143 réponses à ce sujet

[Dar'Nara]

Well technically, other races were not close to us, mass relay technology jumped us quite far away from Sol system. And contact was largely accidental, according to the codex. If there is a mass relay network out there, we might contact other races quite soon.

 

That said, I think ME scenario is a very lucky one. I have doubts that everything will work that well for the humanity if we ever contact/get contacted by another intelligent race.

I agree, its probably going to be us on thin ice alot of the time when it comes to meeting/getting contacted by other races and being trusted by them.

[General TSAR]

If there is a mass relay network out there, we might contact other races quite soon.

Definitely not. 

 

I agree, its probably going to be us on thin ice alot of the time when it comes to meeting/getting contacted by other races and being trusted by them.

What are you talking about? The second humanity meets an alien species it's open warfare, especially if there is a resource starved mankind which is VERY likely. 

[Vazgen]

Definitely not. 

Not as in no network or as in finding them soon even if it exists? 

[General TSAR]

Not as in no network or as in finding them soon even if it exists? 

Not as in them not existing.

[Vazgen]

Not as in them not existing.

Ha! Well, we can't know for sure. Though I do not think they exist, seems too far-fetched.

[General TSAR]

Ha! Well, we can't know for sure. Though I do not think they exist, seems too far-fetched.

I'm not saying that artificial constructs that can launch something at the speed of light aren't possible, I'm saying that the Mass Relays and the rather illogical Mass Effect concept are very very improbable. 

[Vazgen]

I'm not saying that artificial constructs that can launch something at the speed of light aren't possible, I'm saying that the Mass Relays and the rather illogical Mass Effect concept are very very improbable. 

I hear you, I think so too. Mass Effect is based on the Element Zero, if it exists than everything else works pretty well. Though yeah, like I said, seems too far-fetched to my liking

[Daemul]

I think ME scenario is a very lucky one. I have doubts that everything will work that well for the humanity if we ever contact/get contacted by another intelligent race.

Yep, the Mass Effect universe is a fairy tale, reliant on Aliens somehow holding the exact same morals and values that we humans hold, which is just ridiculous. We would be treading on ice around real aliens, because anything we do could easily offend them and cause open war, which we would lose, since a species advanced enough to reach us will be way out of our league.

[Kabooooom]

Given how extraordinarily successful General and Special relativity have been as descriptive and predictive theories of nature, I strongly suspect that our current understanding that nothing with mass can accelerate to the speed of light is a correct one and with no loophole whatsoever. Interesting proposals, like the Alcubierre drive, rely on exotic matter that has never been observed (but may exist). Such matter has exotic properties, like negative mass and negative gravitational attraction. Could mass-effect like physics exists, such as manipulation of the Higgs field? Maybe. Maybe we just haven't discovered it. But honestly, if loopholes like that were possible in physics, then we probably would NOT live in a universe that was in any way coherent.

Conversely, we know from the tremendous success of general relativity that the theory does predict ways to *effectively* travel faster than light, including the Alcubierre drive and wormholes. Most physicists hold more hope out for the latter. Such is apparently the plot of the new Interstellar movie, as well as Carl Sagan's Contact. Personally, I too find it to be a very plausible method of interstellar travel.

So, I hold out hope that in the future we WILL be able to colonize other worlds with ease. But it will require technology so mind-bogglingly advanced that every earthly problem we have now would pale in comparison: War, hunger, disease, would all likely be distant memories, conquered by science and technology. We would likely be able to terraform planets with ease. Unlike others here, I don't think that if we make contact with an alien race that we will be in a severely resource-depleted state that will trigger conflict. I suspect that when/if we do, we will be an incredibly advanced and prosperous species, simply by pure virtue of the distances involved and the knowledge required to achieve the technological prowess to traverse them.

[SwobyJ]

Reply to OP:

 

Mass Relays? No.

 

Travel to the speed of mass relays. Sure.

 

Eezo? No.

 

Something akin to the effect of eezo? Maybe.

 

Aliens? Sure.

 

Most of the aliens we see? Nope.

 

Biotics? Sorta.

 

Omnitools? Yeah, actually!

 

AI? Sorta.

 

 

I see this all as a mixture of 'truth' of the future, 'visions' of the future, and outright 'dreams' of the future. Only a fraction of it is even likely to happen. However, the themes that Mass Effect touches on may be highly relevant in the next decades and centuries.

 

 

 

When it comes to technological progress, we won't match Mass Effect. ME's Earth had a dark period, then expanded to Mars, then found the archive, then found the Charon Relay, then propelled their tech in the ways of the Citadel.

 

We probably won't be like that. Some things will advance first on Earth (like AI itself), while other things will take much, much longer (anything Reaper Scale). We don't have a known-to-happen dark age nor a relay system to guide us out of it.

 

 

 

What I am fairly sure of is that technological progress will continue to surprise us in many ways. I do agree with Kurzweil's opinion that humans tend to regard external advancement (aka technology) in a linear fashion whereas it may actually grow much more incrementally or even exponentially, at least when less and less under human restrictions/boundaries. As we become more networked, not just the next century but the next decade or two may bring stunning tech, even if only a fraction of it becomes quickly adopted by the mainstream. I'm not quite on board with the Singularity concept though

[MrMrPendragon]

One of my dreams has always been to go to space. Inevitably, mankind will go to space. I doubt there's enough resources here on Earth to last us till the end of time.

 

The Mass Effect universe is only possible from the viewpoint of mankind traverssing space. I don't know if there are sentient lifeforms out there. I don't know if we can develop hyper-drives that bend space.

 

If we ever find out about aliens, or develop technology that will allow us to travel at least within our solar system, those sadly won't happen in our lifetimes.

[Kabooooom]

Reply to OP:

Mass Relays? No.

Travel to the speed of mass relays. Sure.

Eezo? No.

Something akin to the effect of eezo? Maybe.

Aliens? Sure.

Most of the aliens we see? Nope.

Biotics? Sorta.

Omnitools? Yeah, actually!

AI? Sorta.


I see this all as a mixture of 'truth' of the future, 'visions' of the future, and outright 'dreams' of the future. Only a fraction of it is even likely to happen. However, the themes that Mass Effect touches on may be highly relevant in the next decades and centuries.



When it comes to technological progress, we won't match Mass Effect. ME's Earth had a dark period, then expanded to Mars, then found the archive, then found the Charon Relay, then propelled their tech in the ways of the Citadel.

We probably won't be like that. Some things will advance first on Earth (like AI itself), while other things will take much, much longer (anything Reaper Scale). We don't have a known-to-happen dark age nor a relay system to guide us out of it.



What I am fairly sure of is that technological progress will continue to surprise us in many ways. I do agree with Kurzweil's opinion that humans tend to regard external advancement (aka technology) in a linear fashion whereas it may actually grow much more incrementally or even exponentially, at least when less and less under human restrictions/boundaries. As we become more networked, not just the next century but the next decade or two may bring stunning tech, even if only a fraction of it becomes quickly adopted by the mainstream. I'm not quite on board with the Singularity concept though

I'm on board with the singularity concept as it relates to true artificial intelligence. When we achieve that, it will fundamentally alter human civilization in unpredictable ways - at least unpredictable when viewed before the singularity. That much is pretty much common sense. But will artificial intelligence out-pace us so fast that we can't keep up? I doubt that.

Conversely, I think it will greatly augment our society and help us solve scientific and technological problems that would he near impossible prior to the advent of AI - I envision space travel and massive medical advances as included within this. There is no reason to believe that a technological singularity would be apocalyptic in any way whatsoever.

[windsea]

Tech will been akin to mass effect in some form. the main problem is that there is no know element zero. 

 

Aliens are a unknown.

[Nerve-Stim Pro]

No. Main reason are the Asari.

 

 

A blue colored, lesbian, biotic wielding, alien sex doll race, that can reproduce by having sex with anything, does indeed make perfect sense.
 

Yessiree.

 

There's actually a creature on Earth that can sort of have sex with anything, although they look far from sex dolls http://news.sciencem...ng-borrowed-dna

[Farangbaa]

You gotta wonder people's motivations when pointing out the Asari to show why its impossible, in favour of glaring issues like FTL, eezo, the ridiculously human morality that's prevalent everywhere (hell even the outliers like the Batari do human things like slavery, which is wrong nowadays but normal for most of written history and probably before) and a biological trainwreck like the Krogan.

 

An asexually reproducing species with DNA recombination upon reproduction seems by far the most likely out of these examples, don't you think?

[Kynare]

Not in my future. I'll probably be dust in the wind by the time an uber powerful extraterrestrial being decides to turn us into human goop.

[MrMrPendragon]

Sadly no.

 

I do believe that at some point in the distant future, mankind would be able to figure out either:

 

1. How to bend space itself, for interstellar travels - this is basically what the Mass Relay does. It creates a tube if absolute zero space to propel ships.

2. Find a new source of energy, one that can be incorporated into engines and used as an alternative to oil. This would at least allow people to travel within the Solar System, despite not eliminating the time factor - ie A ship with enough energy/fuel can travel all the way to Jupiter, but it wouldn't be able to get there quickly.

 

All that of course is reliant on the chance that we don't kill off each other first. It's not really looking good. Every century is going to have some sort of war, somewhere, sometime, and the 21st century isn't going to be different.

 

I've always believed that interstellar travel is going to be the next step in our evolution as a species. And the selective pressure that's going to force us to get there is the scarcity of the resources we have now - oil. Once that runs out, we either figure out a way find a new source of energy, or we die.

[Mathias]

Without some kind of intervention from an Alien species who have achieved space travel, the answer is no. Mankind will never reach the stars. We simply don't have the resources, and our planet doesn't have any elements that could provide us with the means to do so. It's a very romantic

thought, but unfortunately it isn't feasible. The sad truth is we were born on Earth and we'll die on Earth.

 

It's not that I don't think Humans are incapable of space travel. We definitely could achieve something like that because we're a brilliant and determined species. But we just don't have the proper tools to achieve it. And I think the possibility of an Alien species reaching us is astronomically low. The universe is infinite and Planet Earth is over 4 billion years old. Yet it hasn't happened yet. Even if there are advanced civilizations out there combining the galaxy, the chances they'll reach the Milky Way galaxy are slim, and even if that happens, let's hope for our children that they treat us like people and not cattle.

 

I think the only possible way Human beings could find another habitable planet to colonize in, is if we truly developed a way to suspend us in a hyper sleep, and prevent us from aging during that time. Is that possible? Maybe I don't know. But even then we'd have to develop probes who can travel through space a lot faster than the ones we have now, and send us signals that can reach back to us. Then if we do send shuttles full of people to these new planets, we'd have to have technology that's super accurate and would keep the shuttles on course for god knows how many years.

 

In short, yeah it's Sci-Fi and should be treated as such.

[Vortex13]

Well QECs are slowly becoming a reality:

 

 

http://www.nature.co...the-lab-1.15093

 

 

Obviously, we aren't to the point of Mass Effect with seamless audio and visual communication across the galaxy, but we the fact that we are starting to incorporate quantum mechanics into our communication networks is pretty sci-fi/Mass Effect-ish.

[FlyingSquirrel]

And I think the possibility of an Alien species reaching us is astronomically low. The universe is infinite and Planet Earth is over 4 billion years old. Yet it hasn't happened yet. Even if there are advanced civilizations out there combining the galaxy, the chances they'll reach the Milky Way galaxy are slim, and even if that happens, let's hope for our children that they treat us like people and not cattle.

 

I think the time scales involved make it difficult to reach solid conclusions about these sorts of hypotheticals.

 

If a large interstellar civilization with common use of FTL travel, along the lines of what we see in Mass Effect or Star Trek, really exists, then you'd have to assume some special circumstances to explain the lack of contact, such as (1) they know we exist but we haven't yet met some minimum requirement in terms of scientific or technological achievement, and either law or custom prevents them from contacting us until we do; or (2) this interstellar civilization is still a relatively recent development and large portions of the galaxy are still unexplored.

 

On the other hand, maybe there's a middle ground scenario, in which interstellar travel does take place, but in a somewhat sparse, ad hoc manner limited by resource issues for the species that have been able to achieve it. Maybe a small cohort of generational ships is slowly exploring the galaxy, or maybe there are unmanned probes that are only occasionally deployed. They might, for example, send one probe to every known solar system on an average of once per thousand years to scan for radio signals - and if they did that, they'd have come up negative in our solar system until less than 200 years ago. 

 

Or maybe we'll eventually have limited interstellar communication even if actual interstellar travel can't be achieved in an efficient enough manner for any species to invest the resources necessary to pull it off. In which case, again, we'd have to take account of large time scales. This message, for example - http://en.wikipedia....sage_from_Earth- won't reach its intended destination until 2029, and if there are aliens there at roughly our level of technology and civilization, any response they send would have an equally long travel time, and they might not be able to reach a decision right away on whether to respond at all and what the response should say.

[Anacronian Stryx]

Nope not even close.. not even close to being close.

[StealthGamer92]

Sure it is possible to a degree. I also believe the first time(if) we run into an alien speciec we would have like a Mars Attacks moment or even just go the shoot firs ask questions later route. Also I believe we will try if not succede in ME level tech(omnitools, shields, rail weapons etc) as much as we seem to get obssesed with it throughout our history.

[Karlone123]

I was thinking more in the way of Deadspace (if we acheive FTL technology, and no necromorphs). heavily industrialised mining and such. Maybe space is already settled by an alien community and we have yet to make contact. It's been theorised by UFOlogists that a war is being waged in space now.

 

In two centuries we may still not have mastered interplanetary travel, I imagine humans will still be stranded in our system for many centuries unless something miraculous like a faster form of space travel or we make alien conact happens.

[StealthGamer92]

UFOlogists...really?