702 réponses à ce sujet

[AlanC9]

We have, in a roundabout way.  Just reminding you of the things you're overlooking and saying has "narrative legitimacy".

It seems almost cruel to point this sort of thing out. Not saying you shouldn't do it, though.

[Bardox9]

Fine, I'll play along.

 

ME1 is, in my opinion, very well written. not much I can say about improving it. ME2 & 3 are an entirely different matter.

 

ME2: So much of that game felt slapped together. The Collectors harvesting Humans for a "proto-Reaper" in the shape of a humanoid(which I still say was a brain fart) never made sense to me. I think ME2 should have been gathering information how to defeat the Reapers (I.E.- hints to the Crucible), snagging tech that could be used during the invasion, and racing the Collectors to these things. Ultimately the Collectors would have collected key info and tech needed for Cerberus and/or the Alliance to build defenses including the blue prints for the Crucible  The only option is to search for the IFF and follow the Collector through the Omega Relay to get your hands on the Crucible data and any other Collector tech you can get your hands on. After the Alpha relay DLC Hackett shows up to inform Shepard construction on the Crucible is underway, but he will have to answer for the destruction of the Alpha relay. Que ME3.

 

ME3: Not so much a feeling of being slapped together, just crammed too tight. Not to mention a few more brain farts. The starting point was fine, though I think Shepard should have gone off way more than he did on the committee when they asked "How do we stop them?". The majority of ME3 should have been focused on alliance building for the war and putting a hurt on TIM and Cerberus. Genophage, Geth/Quarian war, attacking Cerberus bases where you could find them, and fighting them off when they attacked somewhere.The thing found on Mars should not have been Crucible blue prints, but rather info on the Catalyst. Not clear cut definitions of what it is, but a vague theory about star kid. Scrap the "from Ashes" DLC for getting Grunt back on the team. Loves me some Grunt, Javik is just annoying. Instead of only having the option of Ashley and Kaiden, put Zaeed or Jack back in the mix. They are far more useful, richer characters, and not to mention both are bad a*ses. As for the ending, everyone has their complaints. I liked it for the most part. You have to make the right choices and have built up enough war asset for the final assault or else Shepard dies. And should Shepard survive, the final scene should be Shepard covered in bandages and casts, presiding over Anderson's funeral. If Shepard dies in Synthesis, or becomes the new Reaper A.I. thingy, then Hackett presides over Shepard's funeral.

 

Anyways, this is the sequence of events that would have been far more appealing to me. But, whatever. Still a fun trilogy.

[themikefest]

By the time the 5th shows up hasn't Sovereign already docked?

Yes. And? 

[themikefest]

These ideas are, at the very best, sub-par and entirely unoriginal.

 

Pretty much the only part I like is seperating EMS into different catagories. But that's been suggested before and suggested better.

 

There's nothing else of value here.

The same can be said about your post.

[Sir DeLoria]

These ideas are, at the very best, sub-par and entirely unoriginal.
 
Pretty much the only part I like is seperating EMS into different catagories. But that's been suggested before and suggested better.
 
There's nothing else of value here.

Ignorance and a superiority complex, that's one hell of a mix...

[MassivelyEffective0730]

It would be a long, hard war, yes.  But their Reapers cannot be easily replaced.  Every one that gets destroyed diminishes them.  Thus why I think it would have made more sense to reduce their numbers to just a few dozen/hundred

 

As for defenses, the only significant defense the Reapers seem to have are their kinetic barriers.  They are entirely dependent on mass effect fields, even to land on planets (the codex says thier barriers are much weaker on the ground, because they have to devote more energy to keep from being crushed in gravity wells)

 

SO, find weapons that weaken kinetic barriers.  Or get around them.  Directed energy weapons.  Nukes.  Overload-style weapons.

 

This is what p*sses me off about the galaxy doing nothing through ME2.  They could have been working on stuff like this after the Battle of the Citadel, instead of thermal clips. 

 

I'd say if you have to depend on incomplete plans for a superweapon you just happen to find while the Reapers are invading your homeworld, you have already failed.

 

It would be a very quick and painful war for us. For the Reapers, it would be pest control, as it always had been.

 

Reapers can't be easily replaced? I was under the impression that they harvested the beings of the species they annihilate. Shouldn't be very difficult for them, considering that for the most part, the situation is akin to fighting a main battle tank with a bow and arrows. Even a few dozen still have a very good chance of annihilating the galaxy. Any more than a hundred and it becomes the usual hilarious curbstomp for them that it's always been. 

 

And onto defenses: This is no insignificant hurdle to overcome. Don't try and downplay it. They are completely dependent on Mass Effect fields. But then again... so are we. And their technology outstrips anything we'd be able to make on our own for a very long time forward. Comparing the Reapers grasp of the Mass Effect and the technology behind it and comparing it with our own in the game is like comparing an IBM's Watson supercomputer with a rolodex.

 

And where are you going to find those weapons and technology? Nuclear arms are the only practical considerations there, and even then, you still have to deliver them. And they got defenses for that. We don't have that technology. And even if we did, I very highly doubt that it would be the game changer you think it would be. At most, in the two years you're dead, the galaxy might manage to build a prototype of a directed energy weapon that's usable on a ground artillery platform. 

 

But you have plans. And they're pretty much complete. And you have the resources to build it. Or you can squander them on 'miracle weapons' that won't be so miraculous. Instead of the Bow and Arrow, you have a handgun. Either way, you're still fighting a tank. 

 

You might as well have a toy gun that goes *POP!* and let's out a flag that says BANG! That's about as far as any conventional victory scenario will ever go against the Reapers. It's bad writing, but that's what you're stuck with.

[Iakus]

It would be a very quick and painful war for us. For the Reapers, it would be pest control, as it always had been.

 

Reapers can't be easily replaced? I was under the impression that they harvested the beings of the species they annihilate. Shouldn't be very difficult for them, considering that for the most part, the situation is akin to fighting a main battle tank with a bow and arrows. Even a few dozen still have a very good chance of annihilating the galaxy. Any more than a hundred and it becomes the usual hilarious curbstomp for them that it's always been. 

 

 

They're very picky about who the "ascend" and it takes millions of people-smoothies to make one.

 

 

And onto defenses: This is no insignificant hurdle to overcome. Don't try and downplay it. They are completely dependent on Mass Effect fields. But then again... so are we. And their technology outstrips anything we'd be able to make on our own for a very long time forward. Comparing the Reapers grasp of the Mass Effect and the technology behind it and comparing it with our own in the game is like comparing an IBM's Watson supercomputer with a rolodex.

 

And where are you going to find those weapons and technology? Nuclear arms are the only practical considerations there, and even then, you still have to deliver them. And they got defenses for that. We don't have that technology. And even if we did, I very highly doubt that it would be the game changer you think it would be. At most, in the two years you're dead, the galaxy might manage to build a prototype of a directed energy weapon that's usable on a ground artillery platform.

 

But you have plans. And they're pretty much complete. And you have the resources to build it. Or you can squander them on 'miracle weapons' that won't be so miraculous. Instead of the Bow and Arrow, you have a handgun. Either way, you're still fighting a tank.

 

You might as well have a toy gun that goes *POP!* and let's out a flag that says BANG! That's about as far as any conventional victory scenario will ever go against the Reapers. It's bad writing, but that's what you're stuck with.

 

 

We already know of distinct weaknesses kinetic barriers have:  heat/cold, radiation, slow-moving objects, toxins.  What the Reapers have is just like what anyone else has.  Just bigger.

 

This is the trap of the Reapers:  Their technology blinds people to other paths.  Discourages them from thinking outside the box.  And this is what really bugs me about ME2 (and ME3):  Nobody bothered to work on true anti-Reaper weapons.

 

And to add insult to injury, the sheer number of Reapers in ME3 was so stupi-big that yes, it would have made such a victory impossible to begin with.  SO the galaxy becomes yet again dependant on mysterious alien technology that no one truly understands.

[Deathsaurer]

2 years just isn't enough time to make a meaningful change to galactic warfare doctrine. You either need to find some glaring weakness the Reapers themselves never noticed (and I hated the destroyer weak spot because it isn't necessary and clearly just there as an excuse for the Rannoch fight) or you have a macguffin. They quite simply wrote themselves into a corner trying to be epic.

[Bob from Accounting]

What nonsense.

 

Pretty much every 'epic' science fiction and fantasy story in existence has the hero up against a much more powerful army. By that definition, every such story would have the protagonists 'written into a corner.'

 

Of course, most of those stories do depend on some sort of MacGuffin or another.

[Deathsaurer]

Are you implying it isn't a common event in things like comics and manga?

[MassivelyEffective0730]

They're very picky about who the "ascend" and it takes millions of people-smoothies to make one.

 

 

We already know of distinct weaknesses kinetic barriers have:  heat/cold, radiation, slow-moving objects, toxins.  What the Reapers have is just like what anyone else has.  Just bigger.

 

This is the trap of the Reapers:  Their technology blinds people to other paths.  Discourages them from thinking outside the box.  And this is what really bugs me about ME2 (and ME3):  Nobody bothered to work on true anti-Reaper weapons.

 

And to add insult to injury, the sheer number of Reapers in ME3 was so stupi-big that yes, it would have made such a victory impossible to begin with.  SO the galaxy becomes yet again dependant on mysterious alien technology that no one truly understands.

 

They aren't too picky. And they can afford to be patient and slow. There's about dick you can do to them. 

 

Heat and cold... That's not going to be a huge issue to a machine. Same with Radiation. Slow moving objects are simple: Get out of the way. Or just watch as said slow moving objects bounce off your hull harmlessly. And what's a toxin going to do to a machine? None of those are viable options against a Reaper.

 

As I said, in two years, even if the galaxy dropped everything to prepare for the Reapers, you weren't going to make an anti-Reaper weapon that would be viable on the long-term. The only possibility that might buy you time is to do what Cerberus did at Sanctuary, which might buy you enough time turning Reaper forces on each other long enough to build the Crucible or superweapon.

 

Yes, that's the problem. Not only do the Reapers hilariously outgun us, but they have us hilariously outnumbered, and hilariously outmatched in intellect 

 

It would be like sending the North Korean KPAF against the Modern USAF, ROKAF, and RAF combined. Outside of a few MiG-29's (your dreadnoughts), most of your jets are completely outmatched by anything else. And even then, your MiG-29's are still going up against Jets that eat it for breakfast; It was designed to kill the F-15. The F-15 has 216 kills on the MiG-29. The MiG-29 has 0 kills on the F-15. And then you get into all the other stuff that we all have.

[MassivelyEffective0730]

What nonsense.

 

Pretty much every 'epic' science fiction and fantasy story in existence has the hero up against a much more powerful army. By that definition, every such story would have the protagonists 'written into a corner.'

 

Of course, most of those stories do depend on some sort of MacGuffin or another.

 

And the hero always gets his ass kicked. That's very 'epic' indeed. Mostly of the failure kind.

[Ryriena]

All you could, do was at least make it look like they were doing something to change the doctrine. Instead of the "Ah reapers" comment we get from these races head of governments in me2 to show that they believe something about the story. Mac Walters changed the plot line that Drew had outlined it's proven by the fact Legion had words on Freedoms progress set on the disc in me2. In fact he was too be brought back by the Geth.

[Iakus]

2 years just isn't enough time to make a meaningful change to galactic warfare doctrine. You either need to find some glaring weakness the Reapers themselves never noticed (and I hated the destroyer weak spot because it isn't necessary and clearly just there as an excuse for the Rannoch fight) or you have a macguffin. They quite simply wrote themselves into a corner trying to be epic.

 

I don't deny they wrote themselves into a corner.  But at least part of that is ME2's "Ah, yes 'Reapers'" attitude

[Iakus]

They aren't too picky. And they can afford to be patient and slow. There's about dick you can do to them. 

 

Heat and cold... That's not going to be a huge issue to a machine. Same with Radiation. Slow moving objects are simple: Get out of the way. Or just watch as said slow moving objects bounce off your hull harmlessly. And what's a toxin going to do to a machine? None of those are viable options against a Reaper.

 

As I said, in two years, even if the galaxy dropped everything to prepare for the Reapers, you weren't going to make an anti-Reaper weapon that would be viable on the long-term. The only possibility that might buy you time is to do what Cerberus did at Sanctuary, which might buy you enough time turning Reaper forces on each other long enough to build the Crucible or superweapon.

 

Yes, that's the problem. Not only do the Reapers hilariously outgun us, but they have us hilariously outnumbered, and hilariously outmatched in intellect 

 

It would be like sending the North Korean KPAF against the Modern USAF, ROKAF, and RAF combined. Outside of a few MiG-29's (your dreadnoughts), most of your jets are completely outmatched by anything else. And even then, your MiG-29's are still going up against Jets that eat it for breakfast; It was designed to kill the F-15. The F-15 has 216 kills on the MiG-29. The MiG-29 has 0 kills on the F-15. And then you get into all the other stuff that we all have.

 

Humans are the only race this cycle the Reapers seem to think "worthy".  And it's implied they didn't make any new Reapers at all last cycle.

 

heat and cold can be a very big issue for machines.  We're not talkinga bou tplaying with the thermostat after all.

 

As for that and radiation:  Don't forget Reapers do have organic components.

 

Slow moving objects just bouncing off hulls?  How about mines?  "Shepard Starkiller" has a pretty nice ring to it.

 

It would certainly take more than an anti-Reaper weapon.  It would take many anti-Reaper weapons.  And honestly, an entire series of games could probably be made about dealing with the Reapers over the course of generations.  Unfortunately Bioware simply didn't do the proper planning for it.

[Deathsaurer]

I don't deny they wrote themselves into a corner.  But at least part of that is ME2's "Ah, yes 'Reapers'" attitude

And they even retconned that as a public act.

[MassivelyEffective0730]

Humans are the only race this cycle the Reapers seem to think "worthy".  And it's implied they didn't make any new Reapers at all last cycle.

 

heat and cold can be a very big issue for machines.  We're not talkinga bou tplaying with the thermostat after all.

 

As for that and radiation:  Don't forget Reapers do have organic components.

 

Slow moving objects just bouncing off hulls?  How about mines?  "Shepard Starkiller" has a pretty nice ring to it.

 

It would certainly take more than an anti-Reaper weapon.  It would take many anti-Reaper weapons.  And honestly, an entire series of games could probably be made about dealing with the Reapers over the course of generations.  Unfortunately Bioware simply didn't do the proper planning for it.

 

That's still not really relevant to the Reapers. They have the capability to be as selective as they like with their Reapers. They have the power to utterly shrug off anyone trying to stop them.

 

Technically, you are. What kind of device do you plan on making that uses thermal energy? Why do you think that it will affect the Reapers? 

 

And I'm going to still say that radiation will jack against a Reaper. You might as well waive a flashlight and call it a ray gun. You'd need very highly energetic gamma radiation to do any kind of damage to a Reaper. The kind that really can only be found in cosmic rays.

 

That's going to do jack as well. The Reaper would probably be able to detect it, avoid it, or destroy it. And even if it hits, it seemed to me that a Reaper is able to shrug off heavy firepower coming from explosive, kinetic, and thermal energy. One Destroyer on Rannoch tanked no less than 4 salvo's from the entire Migrant Fleet. You're going to be needing some serious planet-buster heat in those mines to do any serious damage.

[Iakus]

That's still not really relevant to the Reapers. They have the capability to be as selective as they like with their Reapers. They have the power to utterly shrug off anyone trying to stop them.

 

Technically, you are. What kind of device do you plan on making that uses thermal energy? Why do you think that it will affect the Reapers? 

 

And I'm going to still say that radiation will jack against a Reaper. You might as well waive a flashlight and call it a ray gun. You'd need very highly energetic gamma radiation to do any kind of damage to a Reaper. The kind that really can only be found in cosmic rays.

 

That's going to do jack as well. The Reaper would probably be able to detect it, avoid it, or destroy it. And even if it hits, it seemed to me that a Reaper is able to shrug off heavy firepower coming from explosive, kinetic, and thermal energy. One Destroyer on Rannoch tanked no less than 4 salvo's from the entire Migrant Fleet. You're going to be needing some serious planet-buster heat in those mines to do any serious damage.

1) We don't know what criteria they use for making new Reapers.  Or how important it is

 

2) Hot enough to melt whatever the reaper hull is made of sounds about right.  The thanix canon is a good start.  Just has to be taken further

 

3) how about a nuclear pumped laser?  Maybe a couple hundred years from now something like that would be feasible?

 

4) Something that's inside it's kinetic barreri?  a nuke?  Antimatter (if that's available in the ME-verse)? edit:  yes, antimatter is available, antimatter warheads are considered a WMD by Citadel convention  How about some dark energy weapons?  A Blackstar weapon, for example?

 

And I think you know as well as I do the Rannoch fight was utterly ridiculous.  The entire fleet firing like that should have killed Shepard, Legion, and everyone else on the ground instantly, and destroy Rannoch's ecosystem.  Dropping kinetic weapons on a garden world is part of what earned the krogan the genophage. 

[Deathsaurer]

Does anyone even know what the hell the Blackstar does? I remember lots of ridiculous speculation from scientists that could only sit there scratching their heads.

[Iakus]

Does anyone even know what the hell the Blackstar does? I remember lots of ridiculous speculation from scientists that could only sit there scratching their heads.

 

Sorry, I was thinking of the Blackstorm from ME2

[Deathsaurer]

Ah yes Blackstorm, kinda wish I had that gun. But realistically nukes and antimatter warheads are your best bet but you need to find a way to get them past point defense.

[MassivelyEffective0730]

1) We don't know what criteria they use for making new Reapers.  Or how important it is

 

2) Hot enough to melt whatever the reaper hull is made of sounds about right.  The thanix canon is a good start.  Just has to be taken further

 

3) how about a nuclear pumped laser?  Maybe a couple hundred years from now something like that would be feasible?

 

4) Something that's inside it's kinetic barreri?  a nuke?  Antimatter (if that's available in the ME-verse)? edit:  yes, antimatter is available, antimatter warheads are considered a WMD by Citadel convention  How about some dark energy weapons?  A Blackstar weapon, for example?

 

And I think you know as well as I do the Rannoch fight was utterly ridiculous.  The entire fleet firing like that should have killed Shepard, Legion, and everyone else on the ground instantly, and destroy Rannoch's ecosystem.  Dropping kinetic weapons on a garden world is part of what earned the krogan the genophage. 

 

You're missing the point. The point is that the Reapers are going to wipe the floor with you, and you're going to do jack to them. Period. It doesn't matter what the Reapers criteria is. They can be as picky as they like and get everyone they need. There's nothing anyone can do about it beyond the Crucible. 

 

Good luck with that. Thanix isn't going to be a problem solver like you think it is. To be honest, it might be more effective than standard weapons, but to expand on the tank analogy I've been using, instead of a bow and arrows or a handgun, now you have a Machine gun or AT4 against a tank. With the former, you're just going to waste ammunition. With the latter, you're going to waste time. You might do some superficial damage or blow up a tread, but it's still going to turn it's turret on you and turn you into a red cloud. Honestly, I don't believe that there's anything that we'd ever be able to make that's not the Crucible or the Leviathan's control mechanism that would ever be a threat to the Reapers. They're sufficiently advanced enough to tank anything you throw at them. Doesn't matter how far outside the box you think. They're going to have you covered at every angle. A nuclear pumped laser is going to do jack to them. 

 

Nothing short of full Reaper tech is going to slow them down. They're too advanced. There's nothing that we have or could ever realistically have that can fight them.

 

Use the Crucible, or burn. That's your choice.

[Mcfly616]

Another conversation devolving into 'conventional victory' territory?

[Jorji Costava]

It seems to me that the more interesting question is this: "Is enabling conventional victory a good idea narratively and thematically?" If the answer is yes, then the lore should be built around that idea; change the lore, change some of ME1 even if you have to. Like I suggested upthread, if everything we're doing here is Monday Morning Quarterbacking anyway, then I see no reason why the lore has to be treated as any more sacrosanct than the canon events in the games as they are currently written. But if you don't think it's a good idea, then pointing out lore inconsistencies is already overkill.

[MassivelyEffective0730]

It seems to me that the more interesting question is this: "Is enabling conventional victory a good idea narratively and thematically?" If the answer is yes, then the lore should be built around that idea; change the lore, change some of ME1 even if you have to. Like I suggested upthread, if everything we're doing here is Monday Morning Quarterbacking anyway, then I see no reason why the lore has to be treated as any more sacrosanct than the canon events in the games as they are currently written. But if you don't think it's a good idea, then pointing out lore inconsistencies is already overkill.

 

Personally, I don't think conventional victory is a good idea narratively and thematically.