585 réponses à ce sujet

[Iakus]

this is hilarious, came here after... dunno 2 years ? and some people still beat that dead horse...

 

 

It must never come back.  Beat it, put a wooden stake in its heart, kill it with fire,  It must never rise again.

[SporkFu]

Of course there is but those cycles never had access to the Mass Relays when the Reapers invaded.

That alone changed the landscape for this cycle.

But what if Shepard couldn't find it, or took a bullet to the head during a mission.

Yes I know what wasn't going to happen with Shepard being the star of the series but at the same time in universe it makes no sense to risk everything on one person finding what you need when that one person could take a bullet to the head in any mission.

To be honest I doubt this would bother me if we'd heard even a throw away line that the Alliance was pursuing alternatives. Now I've said that I expect someone will find it for me

Well, now that you mention it...
Shep does ask Hackett that very thing, after Thessia: "What if Cerberus doesn't have the info, or they keep us from getting it?" And Hackett answers, "then we take our chances."

[voteDC]

I don't see why people have such a problem with folk discussing the endings. Especially on a part of the forum for the game.

People still discuss books that are hundreds of years old. Why is it such a shock that people might want to discuss a game that is only two.

[voteDC]

Well, now that you mention it...
Shep does ask Hackett that very thing, after Thessia: "What if Cerberus doesn't have the info, or they keep us from getting it?" And Hackett answers, "then we take our chances."

I don't think "we'll wing it" is a solid enough plan to avoid extinction.

Though if anyone could manage that it would be Hackett.

[SporkFu]

I don't think "we'll wing it" is a solid enough plan to avoid extinction.

Though if anyone could manage that it would be Hackett.

I agree but the whole trilogy has built upon not stopping the reapers any other way, and as others have pointed out here no other cycle, no matter how advanced they might have been, could beat them. Might win the odd battle here and there, and be sustained by hope for a while, but the whole point of the reapers is that they are relentless.

[cap and gown]

The assumption otherwise is, as I've stated, that the previous cycles were incompetent. When they clearly weren't.
 

 

All right, I admit I haven't been following this thread, but this comment jumped out at me. If anything, organic civilization over the past billion years have proven that they were all morons. What civilization establishes its central government on a space station it does not know anything about, not even how to operate? It would be like the Russians renting out office space in downtown Moscow that the U.S. Department of Defense then made into its central HQ. Morons, I tell you, morons!

[dreamgazer]

When did anyone blindly trust prothean tech to anything near this level?

Uh, you mean beside the beacon and its message, the Conduit, the Citadel and the relays?

But yes, this is the first time the Reapers have invaded this cycle.
 

My point is that they didn't know it could solve it.

You don't know if anything could be effective against the full armada of the Reapers, only that conventional means have led to extermination for (at the very least) millions of years.
 

They didn't even know how to fire the thing. If you don't know that then it can't solve a thing.

Sorry, but missing one puzzle piece doesn't mean that you can't see the picture. Same goes with the rudiments of technology, whether it's lighting a fire or transporting particles across a distance. You can grasp the logic behind how something works without having the necessary tool that makes it happen.
 

Of course there is but those cycles never had access to the Mass Relays when the Reapers invaded.

That alone changed the landscape for this cycle.

Source?

[themikefest]

There's no source saying previous cycles had access to the relays during their fight with the reapers

[dreamgazer]

There's no source saying previous cycles had access to the relays during their fight with the reapers

Simple reasoning and probability points to it being far more likely than not, since it happened this time and we're just as "at the apex of our glory" as the other cycles.

[n7stormreaver]

Someone really needs to check their facts (4:13)

 

http://youtu.be/Yw-8sAuOoaY?t=4m13s

[dreamgazer]

Someone really needs to check their facts (4:13)
 
http://youtu.be/Yw-8sAuOoaY?t=4m13s

What about it? I'm well aware of what happened in the Protheans' cycle.

[Obadiah]

This cycle is different. Protheans bought us extra time, maybe as much as 100 years from the time the Reapers realized the Relay wouldn't open (when did Nezara contact the Geth?). I think it was once implied that the Rachni Wars were a Reaper ploy to open the Citadel Relay.

Humanity may not have even been part of the cycle to be wiped out if the Protheans hadn't blocked the signal.

Still entirely possible that another cycle had access to the Relays. All we have is Vigil's description of known Reaper tactics, and there have been at least 700 cycles since this mess started.

[voteDC]

Uh, you mean beside the beacon and its message, the Conduit, the Citadel and the relays?

But yes, this is the first time the Reapers have invaded this cycle.
 

Fair point on the Citadel. I confess to forgetting that. Still its a bit of a difference trusting a space station with a helpful 'maintenance' staff to a weapon that can stop galactic extinction.
 

You don't know if anything could be effective against the full armada of the Reapers, only that conventional means have led to extermination for (at the very least) millions of years.

Conventional means where, as far as you are aware, relay travel has been shut down.

 

Sorry, but missing one puzzle piece doesn't mean that you can't see the picture. Same goes with the rudiments of technology, whether it's lighting a fire or transporting particles across a distance. You can grasp the logic behind how something works without having the necessary tool that makes it happen.

You can grasp the logic all you want but if you can't use the thing then it remains useless.

It'd be like building a gun without the knowledge of how to ignite black powder. It wont do a thing until you know what a spark is.

If you don't know that then you do something else.

 

Source?

Mass Effect 1, 2, and 3. The first thing the Reapers did every previous cycle was to hit the Citadel and shut down the Mass Relays. The Citadel is the relay that lets them into this galaxy.

I don't recall the specific lines but since I'm starting a new trilogy run, I'll write them down when I come across them for you.

[n7stormreaver]

What about it? I'm well aware of what happened in the Protheans' cycle.

Reapers invade through Citadel and shut off Mass Relays as Citadel is a means to control them. How is that hard to understand? 

[dreamgazer]

Reapers invade through Citadel and shut off Mass Relays as Citadel is a means to control them. How is that hard to understand?

It's not. How hard is it to understand that this cycle is, based on deduction and probability, likely not the first advanced civilization to figure out how things work?

[n7stormreaver]

It's not. How hard is it to understand that this cycle is, based on deduction and probability, likely not the first advanced civilization to figure out how things work?

 

How about you finally stop coming up with something that has nothing to do with the game and it's story? Everything about your "deduction and probability" is your head canon. Stop using it as facts ffs. 

 

Operate with what was stated by writers, not with your headcanon.

 

By deduction and probability here could also be ponies in one cycle which created synthetics approx. 35.000 years before Sovereign has woken up and when Reapers arrived - destroyed them, made new ones and left to neighbouring galaxy. Except they're not. 

 

What is much more possible is the chain of development: starting many cycles ago, but without data from previous civilizations (like Prothean-Asari) species of those cycles, it wasn't helping organics much and "apex" of 700.000.000 could be about half of what we have in our cycle, at some point civilizations started leaving something behind to other species, more info, more data, uprising them, eventually reaching a point of Prothean-level of development which led to our cycle-level of development. 

 

"Deduction and probability" works in real world or in well-thought through setting, not where "cycles before us" is a throw-off without any meaning behind it. People need to separate their head canon and facts. 

[dreamgazer]

How about you finally stop coming up with something that has nothing to do with the game and it's story? Everything about your "deduction and probability" is your head canon. Stop using it as facts ffs. 
 
Operate with what was stated by writers, not with your headcanon.

Most courteous sir or madam, you don't have any "facts" either. And you have nearly a billion years to cover.
 

By deduction and probability here could also be ponies in one cycle which created synthetics approx. 35.000 years before Sovereign has woken up and when Reapers arrived - destroyed them, made new ones and left to neighbouring galaxy. Except they're not.

Except that idea is ridiculous, whereas the idea of comparable advanced civilizations reaching the same investigative and technological levels is, well, not.
 

What is much more possible is the chain of development: starting many cycles ago, but without data from previous civilizations (like Prothean-Asari) species of those cycles, it wasn't helping organics much and "apex" of 700.000.000 could be about half of what we have in our cycle, at some point civilizations started leaving something behind to other species, more info, more data, uprising them, eventually reaching a point of Prothean-level of development which led to our cycle-level of development.

Eh, considering folks were using mass accelerator rounds 37 million years ago, I don't buy this. 
 

"Deduction and probability" works in real world or in well-thought through setting, not where "cycles before us" is a throw-off without any meaning behind it. People need to separate their head canon and facts.

I'll stop using basic thinking skills as soon as you provide facts that disprove the notion and stop turning all previous advanced civilizations into incompetent neanderthals.

Until then: Anything this cycle could do, another cycle could do better. No, it couldn't. Yes, it could. No, it couldn't. Yes, it could.

[n7stormreaver]

Most courteous sir or madam, you don't have any "facts" either. And you have nearly a billion years to cover.
 

Except that idea is ridiculous, whereas the idea of comparable advanced civilizations reaching the same investigative and technological levels is, well, not.
 

Eh, considering folks were using mass accelerator rounds 37 million years ago, I don't buy this. 
 

I'll stop using basic thinking skills as soon as you provide facts that disprove the notion and stop turning all previous advanced civilizations into incompetent neanderthals.

Until then: Anything this cycle could do, another cycle could do better. No, it couldn't. Yes, it could. No, it couldn't. Yes, it could.

 

We have what is stated about our cycle and Prothean cycle. Nothing told about Innussannon having conduit or disrupting Reaper invasion, Protheans had. Protheans were decapitated and left without Mass Relays, we're not, thanks to Prothean. That is actual info. Not "deduction" not "probability" either. 

 

Also, 37 millions is not "nearly billion", so you only proven my point. Also, why 37 million, why not 200 million or 500 million? Because that's what is stated in game, we have this as fact, nothing else. 

 

We have much more to prove that our cycle IS unique than do prove that it is not or prove that there were any other. It's the most possible option. 

[dreamgazer]

We have what is stated about our cycle and Prothean cycle. Nothing told about Innussannon having conduit or disrupting Reaper invasion. Protheans were decapitated and left without Mass Relays. That is actual info. Not "deduction"

And the process in which the Protheans figured out how the keepers and relays worked with one another is sure to have been discovered in a previous civilization at some point across ... well, you know the time-frame, obviously.
 

Also, 37 millions is not "nearly billion", so you only proven my point.

Might want to brush up on the Leviathan of Dis.

[Jorji Costava]

And the process in which the Protheans figured out how the keepers and relays worked with one another is sure to have been discovered in a previous civilization at some point across ... well, you know the time-frame, obviously.

 

Just entering this conversation, so I could be missing something here, but it seems to me that you could just as easily argue: By sheer probability, the process by which the Crucible is constructed and used is sure to have been figured out by some previous cycle over billions of years, so why haven't the Reapers been defeated with it already? At a certain point, the only way not to make every previous cycle look stupid is to just make it impossible to beat the game; for any solution to the Reapers you can think of, it's always possible to ask the question, "Why didn't previous cycles think of this?"

[dreamgazer]

Just entering this conversation, so I could be missing something here, but it seems to me that you could just as easily argue: By sheer probability, the process by which the Crucible is constructed and used is sure to have been figured out by some previous cycle over billions of years, so why haven't the Reapers been defeated with it already? At a certain point, the only way not to make every previous cycle look stupid is to just make it impossible to beat the game; for any solution to the Reapers you can think of, it's always possible to ask the question, "Why didn't previous cycles think of this?"

That's the one area where I actually appreciate the Crucible: it pulls in a batch of previous civilizations who figured out this solution through a layering of ingenuity and stashed-away plans across many cycles, something that military victory couldn't achieve.

[n7stormreaver]

And the process in which the Protheans figured out how the keepers and relays worked with one another is sure to have been discovered in a previous civilization at some point across ... well, you know the time-frame, obviously.

 

Or not. Do you have any info about that or is it's what you came up with?

 

Leviathan of Dis could as well be killed by Leviathans themselves, also Mass Acceleration is the only way to move across galaxy (break the FTL speed limit), so it could be essential to any race. 

 

And yes, Mass Effect does make previous cycles look hilariously incompetent, it even makes our cycle look incompetent. You can easily disregard everything about "previous cycle" because Bioware didn't even care to elaborate anything about them (why would they, anyway?). 

 

There is absolutely nothing to prove that someone (or no one, too) realized how to stop Reapers from shutting down the Relays, but it's the fact that Protheans, after harvest had ended, did, it gave us a chance and made our cycle unique. And Protheans could get this info from Innussannon, who may have had ideas, but now what it takes to actually implement it. Time, knowledge, whatever, it's not like reprogging Keppers requires pushing some button or shooting some pipes. That, essentially, is my idea of Chain of Development, it fits what we actually have much more than "deduction" that suggests that Reapers disregard that Keepers can be reprogrammed and that Organics are actually not as stupid as they seem to be. 

 

Either previous cycles or reapers have no clue. Previous cycles are dead, reapers are not, my bet is that Cycles were THAT incompetent so Protheans are the first to have group surviving the harvest and engineering Keepers. 

[dreamgazer]

Fair point on the Citadel. I confess to forgetting that. Still its a bit of a difference trusting a space station with a helpful 'maintenance' staff to a weapon that can stop galactic extinction.

A lot of trust went into every one of those pieces of Prothean technology.
 

Conventional means where, as far as you are aware, relay travel has been shut down.

... against foes that "darken the sky of every world", following the extreme effort it took to take down one Reaper in ME1, in a situation where we've wasted two years because the galaxy has denied their existence.
 

You can grasp the logic all you want but if you can't use the thing then it remains useless.

It'd be like building a gun without the knowledge of how to ignite black powder. It wont do a thing until you know what a spark is.

It's more like not knowing how to create the spark within those circumstances than not knowing what a spark is. They knew they needed to amplify the energy, but they couldn't figure out how.
 

If you don't know that then you do something else.

The Protheans knew, and Liara comprehended its design to a degree where she knew it would wipe out the Reapers. This cycle knew very little about combating the Reapers on a conventional level, though.
 

Mass Effect 1, 2, and 3. The first thing the Reapers did every previous cycle was to hit the Citadel and shut down the Mass Relays.

I don't recall the specific lines but since I'm starting a new trilogy run, I'll write them down when I come across them for you.

No need for that, but thanks for the offer.

[Jorji Costava]

That's the one area where I actually appreciate the Crucible: it pulls in a batch of previous civilizations who figured out this solution through a layering of ingenuity and stashed-away plans across many cycles, something that military victory couldn't achieve.

 

Fair enough, although this didn't actually answer my initial question: How come no previous cycle was able to figure out how to construct and use the Crucible?

 

The idea that the Crucible represents the legacy of every previous cycle is a good one, but it probably could have been incorporated into what in my view would be more tenable ending scenarios. For instance, it could have been explained that the method of preventing the Reapers from shutting down the relays used in ME1 was something that had to be discovered bit by bit across all of the cycles, with the Protheans simply completing the project that had been set in motion long before they ever mattered on the galactic scene. Of course, that's going all the way back to ME1, but that is where most of the series' Reaper problems began IMHO.

[dreamgazer]

Or not. Do you have any info about that or is it's what you came up with?

My info is based on the fact that the Protheans were able to do it. Therefore, over the course of nearly a billion years, someone else had to have. Assuming nobody else did is assuming that every single one of the others was less advanced, less aware, less investigative. Inept.
 

Leviathan of Dis could as well be killed by Leviathans themselves, also Mass Acceleration is the only way to move across galaxy (break the FTL speed limit), so it could be essential to any race.

I don't care who took it out. It's nearly a billion years old, establishing the Reapers' spread of existence. That's all that matters.
 

And yes, Mass Effect does make previous cycles look hilariously incompetent, it even makes our cycle look incompetent. You can easily disregard everything about "previous cycle" because Bioware didn't even care to elaborate anything about them (why would they, anyway?).

The idea that nobody ever figured any of this out before makes them all look even less incompetent, though, which goes against the idea that the Reapers halted their civilization at a comparable place of advancement. And once again, I point to Klendagon as evidence of parallel technology across at least 37 million years.