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[Vazgen]

 

I thought the Citadel was a giant mass relay. That it was larger than normal mass relays. Things that make you say "ass pull." Or is it "plot hole." But now suddenly it's smaller than the mass relays. It had to be giant so that all those thousands of reapers could pour through and conquer the galaxy.

 

 

This question is like asking this: At the exact center of the Earth there is over 3 million atmospheres. In space there is a vacuum. If you built a pipe to outer space, and were successful in drilling a hole connecting pipe made out of some special material that wouldn't melt to the exact center of the Earth what would happen?

 

Seriously, I think that the Citadel got moved by the reapers using their new Space Magic ^TM drive that Mac Walters gave them after they decided to make our choices matter with "Arrival." Reapers don't need mass relays anymore.

The size is irrelevant with mass effect technology. When opened Citadel is 44.7 kilometers long and 12.8 kilometers in diameter (not sure what that means, when open the Citadel has a star shape. What is the length of that shape?). Relays have 15 kilometer-long arms. 

What relay does is that it greatly lowers the object weight and sends it via the corridor to another relay. It can be a small asteroid or a huge station or even a fleet.

[sH0tgUn jUliA]

 

 

The size is irrelevant with mass effect technology. When opened Citadel is 44.7 kilometers long and 12.8 kilometers in diameter (not sure what that means, when open the Citadel has a star shape. What is the length of that shape?). Relays have 15 kilometer-long arms. 

What relay does is that it greatly lowers the object weight and sends it via the corridor to another relay. It can be a small asteroid or a huge station or even a fleet.

 

 

Tell that to the former residents of Aratoht. Oh that's right. You can't.

 

Two weeks for a fleet the size of the Migrant Fleet except for the Battle for Earth due to Rule of Cool > Lore.

 

The fact of the matter is that the Citadel's presence over Earth was necessary for the Battle for Earth and how it got there was one of those things that wasn't thought out because "the reapers moved the Citadel to Earth" was accepted without question due to plot. No one thought about it. The reapers attached thick cable to the thing and towed it. It took hundreds of reapers to move the thing. We don't see an engine or thrusters on the Citadel anywhere so it really can't move on its own power. Or you say "Mass Effect Fields." Otherwise known as Space Magic. That's how it got to Earth: Space Magic. Enough organics were slain to feed the arch demon that resided in its tower so that it could unleash this awesome power and move to Earth. The Illusive Man performed the summoning ritual. And the harvesting of our species was nearly complete.

[Vazgen]

Tell that to the former residents of Aratoht. Oh that's right. You can't.

 

Two weeks for a fleet the size of the Migrant Fleet except for the Battle for Earth due to Rule of Cool > Lore.

 

The fact of the matter is that the Citadel's presence over Earth was necessary for the Battle for Earth and how it got there was one of those things that wasn't thought out because "the reapers moved the Citadel to Earth" was accepted without question due to plot. No one thought about it. The reapers attached thick cable to the thing and towed it. It took hundreds of reapers to move the thing. We don't see an engine or thrusters on the Citadel anywhere so it really can't move on its own power. Or you say "Mass Effect Fields." Otherwise known as Space Magic. That's how it got to Earth: Space Magic. Enough organics were slain to feed the arch demon that resided in its tower so that it could unleash this awesome power and move to Earth. The Illusive Man performed the summoning ritual. And the harvesting of our species was nearly complete.

What does Aratoht have to do with that? The asteroid was deliberately set on collision curse, nobody tried to make it transfer via relay. Notice how in cutscene the relay tries to send it somewhere but due to unknown weight it just collides.

Battle of the Citadel - all the geth fleet, Sovereign, Alliance fleets. They passed pretty easily. 

Moving the Citadel to Earth - to carry it out with them harvesting species one by one without allowing the galaxy to dock the Crucible. Citadel has the Reaper-building facility it seems. 

Eezo is basically space magic, but it's a part of the universe. If you were fine with it till ME3, there is no reason why you would call it out now.

[sH0tgUn jUliA]

Asteroid - Rule of Cool again. Would the reapers not in their advanced tech, have a means of measuring mass built into the relays? I guess they overlooked that one  in their safety protocols. Besides, if we only knew how much of an ass pull that entire DLC was regarding getting that asteroid moving to the relay actually was, it could not have been done manually. Those thrusters had to be precision fired, and to move something that size would have required enormous power. This was something that really needed to be followed up on in the story, but wasn't - the alliance had to have funded the project and hung Shepard out to dry because (s)he was with Cerberus and a convenient patsy. Stopping the reapers? No, the project was about blowing up a relay. But then they discovered the GoPro camera. The whole thing was Rule of Cool. And that "altar" out by the communications tower that they'd set up where Harbinger appeared. It was just weird, but only Shepard saw it. So visions. Shepard was some crazy mad prophet who had visions and saved the galaxy! They even formed a religion worshiping The Shepard.

 

Quarians need two weeks to transit their fleet through a relay. That's in the codex. Yet their fleet and the rest of the fleets just pop through the Sol relay instantaneously for the Battle for Earth. That's BS. It's Rule of Cool.

 

BTW, that was ONLY the Alliance Fifth Fleet. It wasn't the entire Alliance Fleet. That was only part of the Geth Heretic Fleet. Sovereign arrived later.

[ImaginaryMatter]

What does Aratoht have to do with that? The asteroid was deliberately set on collision curse, nobody tried to make it transfer via relay. Notice how in cutscene the relay tries to send it somewhere but due to unknown weight it just collides.

Battle of the Citadel - all the geth fleet, Sovereign, Alliance fleets. They passed pretty easily. 

Moving the Citadel to Earth - to carry it out with them harvesting species one by one without allowing the galaxy to dock the Crucible. Citadel has the Reaper-building facility it seems. 

Eezo is basically space magic, but it's a part of the universe. If you were fine with it till ME3, there is no reason why you would call it out now.

 

The other cutscenes weren't exactly right either. The larger the mass of the transported object the more variance there is the arrival destination. Fleets already encounter this problem when sending a few ships over at the same time. Now imagine the mass of something as large as the Citadel moving through a Relay. Then there's all the questions about how the Citadel moved from wherever it popped out of the Ralay transit to Earth, does the Citadel have engines? Is it towed? Does it have space bending powers?

 

The problem is that the story doesn't adhere to it's own lore. There's established lore that then gets ignored. Some can be forgiven for artistic license but push too much and the story starts to strain credibility. Then there's even more problems with common sense. If the Reapers wanted to prevent the Crucible docking why didn't they turn off the beam or shut down the Relay network? Why didn't they just shoot the Crucible down when it appeared? In battles that rely on mobility something as big and slow as the Crucible would get chewed up (you can't really protect something in space combat unless you blow up the attackers, as shown for Thessia and Palaven). That's not to say there are passable or even good answers to these questions, they're just ones the story can't even bother to answer. It's not like ME3 alone is guilty of this, but the end of the story does have an abnormally large concentration of such plot holes. And instead of enjoying the story players are left asking basic questions about logic and sequence of events.

[Vazgen]

Quoting codex "it can take days for the entire fleet to pass through a mass relay". Where did you get two weeks?

Also, consider that the fleet's strength was greatly reduced due to the war with the geth. It is also quite possible that we don't see the entirety of the allied fleets in the cutscene. Those are the front row, the other ships arrive from behind them forming a constant influx of reinforcements. Just like the Battle of the Citadel didn't take place with 10-15 ships so is the Battle for Earth.

There was a lot of Rule of Cool in the games and a quite a few lore and common sense inconsistencies (like Shepard's resurrection). That doesn't mean the trilogy is a senseless mess only holding together due to the players willing to overlook those issues. 

[Reorte]

Moving a fleet (should) take days because you can't move all of the ships at once. It doesn't necessarily mean that there's an upper limit on the mass that can be moved by a relay, or that something with an eezo can't use its own eezo to help. Nothing is said either way about the whole business so I don't see a fundamental issue with moving the Citadel using the relays, except that there would be a huge margin of error on its final position (although the Reapers may have finer control).

[Valmar]

Based on what we know about the relays, they need the ship pilot to tell them the weight of the ship. They don't have the pilot to give them that information and, frankly, I don't think they can open a corridor with a moving end

 

Do they, though? Shepard drove a mako through one. Saren, apparently, went in on foot with a bunch of geth troops. In ME3 Shepard walked through through the beam and was instantly teleported. Not the same as a relay, no, but I'm sure it uses similar magic technology.

[Vazgen]

Do they, though? Shepard drove a mako through one. Saren, apparently, went in on foot with a bunch of geth troops. In ME3 Shepard walked through through the beam and was instantly teleported. Not the same as a relay, no, but I'm sure it uses similar magic technology.

1st is a prothean relay, 2nd is not even a relay  

[Valmar]

It's still a relay. If anything the fact that a PROTHEAN relay could manage it then a REAPER one certainly should be able to, no?

[Vazgen]

It's still a relay. If anything the fact that a PROTHEAN relay could manage it then a REAPER one certainly should be able to, no?

Perhaps mass requirement is for the large bodies then? Small mass is moved automatically?

[sH0tgUn jUliA]

Days, weeks, it's relative. Still it isn't instantaneous. like transporting thousands of ships in one fell swoop like we saw at the end for Rule of Cool.

 

Just face it. The story was flawed and full of ass pulls. Don't make me go to the rescue scene at the beam.

[Vazgen]

Days, weeks, it's relative. Still it isn't instantaneous. like transporting thousands of ships in one fell swoop like we saw at the end for Rule of Cool.

 

Just face it. The story was flawed and full of ass pulls. Don't make me go to the rescue scene at the beam.

Uhm, did you read my post? Seems so, unless you stopped at the first sentence. Read it again, especially the last sentence (as well as the sentences 5 and 6, for a possible explanation other than the Rule of Cool). 

The whole trilogy is flawed and full of ass pulls. Does it make it less enjoyable for me? Not at all, especially since about 80-90% of those "ass pulls" and flaws can be explained via headcanon, which I tend to use quite a lot when playing games.

[Larry-3]

Do we know if there is a limit on how much mass a Relay can parallel?

[Valmar]

Do we know if there is a limit on how much mass a Relay can parallel?

 

I don't believe so. The largest thing we know of that it has transported is the Citadel. Which is bloody huge. That doesn't mean it can transport things larger than that but... it does tell us that the limit is very high, if there indeed is one.

[MegaIllusiveMan]

Do they, though? Shepard drove a mako through one. Saren, apparently, went in on foot with a bunch of geth troops. In ME3 Shepard walked through through the beam and was instantly teleported. Not the same as a relay, no, but I'm sure it uses similar magic technology.

 

Wait, but what about the First Prothean Scientist that did go through and found no way of returning? And also, I thought that Because Saren's Reaper Implants... Now, about the Geth...

[Valmar]

Regardless of their ability to return they were able to go through it without any indication that they used a ship - though that doesn't mean they didn't. Perhaps it was only a one-way path. Kinda makes sense, you wouldn't want a public doorway that leads straight into your top secret research facility. On the other hand having a quick way to go from the facility to the housing of your government power could be useful.

 

The reaper implants could have had something to do with it. Honestly the lore seems a bit inconsistent with these things. When the Normandy took the Omega 4 relay the power it was surging through the ship seemed like it was about to make the drive core explode. Yet a person can be transported without any noticeable side-effects.

 

Also, in all fairness, we never do see anyone using a relay on foot. Though I do believe it is implied (Saren, the prothean researchers). The ME3 beam that sends Shepard to the citadel also seems to add credibility to this possibility, imo, even if it isn't a relay.

[The Devlish Redhead]

Well don't they land on the  Citadel in the Mako in ME 1 having used a relay from Ilos to get the Mako to land in the Presidium?

 

That's not quite traveling on foot but it's not a spaceship either.

[Valmar]

Yes, Shepard uses a mako.  We're given no indication that Saren, his geth troops or the protheans used a shuttle, though. They seemingly just went through it on foot.

[KrrKs]

Some rather random notes from me:

 

-Comparing the Alpha relay incident to a ship (or the Citadel) using a relay is likely not valid.

 When a ship initiates a relay jump (I don't believe that the ship's weight needs to be transmitted to the Relay, btw), it already flies along the 'jump-vector' (in parallel to the Relay) before the Relay actually does anything. I understand Nihlus remark to Joker in ME1 in that way, that this vector influences the jump endpoint.

 

The Asteroid in 'Arrival' was flying nearly perpendicular towards the relay, and thus could not be send away.

 

-The Citadel definitively has atleast some sort of thrusters, to maintain a constant angular momentum (inside a 'dust' cloud, which hampers movement).

Considering how little seems to be actually known about the station, I'd say it is likely that the Citadel has either full sized engines somewhere or

(my favourite) it used a massive Eezo core (from which we know that every Reaper and Relay has those) to lower it's own mass and subsequently utilized its thrusters to reach a minimal velocity (and direction) to be transmitted by the relay. (<- Similar to DS9 in 'Emissary' pt2)

 

-Saren: When comparing the few troops we seen him with, when entering the tunnels and the massive force in the tunnels and on the citadel (together with equipment like dragons teeth). (Also; we don't know how long his ships have been there, but it must have been long enough to transport this sizeable force to the Conduit and find out how to activate it)

I'd say he used (several) 'transporters' of some sort (most likely shuttles).

[Vazgen]

Transmitting the weight comes from ME1

"The Arcturus Prime relay is in range. Initiating transmission sequence."

"We are connected. Calculating transit mass and destination"

"The relay is hot. Acquiring approach vector"

"All stations secure for transit"

 

The relay aligns itself with the destination relay and creates a corridor. Approach vector ensures that you get into that corridor. Mass is required to adjust relay's mass effect fields to lower the weight of the transmitted object. 

[sH0tgUn jUliA]

Yes, Saren went through on foot. Now the velocity with which the mako went through.... I would expect that Saren and the Geth would have been splattered against the walls.... Don't think SJ. Don't think anymore.

[SporkFu]

I've said it before. Relays are like Portals: Speedy thing goes in, speedy thing comes out.... or, you exit the relay at the same speed you entered it. 

[ImaginaryMatter]

Yes, Saren went through on foot. Now the velocity with which the mako went through.... I would expect that Saren and the Geth would have been splattered against the walls.... Don't think SJ. Don't think anymore.

 

You exit at the same velocity you went in. The Mako was booking it in the cutscene. I think the biggest worry Saren and company had to deal with was accidently landing in the water.

[Kabooooom]

I agree with that completely, though that isn't what I was suggesting. I meant do you suppose an active relay can move ITSELF using its own... relay. A ship doesn't need another ship to go into FTL because it has a drive core. A relay might not need another relay because it has its own relay. You know?

This doesn't make sense. Doing that would destroy the column of mass free space between a relay and its partner, and the relay would cease to function as a relay. Remember, a relay is essentially exactly the same tech as an FTL drive. The only difference is you have connected TWO to create the corridor of mass free space rather than a bubble around a spacecraft. A relay will not work without its partner, or in the case of secondary relays, multiple partners.