585 réponses à ce sujet

[JamesFaith]

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?

 

 

They hadn't access to final piece - Citadel?

[Jorji Costava]

They hadn't access to final piece - Citadel?

 

It makes sense, although it also just ends up raising dreamgazer's initial question, which is that over the course however many cycles, wouldn't at least one figure out how to do what the Protheans did and shut down the relays, thereby gaining access to the Citadel? At the end of the day, I don't see how you make the game winnable without somehow implying the 'specialness' of your own cycle; whatever X it is that's necessary to beat the Reapers, either yours is going to be the first to figure out X, or you lose just like every other cycle.

[n7stormreaver]

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.
 

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.
 

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.

 

Checking some facts - wasn't Leviathan of Dis an actual Leviathan? It is said that it's "genetically-engineered living spaceship" keywords "living" and "genetically" 

 

As always, what you say is, again, assumptions.

 

Speaking of Klendagon, it's not like they got all the info in last 3-4 cycles. They could've started poking at thing 100, 200, 300 or 400 million years ago, but not ultimately do what Protheans did. 

 

As of "less advanced, less aware, less investigative" - exactly. Protheans uplifted Asari, they could achieve what in previous cycles was achieved 200-1000-5000 years later. Remember what the Illusive Man said: "Over past 30 years humanity achieved more than in the last 10.000 years combined" and we surely got some knowledge from turians who could get it from asari who got it from protheans, who, in turn, got some of their info from Inusannon, who could get some info from previous cycle, et cetera, et cetera.

Chain of Developement, going through cycles, cutting time by 2, 20, 200, 2000 years required to reach required development level each time, cutting time to develop some tech, thanks to info from previous cycle, etc. 

 

Maybe there was no frozen Inusannon to tell Protheans that they were uplifted by them. Maybe there was no frozen %no_data_available% to tell Inusannon that they were uplifted by them. 

 

After all, humans, without any uplifting, went to space (galaxy-wide space*) only 30 years before Harvest. 

[JamesFaith]

It makes sense, although it also just ends up raising dreamgazer's initial question, which is that over the course however many cycles, wouldn't at least one figure out how to do what the Protheans did and shut down the relays, thereby gaining access to the Citadel? At the end of the day, I don't see how you make the game winnable without somehow implying the 'specialness' of your own cycle; whatever X it is that's necessary to beat the Reapers, either yours is going to be the first to figure out X, or you lose just like every other cycle.

 

It isn't problem of conducting same experiment like Protheans, but conducting this experiment on same place like Protheans. Many cycles can made their own protorelay but it would be useless unless second part is on the Citadel.

 

And you actually don't need access to Citadel during war to know it is crucial for using Crucible. You just need to know that Crucible have to affect all relays at once and there is one thing all cycles before us learnt by hard way - Citadel can affect all relays at once because it shut them down at once with arrival of Reapers.

[dreamgazer]

Checking some facts - wasn't Leviathan of Dis an actual Leviathan? It is said that it's "genetically-engineered living spaceship" keywords "living" and "genetically" 
 
As always, what you say is, again, assumptions.

http://masseffect.wi...eviathan_of_Dis
 

Provided he survived the batarian terrorist attack on Terra Nova in 2183, Balak will tell Commander Shepard that the Leviathan of Dis was actually a Reaper corpse that the Batarian Hegemony had transported to Khar'shan. After the failure of the attack on Terra Nova, the Hegemony accelerated research on the Leviathan, which then indoctrinated numerous batarian scientists and officials. The indoctrinated officials then sabotaged Hegemony defenses during the Reaper invasion in 2186, allowing the Reapers to easily conquer batarian territories and crush their scattered navy.

[n7stormreaver]

http://masseffect.wi...eviathan_of_Dis
 

Well then, writing consistency. 

 

Still, it was killed by a Leviathan, which means, it doesn't assume organics have had technology required to do so. 

 

I always told that reapers are only "about 1 billion years" of existence, so i have no idea why are you pointing at this. 

[voteDC]

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

Just going on humanity here but when we arrived, how long had the Citadel been in use? We had no reason at that point to disbelieve the races already there.

The Mass Relays I recall missions to see what was out there. We tested the technology and saw that it worked. We didn't just send a colony through.

 

... 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.

Which could darken the skies because they could all enter a system at once. They didn't get to do that this cycle. Though if they had, chances are they still could have won.

 

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.

The point still stands though. They had no idea how to use the device they were building or if it would actually do anything.

It was blind faith in a machine that had never worked previously.

 

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.

The protheans believed it would work for the same reasons we did. Previous cycles told them it would. Given that they are all dead, that's not a glowing recommendation.

Liara believed what she did because the protheans believed it. She had blind faith.Look at what happened to her once she encountered Javik.

 

No need for that, but thanks for the offer.

I'm probably petty enough to do it 

[Ranadiel Marius]

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.
 
 

As I recall, it is established in ME1 that the only reason that the prothean gamble worked was because the Keepers had evolved to only accept signals from the Citadel, which prevented the "back up" plan of Sovereign directly commanding the Keepers. So even if another race had figured out a way to do what the Protheans did, the Keepers were not in condition to allow the plan to work. So it isn't a matter of ineptness so much as dumb luck.

 

Alternatively, had the prothean gamble been attempted before, don't you think the Reapers would have installed some kind of fail safes to prevent it from happening in the future like an automatic timer? Or are you saying that the Reapers themselves are inept?....I mean yeah the game shows them as being inept, but I don't think that was intentional.

[dreamgazer]

Just going on humanity here but when we arrived, how long had the Citadel been in use? We had no reason at that point to disbelieve the races already there.

Right, the Citadel inclusion wasn't about humanity.
 

The Mass Relays I recall missions to see what was out there. We tested the technology and saw that it worked. We didn't just send a colony through.

No telling what could show up on the other side, though. Massive gamble that could have been a trap once the large numbers poured through.
 

Which could darken the skies because they could all enter a system at once. They didn't get to do that this cycle. Though if they had, chances are they still could have won.

Doesn't matter, since the number of Reapers was still unknown and assumed to be vast.

Who could have won? Organics? Because they didn't stand a chance, notably after ME2 squandered preparation time on its, uh, alternate story path.
 

The point still stands though. They had no idea how to use the device they were building or if it would actually do anything.

They knew it would wipe out the Reapers, at the very least, and they learned more as the construction progressed, namely that it would use the mass relays and that they were attempting to duplicate said technology. "Basic principles". Nobody knows if any piece of technology will do anything until it's activated.
 

It was blind faith in a machine that had never worked previously.

No, it had never been entirely finished. The Protheans got close, but an indoctrinated splinter group shot down that plan by arguing that the Reapers should be controlled.
 

The protheans believed it would work for the same reasons we did. Previous cycles told them it would. Given that they are all dead, that's not a glowing recommendation.

No, they believed it would work because they've looked at the plans and understood the basics, confirmed by Liara and conveyed in the Crucible codex.
 

Liara believed what she did because the protheans believed it. She had blind faith.Look at what happened to her once she encountered Javik.

Those aren't comparable situations.
 

I'm probably petty enough to do it 

Petty or not, I understand what goes on in the series.

[dreamgazer]

As I recall, it is established in ME1 that the only reason that the prothean gamble worked was because the Keepers had evolved to only accept signals from the Citadel, which prevented the "back up" plan of Sovereign directly commanding the Keepers. So even if another race had figured out a way to do what the Protheans did, the Keepers were not in condition to allow the plan to work. So it isn't a matter of ineptness so much as dumb luck.

All it'd take is one cycle like ours that shows the keepers weren't functioning properly, and then the Reapers could guide their "evolution" back on track once the harvest's over. They made them the way they are, after all.
 

Alternatively, had the prothean gamble been attempted before, don't you think the Reapers would have installed some kind of fail safes to prevent it from happening in the future like an automatic timer? Or are you saying that the Reapers themselves are inept?....I mean yeah the game shows them as being inept, but I don't think that was intentional.

Eh, if they wanted to do all that, then they wouldn't stick with the organic keepers at all.

[voteDC]

They knew it would wipe out the Reapers, at the very least, and they learned more as the construction progressed, namely that it would use the mass relays and that they were attempting to duplicate said technology. "Basic principles". Nobody knows if any piece of technology will do anything until it's activated.
 

They didn't know it would wipe out the Reapers though. If the weapon was at all effective then the cycle we experience would never have happened.

Even if previous Crucibles were effective only in one system then that would have killed more than enough Capital Reapers per cycle to make a conventional victory this cycle a possibility.

 

To be honest dreamgazer, I'd just be repeating myself if I went on any further. I've put my point across to the best of my ability. You don't agree with me and that's fine.

In the end it is a testament to the quality of the Mass Effect universe that we can have such a discussion.

[n7stormreaver]

In the end it is a testament to the quality of the Mass Effect universe that we can have such a discussion.

 

It is actually both. Quality is important, but you should not disregard how much flaws affect possibility of discussing and, even more, arguing about a fictional universe.

 

There are example of fantastic games with very well written stories (even larger in scale than Mass Effect by quite margin) where there isn't much to argue about, mostly minor points here and there. 

[Obadiah]

...
The point still stands though. They had no idea how to use the device they were building or if it would actually do anything.

It was blind faith in a machine that had never worked previously.

The protheans believed it would work for the same reasons we did. Previous cycles told them it would. Given that they are all dead, that's not a glowing recommendation.

Liara believed what she did because the protheans believed it. She had blind faith.Look at what happened to her once she encountered Javik.
...

Here's my feeling on the building of the Crucible, because it gets brought up ALL THE TIME with respect to the Mass Effect 3 plot: if one wants to complain about the plot, then this is place to do it, because the explicit dialog taken at face value in the game makes it seem REALLY stupid. However, I don't think Bioware's plan was to write a stupid story, so I assume there was some failure of narration, and in that case I interpret what is there to see if there is a decent story that they probably meant to convey.

Realistically, there is just no way any serious government or leader would commit to build this device if they literally had NO idea how it would work. It would be a massive drain on resources in a desperate time of scarcity, done on blind faith and trust - which is ridiculous.

So, first things first - the Alliance and Council MUST have had a pretty good inkling of how the Crucible worked. Liara quickly determines that it is a device capable of releasing unquantifiable amounts of energy (one assumes destructive) on a massive scale when making the presentation to the Council. There were hundreds of scientists working on it - the first thing they would do is try to model its behavior based on known scientific principles. In later conversations, Admiral Hackett likens it to a nuclear bomb in a metaphor to explain firing it with unknown consequences. To me, the "bomb" part of the metaphor is also key, and meant to be descriptive.

In the climax, we see Crucible attach to the Citadel and discharge a beam in an interface. There is no way the Crucible could have been built without the builders being aware of this feature. The builders probably didn't know about the Citadel interface, but they knew the Crucible could interface to something.

What I think was probably not properly communicated to us players over the course of the game is that Alliance and Council builders:

• knew the Crucible could release a destructive energy wave or pulse that would damage everything in the vicinity - and by vicinity, I mean on the scale of at least a planetary solar system. Otherwise, it wouldn't be useful as a weapon to hit the Reapers when they were gathered. (Liara presentation and Hackett metaphor)
• knew that the Crucible could be configured on the fly to either discharge in a single direction like a gun, transfer energy. Its just not as useful because once used in that way it becomes an easy target for the Reapers. (Educated guess, also kinda obvious once the plot is over)
• had many models that showed multiple probable outcomes of the blast wave, all of them destructive. They couldn't agree on the specifics of the destruction, hence Hackett's, "We don't know what the hell it does," type of statements. (Educated guess, and not having scientific models would be ridiculous)
• needed the design of the Catalyst component to properly target its destructive power by tuning the pulse or beam. Without it, the energy released is probably too chaotic to accurately predict. (Pretty sure this is said explicitly)
• probably knew the Crucible would discharge across the Relay network, once Vendetta was added to to the team. (Educated guess/Crucible tech entry on galaxy-wide targetting system)

As an aside, whether you accept that interpretation or not, the idea of the Alliance building something they don't understand creates an interesting plot dynamic with Cerberus. Both Organizations, Cerberus and the Alliance, are playing with powers they don't fully understand and can't control, with divergent goals that collide at the climax: Control and Destroy.

[Reorte]

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.

Conceptually it's a nice idea but it just turns us from "every previous cycle were morons" into "the Reapers were morons" if the plans managed to keep surviving through several cycles, especially once the Reapers found out about them so should be extra careful. And if the Reapers were that hopeless they would've been defeated before now... That's why I think the least bad option would've been to retcon the Reapers a bit so that there weren't very many cycles. In fact do they have to have been every 50 000 years? Could the last couple have been that, and have just happened to be much shorter than usual?

[SporkFu]

Conceptually it's a nice idea but it just turns us from "every previous cycle were morons" into "the Reapers were morons" if the plans managed to keep surviving through several cycles, especially once the Reapers found out about them so should be extra careful. And if the Reapers were that hopeless they would've been defeated before now... That's why I think the least bad option would've been to retcon the Reapers a bit so that there weren't very many cycles. In fact do they have to have been every 50 000 years? Could the last couple have been that, and have just happened to be much shorter than usual?

After Tuchanka, and again later in the game, EDI makes a couple comments about how the reapers are not infallible, as they proclaim -- "Killed by a worm." When mentioning the crucible to the catalyst, it gives the impression that it believed all traces of the plans were eradicated at some point in the past -- maybe with the protheans? -- and says  (something like), "Clearly organics are more resourceful than we thought." ...So reapers are relentless, unstoppable, all-powerful... overconfident? Even they can't think of everything, or again, perhaps they don't give organics enough credit. 

[dreamgazer]

Well, yeah, we could clean up a lot of issues by reworking the first game.

[von uber]

Just to say, this entire problem goes away if the Leviathan of Dis isn't 1 Billion years old.

i suspect that was thrown in to make it sound cool, without thinking through the implications.

[SilJeff]

I think it was more the Reapers were too cocky/arrogant to think that he cycles would ever actually finish/use the crucible. They think of organics as we think of a cockroach we step on on a sidewalk.

 

 

Here's what I think happens:

 

Harbinger: "look at those little organics trying to build a weapon to stop us, hahaha!"

Leviathan of Dis: "Should we stop them from working on it?"

Harbinger: "Nah, let them be. I find it entertaining watching those organics trying to stop us."

 

next cycle's harvest-

Sovereign: "um, I noticed the little organics are trying to pick up where the last cycle left off on that weapon. Should I stop them?"

Harbinger: "Are you kidding? It is just getting good! Those little idiots trying their hardest to stop us, the magnificent reapers? That's funnier than the time daddy told us how he rebelled against those stupid cuddlefish leviathans!"

Sovereign: "are you sure we should bear no mind? I mean look what happened to Leviathan of Dis, the organics killed--"

Harbinger: "Nazara! Shut it, he died because he was an idiot who let his guard down and the organics just got lucky. They don't stand a chance against all of us. Don't you have a planet to harvest? Get back to work!"

[SilJeff]

I think it was more the Reapers were too cocky/arrogant to think that he cycles would ever actually finish/use the crucible. They think of organics as we think of a cockroach we step on on a sidewalk.

 

 

Here's what I think happens:

 

Harbinger: "look at those little organics trying to build a weapon to stop us, hahaha!"

Leviathan of Dis: "Should we stop them from working on it?"

Harbinger: "Nah, let them be. I find it entertaining watching those organics trying to stop us."

 

next cycle's harvest-

Sovereign: "um, I noticed the little organics are trying to pick up where the last cycle left off on that weapon. Should I stop them?"

Harbinger: "Are you kidding? It is just getting good! Those little idiots trying their hardest to stop us, the magnificent reapers? That's funnier than the time daddy told us how he rebelled against those stupid cuddlefish leviathans!"

Sovereign: "are you sure we should bear no mind? I mean look what happened to Leviathan of Dis, the organics killed--"

Harbinger: "Nazara! Shut it, he died because he was an idiot who let his guard down and the organics just got lucky. They don't stand a chance against all of us. Don't you have a planet to harvest? Get back to work!"

[cap and gown]

Just to say, this entire problem goes away if the Leviathan of Dis isn't 1 Billion years old.

i suspect that was thrown in to make it sound cool, without thinking through the implications.

Doesn't this describe the entire series?

[ImaginaryMatter]

I think it was more the Reapers were too cocky/arrogant to think that he cycles would ever actually finish/use the crucible. They think of organics as we think of a cockroach we step on on a sidewalk.

 

I have a problem with the Reapers being cocky/arrogant approach. The Reapers were designed to be tools of war, why would the Catalyst program such an unnecessary handicap?

[KaiserShep]

Yeah, I would have preferred the cooler, more dispassionate approach. Maybe Shepard should've just fought the Borg.

[von uber]

Doesn't this describe the entire series?

 

Pretty much, yes.

[dreamgazer]

I have a problem with the Reapers being cocky/arrogant approach. The Reapers were designed to be tools of war, why would the Catalyst program such an unnecessary handicap?

Why do the Reapers wait until a civilization is at the "apex of their glory", instead of going in shortly before when it'd be far easier for them?

[SporkFu]

Why do the Reapers wait until a civilization is at the "apex of their glory", instead of going in shortly before when it'd be far easier for them?

Because the reaper who was made out of that civilization would always get picked last for sports.