174 réponses à ce sujet

[ZipZap2000]

The dialogue doesn't change, I think it's reference to their mind melding.

[Valmar]

Romance Liara doesn't have unique dialogue for those? That's a shame. Tali has unique dialogue for it if she's the LI. At least... spirits I hope that was unique. It would be really awkward if it wasn't. 

 

Still, strange that Liara doesn't get special lines. She's probably one of the most popular LI's in the game.

[SporkFu]

So special she doesn't need unique dialogue 

[Excella Gionne]

You don't think Shepard was already indoctrinated after entering the derelict Reaper? 

[KaiserShep]

If that was the case then whoever else went there with Shepard would also be indoctrinated. But I guess it doesn't matter, because it requires prolonged exposure, like the artifact in that intensely annoying husk mine mission in ME2.

[DesioPL]

 

Seriously? You discover Atlantida!

[Display Name Owner]

Interesting idea, but it wasn't even Shep's plan to gather forces, it was the Alliance generals'. Anderson tells Shep to go and get help at the end of the prologue, and Hackett goes along with it for the sake of having help building and deploying the Crucible.

 

The idea of the galactic strategy being a symptom of indoctrination is interesting because it backfires against the Reapers which is a fun idea, and it also tackles how lame the whole "take back Earth" thing was, but it's not the answer.

 

edit: which had already been said several times in the thread. Well, the point stands.

 

Also, organising what forces the galaxy had is just common sense anyway. It's not like there was an alternate plan as far as anyone knew until the Crucible was pulled out of nowhere, they'd be stupid not to maximise the effectiveness of what forces they had even knowing it was almost certainly insufficient.

[Farangbaa]

If we're going to wave away every stupid decision by calling it indoctrination, I wonder why the galaxy put up a fight at all. Cause everyone and their moms would be indoctrinated

[Cobwebmaster]

What I never got was the thick headedness of the Council in not investigating the Citadel properly and Hackett for not prioritising a Cerberus neutralisation program. 

 

In ME1 the fight against Vanguard showed that the Citadel was the focus for reaper strategy, and the key to admitting the full force of reapers. Yet no one investigated it and the keepers were just "allowed" to continue to wander around the place doing what they do with no interference. No one from any of the Council races or indeed the Council themselves was commissioned to find out "What the hell happened there and how can we prevent anything like that happening again!". Shepard discovered that the Protheans had been wiped out in a sudden attack. That attack had the Citadel as it's 1st priority and from that beachead the harvesting of the remaining Protheans was initiated

Then we get all the refugees heading for the Citadel - talk about serve up hors' d'ouvre

From the Mars attack it became clear that Cerberus was at least 2 steps ahead of everyone else on reaper issues, but no one Spectre got assigned to make a personal birthday present of the IM's head to the council/Hackett together with all it's knowledge. I would have liked to see Shepherd or at least the new spectre Ashley/Kaidan (or a load of existing ones) assigned to that issue as a top priority. Having played ME1 the first obvious port of call for biological research/ Cerberus personnel just had to be Noveria. A task force could have taken the place apart  

[von uber]

Still, strange that Liara doesn't get special lines. She's probably one of the most popular LI's in the game.

Oddly enough I personally think that the liara romance doesn't have enough unique stuff compared to the default game stuff.
I'd have preferred it if a lot more of her content was li exclusive, or differentiated a lot more.
Like the beacon scene in sheps cabin for example.

I guess it suffers from mass effect 3 being the best place to start.

[CrutchCricket]

Why start at arrival? For all we know ME2 Shepard is a prototype Cerberus trooper with reaper tech making him believe he's commander Shepard and every thing he's ever done has been for Cerberus but those masks in conjunction with reaper tech are changing their perception of the world.

 

That Cerberus soldier on Sur'kesh saying "wait" that was actually Liara and 'shep' just prevented the krogan from halting the reaper advance by securing the only known cure for the genophage. Tuchanka never happened.

 

Mars? 'Shep' shot up a bunch of alliance soldiers and stole the information he needed to get the crucible into the citadel.

 

TIM is actually Hackett and vice versa.

 

Recruiting the Rachni takes on a whole new meaning.

 

Rannoch.

 

Saving the Ardat Yakshi secures a supply of Banshees.

 

How else did the reapers know where to find Leviathan you lead them straight to him.

 

The crucible doesn't save the galaxy it destroys it.

 

Time is cyclical over time the same patterns repeat over and over. The reapers use this trick in every cycle to defeat their enemies.With that in mind the only way to defeat the reapers is to have everyone die in ME2 and not play ME3 at all or kill everyone off in ME3 and pick refuse.

 

Better than actual ending. Not even full snark, something like this would've been interesting.

[fhs33721]

Why else would he spend the entire game gathering conventional galactic forces together when it's already accepted that Reapers can only be defeated unconventionally?

 

I can think of a few reasons, but this one makes the most sense to me if Shepard was indoctrinated: 

It concentrates the galaxy's best fighting forces in one location so that the Reapers can kill them all more quickly.

 

Seems like a better way would have been to scatter everybody into space Quarian-style and conduct a hit-and-run war for the next few hundred years. That would make for a boring game though. 

That's completely unlikely.

First of all Arrival is a completely voluntary side mission. Shepard doesn't have to get involved at all. If he doesn't do it, a special ops team does the mission instead. Yet ME3 still plays out the exact same way if you don't do Arrival. So yeah indoctination in that DLC can't be canon.

 

Second, your bolded part. The Reapers don't have to resort to such silly levels of Star Wars villainy. They can pretty much steamroll over everyone without much effort. Their victory was already certain before the war began (well space magic superweapons aside, that is.)

 

Thirdly you gather those convential assest not to win against the Reapers but to distract them from your real weapon against them. The crubcile.

[Kenshen]

It is said more than a few times that the reapers are in no hurry to complete a harvest, they have time on their hands.  An indoctrinated Shep would not cure the genophage or make peace between the geth and quarians.  Also what we learn from star brat is they knew of the crucible and had thought they had destroyed all knowledge of it in a previous cycle.  Why would the reapers allow it to be constructed in this cycle?  However one hole in that statement is TIM also was aware of the crucible and knew it was being build and he was a reaper tool from the very start of the game so who knows on that one. 

[SporkFu]

It is said more than a few times that the reapers are in no hurry to complete a harvest, they have time on their hands.  An indoctrinated Shep would not cure the genophage or make peace between the geth and quarians.  Also what we learn from star brat is they knew of the crucible and had thought they had destroyed all knowledge of it in a previous cycle.  Why would the reapers allow it to be constructed in this cycle?  However one hole in that statement is TIM also was aware of the crucible and knew it was being build and he was a reaper tool from the very start of the game so who knows on that one. 

Yes, but the crucible by itself doesn't matter. TIM told the reapers that the allied galaxy knows that the citadel is the missing component. Easier to take control of the citadel, let the allied galaxy deliver the crucible, and then wipe them all out. The reapers didn't expect to fail in stopping them from docking the crucible. 

[nukembaby]

You're gravely underestimating the importance of that relay. You're also overestimating the batarians.

 

Destroying the relay wasn't just to buy a little time. It was also to prevent them from using the relay to get to every part of the galaxy immediately. The relay was what is referred to as an 'alpha relay'. Instead of going into details that can be found on the wiki I'll just simplify it:

 

 

But Shepard seems to get all over the galaxy instantly no matter how many relays it takes...

 

And the whole opening sequence is just the most inane dialogue I've seen in a game. I mean, cmon "we fight, that's what we do?" But it's also a bad strategy when you're massively and fundamentally outgunned. The best course of action would be to evacuate as many civilians from Earth (and the other planets) as possible into Quarian-style ship colonies and send them off in all directions. The Reapers would not be able to track down all of them and it simultaneously removes their ability to wage an effective ground war through Reaperized troops.

[Kenshen]

But they made zero attempt to destroy it that is seen anyways.  I always thought that the reapers wanted it to dock and that they didn't expect anyone to reach the citadel alive to make it work which really no one should have.  No guards at all very sloppy work.  Anyways yeah I think that part of my theory can be offically put down for the count.

[nukembaby]

That's completely unlikely.

First of all Arrival is a completely voluntary side mission. Shepard doesn't have to get involved at all. If he doesn't do it, a special ops team does the mission instead. Yet ME3 still plays out the exact same way if you don't do Arrival. So yeah indoctination in that DLC can't be canon.

 

Second, your bolded part. The Reapers don't have to resort to such silly levels of Star Wars villainy. They can pretty much steamroll over everyone without much effort. Their victory was already certain before the war began (well space magic superweapons aside, that is.)

 

Thirdly you gather those convential assest not to win against the Reapers but to distract them from your real weapon against them. The crubcile.

I've already conceded the point of the Arrival not being canon on page 1 (I never did a playthrough without the Arrival). But I do still believe it made Reapers' job much easier in concentrating all our forces in one location. The whole point of destroying the relay in the Arrival is to slow the Reapers down--which means that even they still need to worry about getting their assets into position, etc. They are vastly superior in firepower but not in space travel. If we all decided to run away to another galaxy, I doubt the Reapers could catch us.

[SporkFu]

But they made zero attempt to destroy it that is seen anyways.  I always thought that the reapers wanted it to dock and that they didn't expect anyone to reach the citadel alive to make it work which really no one should have.  No guards at all very sloppy work.  Anyways yeah I think that part of my theory can be offically put down for the count.

Yeah, I kinda wondered about that too. Why didn't the reapers just blow the crucible away while it was traveling, but Hackett did have Shield fleet protecting the crucible until it docked, and once it docked, maybe the reapers didn't want to chance destroying it. 

[DesioPL]

I might suggest, that crucible is only device for making this whole mess, the true problem might be deep inside the Citadel... How so? Well as said many times before, Citadel got many levels which are not reachable for anyone, and as far i remember...

 

Spoiler

When the last Protheans from Ilos comes to Citadel, they died in starvation etc, but thier corpses vanishes, how?

[SporkFu]

I might suggest, that crucible is only device for making this whole mess, the true problem might be deep inside the Citadel... How so? Well as said many times before, Citadel got many levels which are not reachable for anyone, and as far i remember...

 

Spoiler

When the last Protheans from Ilos comes to Citadel, they died in starvation etc, but thier corpses vanishes, how?

Keepers?

[fhs33721]

But Shepard seems to get all over the galaxy instantly no matter how many relays it takes...

 

And the whole opening sequence is just the most inane dialogue I've seen in a game. I mean, cmon "we fight, that's what we do?" But it's also a bad strategy when you're massively and fundamentally outgunned. The best course of action would be to evacuate as many civilians from Earth (and the other planets) as possible into Quarian-style ship colonies and send them off in all directions. The Reapers would not be able to track down all of them and it simultaneously removes their ability to wage an effective ground war through Reaperized troops.

Except it is mentioned in codexes that The Quarian fleet can't fly around the galaxy nonstop. They have to refuel their ships sometimes on inhabitated worlds and buy food and gather other materials for repairs and stuff. If you try outsmart the Reapers by hiding in space quarian style folloing situation arises:

1) You escape into space with quarian style fleets

2) Reapers come and take control over the inhabitated worlds and harvest those who stayed behind.

3) Your fleets start to run out of fuel, or some other necessary things.

Then you have the choice of either.  1)Drift round in the void of space until your ship falls apart and everyone dies.

                                                    or: 2) Try to refuel at a Reaper controlled world and everyone gets killed by Reapers.

Seriously they just have to wait until you run out of ressources.

That being said aside from the quarians themselves no species has enough Ships to evacuate more than a extremely small breakpart of their population.

 

 

I've already conceded the point of the Arrival not being canon on page 1 (I never did a playthrough without the Arrival). But I do still believe it made Reapers' job much easier in concentrating all our forces in one location. The whole point of destroying the relay in the Arrival is to slow the Reapers down--which means that even they still need to worry about getting their assets into position, etc. They are vastly superior in firepower but not in space travel. If we all decided to run away to another galaxy, I doubt the Reapers could catch us.

In fact it makes the Reapers job harder to locate all opposing forces in one place. It actually could cause some casualities on their side and so far they always used the Divide and conquer method before, which suggests that it is the most efficient one.

Also I think the Reapers would stop caring about you if you ran away to another galaxy but as far as I understand no species  is capable of intergalactical travel.

 

Yeah, I kinda wondered about that too. Why didn't the reapers just blow the crucible away while it was traveling, but Hackett did have Shield fleet protecting the crucible until it docked, and once it docked, maybe the reapers didn't want to chance destroying it. 

Don't they destroy it if Shepard takes too long to choose an ending? I think  heard something along that line here.

[SporkFu]

Don't they destroy it if Shepard takes too long to choose an ending? I think  heard something along that line here.

Oh, i didn't know that. Maybe by then starkid realizes that destroying it won't blow everything else up along with it.

[DesioPL]

Keepers?

 

Possible option, well more said is 100% option for that, since Keepers keep Citadel in pieces.

[Valmar]

But Shepard seems to get all over the galaxy instantly no matter how many relays it takes...

 

And the whole opening sequence is just the most inane dialogue I've seen in a game. I mean, cmon "we fight, that's what we do?" But it's also a bad strategy when you're massively and fundamentally outgunned. The best course of action would be to evacuate as many civilians from Earth (and the other planets) as possible into Quarian-style ship colonies and send them off in all directions. The Reapers would not be able to track down all of them and it simultaneously removes their ability to wage an effective ground war through Reaperized troops.

 

Because if they really did the relay jumps in real-time few people would actually play the game. Actually there is a game in Mass Effect universe, apparently, that DOES travel at 'real time'. It's a very hardcore rpg, if I remember correctly. The salarain game shop owner is overheard talking about it.

 

Anyway, my point was in the lore of Mass Effect the relays are NOT instant travel to any/all places. No matter how the gameplay may make it seem. You don't have to like it or think it makes sense for it to be true. It's lore fact, objectively speaking. No amount "but, but Shepard!" will change it. Gameplay is rarely, if ever, a solid indication of lore. Shepard can learn biotic powers at any point in last two games, does that mean humans can suddenly just learn biotic powers over night? Gameplay is not lore, certain liberties are taken to make the game more fun. Not having to watch the Normandy fly through four different relays just to get to your destination, of example, is definitely something I'd consider more fun. The fact that we have to watch the relay scene each and every single time we want to jump somewhere is enough, imo.

 

 

So you think the advice of "fight" is inane but the idea of stuffing humans on ships and shooting them out, hoping they can make it away from earth without reapers gunning them down, is the better idea? Running seems like a horrible option to me. We fight or we die. Period. These are the goddamn reaper's we're talking about here. I get wanting there to be other options because who wants to fight to the death? There are none though, there simply aren't. The reapers have invaded. They're already on earth, already tearing **** up. Whatever hope we had of saving ourselves was tossed out the window. They should had listened to the warnings. No amount of wishful thinking is going to save earth at this point. They can either put on their war faces and fight to the very last man or they can curl up and die. Let it not be said humanity went out without a fight.

 

Even if we somehow managed to pack all of earth on giant enormous ships (that the Alliance just pulled out of their asses, apparently) and SOMEHOW miraculously managed to escape the reapers (so I guess all these ships are Goliath sizes dreadnaughts with insane firepower or all have Normandy's stealth technology) they still would have to feed all those people.  When did they find time to pack enough food for thousands, millions, billions of humans? Talk about a huge suspension of belief. It also seems rather hypocritical of you, don't you think.

 

You were criticizing the fact that the war puts all of the ships in one place for the reapers to wipe them out. Stuffing humanity on ships and tossing them defensively into space is far worse. You might as well just wrap humanity up in a big candy wrapper. This is the same kind of stupidity the quarians had when they decided to bring every quarian home for the war on the geth. Instead of, you know, making sure the cramped ships aren't stuffed full of quarians to die. It was a dumb move for  the quarians and it would be an even dumber move for humanity. We fight or we die, those are the options.

 

 

But I do still believe it made Reapers' job much easier in concentrating all our forces in one location. The whole point of destroying the relay in the Arrival is to slow the Reapers down--which means that even they still need to worry about getting their assets into position, etc. They are vastly superior in firepower but not in space travel. If we all decided to run away to another galaxy, I doubt the Reapers could catch us.

 

You realize that if the relay wasn't destroyed the argument of 'job much easier in concentration of all our forces in one location' would be far more true since the reapers would had taken over the relay network from the citadel immediately after arrival and then isolated us all. Having our forces divided is exactly what the reapers want. We cannot fight them if all our fleets are disconnected and separated. United we are stronger. Not strong enough to conventionally win against the reapers but strong enough to make the reapers feel it. They've likely lost more reapers in this harvest than any others. Good, I say.

 

Also, you're wrong. The reapers are faster than we are. We don't even have the technology to go to another galaxy, we rely on the relays and the technology left behind by the reapers. We evolved according to their plans, yadda yadda.

 

"The Reapers' thrusters and FTL drives appear to propel them at more than twice the speed of Citadel ships. Estimates of their location in dark space suggest they can travel nearly 30 light-years in a 24-hour period. This equates Reaper FTL capabilities to around 10,958 times the speed of light.

 

In comparison, by 2165, human starships are known to be capable of traveling at least fifty times faster the speed of light (14,989,622,900 meters per second)."

 

10,958 times the speed of light vs humanities 50. Yeah... Lol.

 

 

Possible option, well more said is 100% option for that, since Keepers keep Citadel in pieces.

 

Just think of all the dead kids the citadel never find (Thane's loyalty mission).

[nukembaby]

Yeah, I kinda wondered about that too. Why didn't the reapers just blow the crucible away while it was traveling, but Hackett did have Shield fleet protecting the crucible until it docked, and once it docked, maybe the reapers didn't want to chance destroying it. 

Good question. The reapers obviously have the firepower to destroy the crucible no matter how many ships were guarding it. My guess is that it was always the Starchild's plan to have Shepard survive and get to the Citadel. Why? Because in order to end the perpetual cycle, organic life must make the final decision for themselves. In all previous cycles, organic life never advanced far enough, but this time is different due to Shepard.