in her decrepit mansion that she keeps in the same state as her wedding day. All she ever wears is her aged wedding dress, and her decrepit, stale, and ancient cake still lies on the banquet table, being picked at by rodents. I was comparing (in a rather dark manner) Liara to Miss Havisham in that aspect.

[congokong]

In all liklihood, t Hell, I'd have preferred if they left Liara uninvolved with the whole recovery of Shepard's body and left it between Cerberus and the SB.

 

I've wondered what was Cerberus' reason for involving Liara. Do you know? I read it was something about keeping Feron in check or some BS that didn't make much sense. To me involving a friend of Shepard's would only jeopardize the operation.

 

I know Bioware's reason for involving Liara. They wanted to give her some purpose after ME1 and she was the most likely LI to motivate her involvement.

[themikefest]

This again? Ok, lets take a look at this.

 

If we presume Liara found Shepard's body at Alchera we can also presume she "looted" the armor off of Shepard's corpse there. Now, when we visit Alchera and Normandy's remains, Shepard can find and pick her helmet. Now, first of all, if Shepard's ok with keeping her own helmet in her own cabin, I fail to see why it's so bad for Liara to keep another part of armor in her apartment. It obviously doesn't bother Shepard, I fail to see why it bothers you.

 

 

 

It does bother me.  She seems to think its ok to display the armor like its a trophy. Who gave her that right? What about Shepard's mother(for those who play a spacer? So T'soni is more important than his/her mother? Wrong. And for someone who doesn't like her, like my femshep, I would find that very creepy and beleive she has serious mental issues.  Knowing my mother  she would kill T'soni without blinking an eye. For me, I would do far worse. Unfortunately Bioware doesn't give me the option to ask her about having the armor. I would like to hear the reason for that.

 

Lets do this.

You play as Liara. You die and Conrad Verner, Jacob, Zaeed or even Javik gives your body to Cerberus and takes you armor and puts it on display in their apartment. Would you have a problem with that?

[SporkFu]

I'd expect it from Conrad. I'd give him a facepalm and keep going.