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[Han Shot First]

During that scene though it seems like Harbinger stops firing all together. You can't hear it blasting in the background (or at least at the same rate) and when the Normandy finally takes off the camera focuses on Harbinger who can be seen not firing. Also given how rapidly it can shoot it wouldn't have been difficult to shoot down the Normandy, without breaking a sweat. err... oil drop. Heck, Harbinger wasn't even firing at full capacity because he was only using it's main beam and not it's GUARDIAN equivalent weapons.

 

You can hear the impact of Harbinger's firing during the medevac scene, the volume of the sound effects are just turned down a bit. You can also see a couple explosions in the background while Shepard is helping the more severely wounded squaddie get to the Normandy.

 

As for whether or not Harbinger could have engaged both the Normandy and the targets on the ground simultaneously...I'm not sure there is anything in the lore regarding Reaper targeting abilities or rates of fire or the the strengths and limitations of their cannon(s). I think both the arguments for and against Harbinger being able to engage both the attacking force and the Normandy simultaneously would be resting on head canon. 

[Nightwriter]

[Iakus]

"Hope is irrelevant"

[I Tsunayoshi I]

Can. Not. Unsee.

[Nightwriter]

Oh I see, you can all submit your little "theories" and "speculations" but I can't put forth my own genuine thesis on the cause of the problem, is that it. I see how it is.

 

FOOLS. YOU ALL KNOW THE TRUTH. ALL OF YOU.

[MassivelyEffective0730]

Ah. This debate again.

Let's summarise the regular arguments:

 

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- Why can't the Reapers switch the beam off?

- Maybe it takes a while to switch the beam off? Maybe they never anticipated having to switch it off in a hurry?

- Okay... Why not just blow it up?

- Well, it does act like a miniature relay - that might blow up the Earth for all we know. Remember Arrival?

- Now you're just speculating.

- It's a video game! We all are!

 

***************************

 

- Why doesn't Harby shoot Normandy?

- Stealth systems & Reaper IFF.

- Uh... The Normandy is right there. It's perfectly visible. Stealth systems wouldn't work since that's infrared light, and it's visibly not a Reaper.

- EDI's electronic countermeasures & jamming from the beam.

- Harbinger seems to be doing a perfectly good job shooting troops and vehicles, so the jamming from the beam doesn't seem to be bothering him. And do you really think EDI could jam a Reaper? Let alone the biggest, baddest Reaper in the fleet?

- Harbinger's got more important things to worry about. He needs to focus on the troops, not a ship that's actively evacuating troops.

- Yes... but blowing up the Normandy would trigger a fairly large explosion. Probably wiping out most of Hammer squad.

- The Normandy does have Silaris Armour and upgraded barriers. Harbinger would need a few shots. And in that time, some of Hammer might get through the beam.

- Really? You're arguing that Normandy could take a direct hit from Harbinger? The codex says that no ship has survived a direct hit from a Reaper main gun.

- They're in atmosphere. That would reduce his shot power.

- Nowhere in the codex does it say that atmospheric drag affects mass effect weaponry.

- Yes, but real world physics says that they can't be firing at relativistic speeds. Look at this. If they are, every shot ought to be a nuke.

- Oh, come on. We have no idea how mass effect weaponry would work in the real world. Don't use XKCD on me.

- Fine. In the opening, we see a cruiser (referred to as a dreadnought by Ash/Kaidan) taking multiple direct shots from a Reaper. If Reaper can ordinarily one-shot us, that implies the atmosphere does reduce weapon strength (somehow).

- You can sit and watch that cruiser get hit by as many Reaper shots as you like. Doesn't count.

- At minimum, running through that section, it still takes two shots.

- Ugh. Forget I asked...

 

- Actually, hang on. You said Harbinger needs to focus on Hammer squad or else some of them might get through. But we see him pause, not shooting anything, during the cutscene. Why doesn't he shoot the Normandy then?

- Maybe his guns are recharging? We see him take similar pauses during the charge just beforehand.

- We don't hear any blasts during the cutscene either.

- Eh. Artistic license. The focus of the scene is on the goodbye. Loud explosions etc would distract from the drama. Shepard is presumably just tuning them out.

- That's the best you've got?

- Yup.

 

***************************

 

- Why is only Harbinger present? What happened to the other Reapers we saw heading towards London? Heck, why not call in all those hundreds of Reapers in orbit?

- They're needed in orbit to defend against Sword and Shield Fleets.

- This is the Reapers we're talking about. I'm not sure that Sword and Shield has them under that much pressure.

- I wouldn't be so sure. We did spend an entire game assembling the biggest, most badass fleet ever.

- I'm sure they could spare a couple more ships. In fact, we saw them sparing a couple more ships.

- Maybe those Reapers were needed elsewhere in London?

- What could possibly be more important than defending the beam?!

- Crushing the London FOB to prevent a second push? The Reapers are arrogant, they figured Harbinger would be enough for the beam.

- If so, they were idiots.

 

***************************

 

- Why not just nuke London from orbit? It's the only way to be sure...

- See my earlier argument that blowing up the beam might blow up the Earth.

- I didn't like that argument the first time.

 

***************************

 

- Okay, why doesn't Harbinger just shoot Shepard? Sure, maybe shooting Normandy would take more than one blast to get through the atmosphere/ shields/ armour/ whatever. But Shepard is just standing there. Wouldn't take more than a second.

- Still focusing on Hammer? We did throw a lot of troops at that beam. Besides, Harbinger does shoot Shepard.

- And epically fails to kill him, leaving it up to Marauder Shields and the three Husketeers.

- Well, on Insanity, Marauder Shields kills me more often than he doesn't...

- NOT THE POINT!

-  Fine. Yes, Harbinger should have melted Shepard's body into the ground, but he doesn't. Clearly he's never read the Evil Overlord List.

- (Disappears for a couple of hours because that link leads to TV Tropes.)

 

***************************

 

At the end of the day, it's a fictional universe where nothing will ever be fully explained. It's impossible to prove that there's no possible explanation.

 

I'm personally willing to assume that there are in-universe explanations for why stuff happens, we just never see the explanations ourselves. However, I can understand why that scene might break a person's Willing Suspension of Disbelief. Perhaps Bioware should have thought the scene through a bit more, but nothing's ever going to be perfect.

 

1) It's a big metaphorical kick me sign for the Reapers, and they know it. You'd think they'd have an easier time turning it off if they built it. It ties into the second one...

2) Just blow it up. That'll cut the power. The part about the exploding relay goes into the next one as well, which is...

3) Yeah, you're speculating. About plot contrivances and ****** poor scripting and writing. You get a lot of should have/could have statements. The reason you get so many? Because what we got was bad to the point that the game can't be enjoyed. 

 

4) Stealth doesn't work when you're ship is right in front of the damn Reaper, and you think Harbinger, being a Reaper and all, would be able to tell a Reaper from a non-Reaper. That's a ****** poor excuse that tries to excuse ****** poor writing.

5) More ****** poor excuses for ****** poor writing. How does the beam jam a Reaper? Even then, how is the Reaper 'jammed' in any meaningful way? It fires a beam of molten metal fast enough that it doesn't need to guide. ECM doesn't work when you're staring right at the enemy with a gun pointed at them.

6) And a single shot from it would completely destroy the Normandy. And he can fire multiple beams at once. Firing at the Normandy is no different than firing at anything else. For example, if what you say is true, why is Harbinger bothering to shoot at gunships flying past? They're not going to go into the beam either. They're just trying to distract Harbinger. And he's soloing an entire ground attack force that are bum rushing the beam. With ease. Half a second of fire and bye-bye Normandy. Again, a bad excuse for bad writing.

7) Bullshit and headcanon. That's all I can say. Harbinger (and other Reapers) are one-shotting Dreadnoughts. There's no way the Normandy is going to survive a direct hit from the Reapers primary weapon. No more than a half-second burst would wipe it out. And of course, this is accounting for the possibility that this is headcanon too, from either of us.

8) Again, bullshit and headcanon. You think the distance of a few hundred meters to a few kilometers is going to make a meaningful difference to a stream of molten metal fired at a fraction of the speed of light. It's not going to make a difference. The Normandy would be obliterated.

9) Kudos to whoever did. Another glaring inaccuracy on BW's part. That said, even if it wasn't at near-relativistic speeds, the Normandy would be doomed.

10) Again, I'd separate dramatic gameplay elements from the actual reality and lore of the story. The Reaper and the Cruiser are shooting at each other ad infinitum, and begin as such once Ashley/Kaidan contacts you. That happens just before you actually see the ships firing.

 

This whole thing seems like an attempt to dismiss or rationalize the game: I don't buy it. I blame BioWare for making the sequence bad. They need to work on it.

 

11) Hand-waiving and rationalization in a scene where it's contradicted at some other point. You can stand still on the Beam run, and Harbinger will shoot ad infinitum without ever needing to recharge.

12) Same as above. I don't think bad writing or scripting needs or deserves rationalization or justification, only criticism.

 

13) It takes an entire fleet to kill a Reaper. There are hundreds of them over Earth. They can spare a few capital ships. Really, they can. Hell, a few Destroyers would do the job just as well as Harbinger.

14) I am sure. The Reapers aren't under much pressure. Considering they're a bigger, more badass fleet than yours. Otherwise, you wouldn't need the Crucible. And then you'd have no purpose for even going down to the planet or rushing the beam in the first place.

15) For what? What else in London (or Earth) warrants their attention at that exact moment?

16) You have an entire city filled with husks for that, and they're doing a good enough job as it is. And you don't need much more than a Reaper Destroyer to destroy the comically undersized FOB. You say the Reapers are idiots. I say the writers are.

 

17) You're right. I didn't. And if it were the case, which I completely doubt it is, doing so would be worth the cost of beating permanently stopping the allied races for the Reapers don't you think?

 

I'm going to say that BW needed to do a lot more than just tweak the scene a little. It was one big pile of steaming fail. They can do better than that. They have done better than that. I don't know if the actual main writers in charge could have, but BW has proven they're a lot more capable than how they performed.

[Excella Gionne]

If you take chance to look back every now and then, you can see your squadmates. Anyways, I'm sure Harby wasn't prioritizing the Normandy as a priority target and there were other forces already distracting and getting Harby's attention. Reapers can only fire like 3 to 4 beams out of its Eye. It's weird that he didn't attack but that also says a lot about movies as well.

[sH0tgUn jUliA]

During that scene though it seems like Harbinger stops firing all together. You can't hear it blasting in the background (or at least at the same rate) and when the Normandy finally takes off the camera focuses on Harbinger who can be seen not firing. Also given how rapidly it can shoot it wouldn't have been difficult to shoot down the Normandy, without breaking a sweat. err... oil drop. Heck, Harbinger wasn't even firing at full capacity because he was only using it's main beam and not it's GUARDIAN equivalent weapons.

 

Harbinger couldn't fire its main beam because it would be the equivalent of hitting that area with a 50 KT (est) nuke. It would be like if Shepard fired the Cain at shotgun range: say "critical mission failure" Shepard. Harbinger would have committed suicide. It is firing its anti-missile lasers. Still at that range the lasers would have destroyed the Normandy.

 

@Killdren - intelligence on the side of the protagonist is a sign of bad writing. Actually it isn't. You just have to make the obstacle facing the protagonist more difficult.

[AlexMBrennan]

Harbinger couldn't fire its main beam because it would be the equivalent of hitting that area with a 50 KT (est) nuke. It would be like if Shepard fired the Cain at shotgun range:

Brilliant - "We are at a safe distance, so let's get closer so we are forced to use inefficient improvised emergency weapons instead rather than blowing Shepard up from orbit". Also, you seem to be unaware of the idea of suicidal attacks - maybe read the news at least once per decade. 

[AlanC9]

Really, the thread's about the wrong thing. Harbinger shouldn't be shooting at the Normandy; all the ship's doing in the scene is taking people out of the fight. That's helping him. The question is why Harby doesn't blow up all of London and Shepard with it.

[Iakus]

Because both human and Reaper strategies are stuck in WWI mode.

Alternatively, because DRAMA!

[sH0tgUn jUliA]

Brilliant - "We are at a safe distance, so let's get closer so we are forced to use inefficient improvised emergency weapons instead rather than blowing Shepard up from orbit". Also, you seem to be unaware of the idea of suicidal attacks - maybe read the news at least once per decade. 

 

Harbinger doesn't seem like the suicidal type. Actually the gardian lasers are more rapid firing and can do more damage at close range. You seem to be stuck in a mode of "let's use our main gun for everything." They don't want to level London. They're harvesting the English for some reason. Perhaps because Anderson was born there. Perhaps you should read something about tactics.

 

And quit making excuses for the lame assed pickup scene. The Gardian Lasers could have taken out the Normandy at that range easily. EDI was pretending she was Bob from Reaper Accounting. Harbinger was behind on taxes and was working out a payment plan FFS. Harbinger could have fired at the Normandy AND at the advancing troops. It looked like there were several laser batteries. But that damned audit must have taken Harbinger by surprise. 

 

Note: Gardian Lasers ignore barriers.

 

And don't forget, DRAMA!

[TurianRebel212]

Cause ROC (Rule of Cool). Normandy is cool. Shepard is cool. Cool doesn't play by the rules of making sense or "plot holes". It doesn't give 2 sh!ts about those things. Cool plays by it's own rules. 

 

Hence, the Rule of Cool. 

[Farangbaa]

There seem to be a lot of people here who think that Harbinger has eyes. Eyes which he uses to look around with and stuff like that. You know, eyes that paint pictures in your brain.

 

I'm not so sure of this. I might have missed something in the game though.

[Staff Cdr Alenko]

Because both human and Reaper strategies are stuck in WWI mode.
Alternatively, because DRAMA!

This x 100. I remember a scene with a column of Makos driving down an alley. With Alliance soldiers sitting on them. You know, WWII style, three or four guys riding shotgun on the outside of a tank.

And also, "because DRAMA" adequately sums up about 60% of the whole farce that "Mass Effect 3" is. Scare quotes are necessary, because whatever it is, i's not a Mass Effect game...

It's a...

[Farangbaa]

Congratulations Iakus and Staff Lt. Alenko, you just discovered something that's 'wrong' with every story, movie and game in existence: it's dramatized.

[Staff Cdr Alenko]

Congratulations Iakus and Staff Lt. Alenko, you just discovered something that's 'wrong' with every story, movie and game in existence: it's dramatized.

 

There's a difference between dramatized and overblown emotionally manipulative forced drama shoved in at expense of mood, pacing, logic and/or common sense.

[ImaginaryMatter]

Congratulations Iakus and Staff Lt. Alenko, you just discovered something that's 'wrong' with every story, movie and game in existence: it's dramatized.

 

I guess we are focusing on the wrong things. Drama is important in a story and I think it's fine if the plot takes some leeway to allow for a good dramatic moment, although ideally preserving both would be the best. Ultimately, the pickup scene isn't awful because of this and this inconsistency; it's bad because it completely breaks the tone and dissolves the tension of the story that came before it. The main point of the final mission was that it was the final push, a point of no return which was hammered in by every speech. Even at the end, when confronted with the biggest, baddest Reaper around everyone decides to face the machine on foot. But when two people who happen to be close to The Shepard the game world has to stop (even if one of them happens to be a remote controlled platform) so Shepard could say good bye one last time. It's a tone breaking, it's a non-sensical, and it may even be inappropriate. The fact that it's built on so many implausibilities just makes it worse. I think why people like to talk about the technical aspects of it though is because those are much more objective than things like tone.

 

Compare this scene though to something like the end of the Genophage arc on Tuchunka. This scene is filled with retcons like the introduction of the previously non-existent shroud towers, some goofy space worms; and the notion that a genetic modification that took years of research, discussion, many covert drops; and an extensive network of ships, operatives, and goodness knows how much money could be cured at the push of a button. Yet, no one really complains about this scene with Mordin. It's because it's a good scene, it's the accumulation of a long running arc. And while on the technical side it didn't build off what came before it, the scene manages to effectively amplify and build off of everything that came before it -- instead of applying the breaks to it.

[Farangbaa]

I guess we are focusing on the wrong things. Drama is important in a story and I think it's fine if the plot takes some leeway to allow for a good dramatic moment, although ideally preserving both would be the best. Ultimately, the pickup scene isn't awful because of this and this inconsistency; it's bad because it completely breaks the tone and dissolves the tension of the story that came before it. The main point of the final mission was that it was the final push, a point of no return which was hammered in by every speech. Even at the end, when confronted with the biggest, baddest Reaper around everyone decides to face the machine on foot. But when two people who happen to be close to The Shepard the game world has to stop (even if one of them happens to be a remote controlled platform) so Shepard could say good bye one last time. It's a tone breaking, it's a non-sensical, and it may even be inappropriate. The fact that it's built on so many implausibilities just makes it worse. I think why people like to talk about the technical aspects of it though is because those are much more objective than things like tone.

 

Compare this scene though to something like the end of the Genophage arc on Tuchunka. This scene is filled with retcons like the introduction of the previously non-existent shroud towers, some goofy space worms; and the notion that a genetic modification that took years of research, discussion, many covert drops; and an extensive network of ships, operatives, and goodness knows how much money could be cured at the push of a button. Yet, no one really complains about this scene with Mordin. It's because it's a good scene, it's the accumulation of a long running arc. And while on the technical side it didn't build off what came before it, the scene manages to effectively amplify and build off of everything that came before it -- instead of applying the breaks to it.

 

You're completely right. That's not my point though, and you know it.

 

It's being put out here as if 'drama' is inherantly bad. As if the game would've been so much better without it.

 

These discussions always end up in how something couldn't have been done, are otherwise impossible or try to reach some point of objective truth about the scene(s) in question. There would've been no game that way. The Catalyst would've fixed the Keepers, the Reapers took the Citadel, gg.

[Staff Cdr Alenko]

I guess we are focusing on the wrong things. Drama is important in a story and I think it's fine if the plot takes some leeway to allow for a good dramatic moment, although ideally preserving both would be the best. Ultimately, the pickup scene isn't awful because of this and this inconsistency; it's bad because it completely breaks the tone and dissolves the tension of the story that came before it. The main point of the final mission was that it was the final push, a point of no return which was hammered in by every speech. Even at the end, when confronted with the biggest, baddest Reaper around everyone decides to face the machine on foot. But when two people who happen to be close to The Shepard the game world has to stop (even if one of them happens to be a remote controlled platform) so Shepard could say good bye one last time. It's a tone breaking, it's a non-sensical, and it may even be inappropriate. The fact that it's built on so many implausibilities just makes it worse. I think why people like to talk about the technical aspects of it though is because those are much more objective than things like tone.

 

Compare this scene though to something like the end of the Genophage arc on Tuchunka. This scene is filled with retcons like the introduction of the previously non-existent shroud towers, some goofy space worms; and the notion that a genetic modification that took years of research, discussion, many covert drops; and an extensive network of ships, operatives, and goodness knows how much money could be cured at the push of a button. Yet, no one really complains about this scene with Mordin. It's because it's a good scene, it's the accumulation of a long running arc. And while on the technical side it didn't build off what came before it, the scene manages to effectively amplify and build off of everything that came before it -- instead of applying the breaks to it.

 

The shroud is actually mentioned in ME2, in the planet description for Tuchanka:

 

"The reduced albedo has caused global temperatures to rise. In order to maintain livable temperatures, a vast shroud was assembled at the L1 Lagrange point. It is maintained by the Council Demilitarization Enforcement Mission (CDEM) which is based on orbiting battlestations."

 

It's not a defense of the technical side of the scene, just a mention.

 

Mordin's line "Someone else might have gotten it wrong" also appears in ME2 first, word for word (the only change is either "somebody" instead of "someone" or "may" instead of "might"), given you pick certain dialogue options in the krogan hospital, during the mission to rescue Maelon.

[Iakus]

Congratulations Iakus and Staff Lt. Alenko, you just discovered something that's 'wrong' with every story, movie and game in existence: it's dramatized.

 

Drama is neither a good thing nor a bad thing.  It's fine when the situation is appropriate.  But when the scene is nonsensical, thematically inappropriate, or awkwardly executed, and is there mainly to be drama rather than to fit into the story, then it becomes something worthy of being mocked.

 

The Normandy pickup scene is a blatant example of Bioware being intractable regarding what was wrong with the ending.  They were so hellbent on their DRAMA that they were perfectly willing to "fix" a nonsensical scene with another nonsensical scene.

[ImaginaryMatter]

The shroud is actually mentioned in ME2, in the planet description for Tuchanka:

 

"The reduced albedo has caused global temperatures to rise. In order to maintain livable temperatures, a vast shroud was assembled at the L1 Lagrange point. It is maintained by the Council Demilitarization Enforcement Mission (CDEM) which is based on orbiting battlestations."

 

That's what I meant. The Shroud wasn't a tower back then, it was a big metal (several?) object in space.

[AlexMBrennan]

- Well, it does act like a miniature relay - that might blow up the Earth for all we know. Remember Arrival?

So what? Losing one harvest beats defeat.

[wright1978]

Drama is neither a good thing nor a bad thing.  It's fine when the situation is appropriate.  But when the scene is nonsensical, thematically inappropriate, or awkwardly executed, and is there mainly to be drama rather than to fit into the story, then it becomes something worthy of being mocked.

 

The Normandy pickup scene is a blatant example of Bioware being intractable regarding what was wrong with the ending.  They were so hellbent on their DRAMA that they were perfectly willing to "fix" a nonsensical scene with another nonsensical scene.

 

Yeah i shook my head when i realised they decided to character assassinate Shep and have Harbinger wander off for a tea break to explain why Normandy crew ended up on Gilligan's Island. Way to dig a deeper hole.

[Farangbaa]

Drama is neither a good thing nor a bad thing.  It's fine when the situation is appropriate.  But when the scene is nonsensical, thematically inappropriate, or awkwardly executed, and is there mainly to be drama rather than to fit into the story, then it becomes something worthy of being mocked.

 

The Normandy pickup scene is a blatant example of Bioware being intractable regarding what was wrong with the ending.  They were so hellbent on their DRAMA that they were perfectly willing to "fix" a nonsensical scene with another nonsensical scene.

I know what you mean, I really do. But you people (yes, a you people again) always come in here, dissecting scenes like you're a big time movie director and then declaring a multitude of things, like bad writing, bad thematics, etc, etc, etc. Like there's some universal truth in there that Bioware should've adhered to.

 

But there isn't. What's nonsensical to you might be completely logical to others.

 

And some just don't care. I, for instance, don't give a damn about the Normandy pick up scene. It even provides the most awesome scene in the entire game.

 

All in all, my problem here is that you people act as if it's absolutely undisputable that a scene is bad. It isn't.

 

For those who wonder, my favourite scene of the game: