1395 réponses à ce sujet

[MrFob]

The Normandy hits the relay and then, during transit, is dumped into some unknown location. Unless it is dumped directly into a system, within the gravity well of the planet they end up on, hours if not days should have passed.
Now, the energy wave, magic glowing gas ball, whutevah, is traveling at the speed of light (assumed, I know). How is it possible for the effects of the energy wave to have already effected the ships crew, not to mention the local flora and fauna of the planet?
Had the Normandy flown via standard FTL (@12Ly per day) then even if the ship managed to get to Alpha Centauri, the wave would be 4.5 YEARS behind them. Using the Relay itself, the distance (assuming Arcturas Relay was the rally point at 36Ly distance) could be a maximum of 18Ly from either Relay, giving 18 years before the waves effect could come into play.
Time really flys when you're sitting there numb and shell shocked by the ending doesn't it.

Well, it looks like the speed of the wave depends on how far away we are from it.
 
Whether that makes more sense or less sense, I'll leave up to you.

[Addictress]

So basically I'm ready to admit that the Mass Effect series is majorly jacked up beyond all doubt in the plot consistency department.

That said, it still had an unquestionable impact on me as a gamer and it must have been a testament to the quality of storytelling and overall production and how we underestimate the power those things have to suspend all disbelief.

[MrFob]

Yep, I guess this holds true for almost all stories though. Every story I know has it's fridge logic. The bigger the franchise and the more ambitious and detailed the universe, the more you gonna get. That said, ME is an odd one in how it manages to contradict itself so often and still tell interesting stories despite the problems.

 

Oh by the way, here is another good one: The conduit itself! I just had a quick look through the thread and didn't find this point yet. I must have missed it or I am shocked.

'Cause the big question is, why the hell is the conduit on the presidium? Let's examine the timeline here: The protheans must have built the Citadel receiver of the conduit before the reaper attacked (afterwards, they didn't have access anymore and they had other problems). The reapers on the other hand, took over the Citadel, then held it for a couple of Centuries while wiping out the protheans in the rest of the galaxy. Now keep in mind, we are talking about the big space cuttlefish who built the entire relay network. So they saw a now mini relay on the presidium (they must have known that it wasn't just a statue) and never wondered what that thing was? Where it might lead? Who might have brought it there and why? And then, they left, leaving this unknown thing square in the middle of what is both, their main base of operations and the Achilles Heel of their entire scheme? I mean, at least clean up after you extinguished you last civilization and throw their left overs in the garbage.

Maybe they are even more incompetent then we already thought they were...

[Arisugawa]

Yep, I guess this holds true for almost all stories though. Every story I know has it's fridge logic. The bigger the franchise and the more ambitious and detailed the universe, the more you gonna get. That said, ME is an odd one in how it manages to contradict itself so often and still tell interesting stories despite the problems.

 

Oh by the way, here is another good one: The conduit itself! I just had a quick look through the thread and didn't find this point yet. I must have missed it or I am shocked.

'Cause the big question is, why the hell is the conduit on the presidium? Let's examine the timeline here: The protheans must have built the Citadel receiver of the conduit before the reaper attacked (afterwards, they didn't have access anymore and they had other problems). The reapers on the other hand, took over the Citadel, then held it for a couple of Centuries while wiping out the protheans in the rest of the galaxy. Now keep in mind, we are talking about the big space cuttlefish who built the entire relay network. So they saw a now mini relay on the presidium (they must have known that it wasn't just a statue) and never wondered what that thing was? Where it might lead? Who might have brought it there and why? And then, they left, leaving this unknown thing square in the middle of what is both, their main base of operations and the Achilles Heel of their entire scheme? I mean, at least clean up after you extinguished you last civilization and throw their left overs in the garbage.

Maybe they are even more incompetent then we already thought they were...

 

Considering the Relay Monument is only a receiver (the transmitter is on Ilos) and the line of transmission is only one-way, it's possible that it appears to be a statue until an active transmission is occurring. IIRC, no other Mass Relay in the game has a one-way connection, so to the eyes and perceptions of the huskified protheans and other species, they may not have sensed it as anything but metal without the active dark-energy emission of a typical relay. After all, no one in the current cycle was able to detect it as a Mass Relay either - and someone throughout the time since the asari occupation of the Citadel had to have the initiative to scan it.

 

Admittedly, this is all assumption, but I can rationalize this one away and not worry about it.

 

But you're absolutely correct - if it could be perceived as a functioning Mass Relay, that's a big problem.

[MrFob]

Yea but we are talking about the reapers here. They are the ones who supposedly built the entire relay network and the Protheans were just building a relaitvely low-tech prototype. And they couldn't detect it? Even if it is quantum shielded and couldn't be scanned until it receives something from Illos, wouldn't the reapers get suspicious at that fact alone? That's a stretch but let's run with it anyway: So the reapers see this prothean made "relay statue" on their nice Citadel, which they are cleaning and preparing and cleaning out for the next cycle (i.e. the Asari) to discover and they just think: "My, that looks nice, let's keep that while we throw out everything else."? Hm, I don't buy it.

[themikefest]

Kaidan will make a comment about a hum near the relay statue

[Arisugawa]

Yea but we are talking about the reapers here. They are the ones who supposedly built the entire relay network and the Protheans were just building a relaitvely low-tech prototype. And they couldn't detect it? Even if it is quantum shielded and couldn't be scanned until it receives something from Illos, wouldn't the reapers get suspicious at that fact alone? That's a stretch but let's run with it anyway: So the reapers see this prothean made "relay statue" on their nice Citadel, which they are cleaning and preparing and cleaning out for the next cycle (i.e. the Asari) to discover and they just think: "My, that looks nice, let's keep that while we throw out everything else."? Hm, I don't buy it.

 

To be fair, that would be the Keepers who probably reset the Citadel and not Reaper ground forces. The bigger question is whether or not the Keepers would do it and if so, when they would do it. Since the Keepers are supposed to be a big blind spot on the part of the Reapers, and the Prothean scientists DID alter things so the Reapers couldn't control the Keepers via the Citadel. It is possible the same scientists did something in that process to prevent the monument from being touched.

 

I can buy it: enough ambiguity and unknowns exist that I can work with it.

 

At least, I can buy it more than that idea that the Reapers completely missed Ilos. Bigger targets to scan there: beings in stasis, the power supply necessary to fuel the facility, the conduit mass relay transmitter (which, still, may not have been active at the time but whose presence alone should have brought the Reaper forces into to investigate whether forces were hiding there, etc.)

 

Admittedly, it does fit the Cycle of Destruction story that the Reapers never fully eradicate all advanced life in the galaxy despite their best efforts: the Crucible and the idea of it had to preserved for the next Cycle somehow and the idea that it was always preserved via Liara-style capsules or hidden Mars archives that were put in place before the war's end and always overlooked by the Reaper forces seems tenuous.

 

Still, I'd consider the idea that Ilos was spared a bigger problem in the lore than the fact that the Conduit receiver was left untouched after the war.

 

Again, it's all dependent upon

[MrFob]

Hm, for me it's the other way round. I can live with Illos because the reapers base their scouring of the galaxy on their assumption that the prothean's main seat of government on the Citadel would have records of all their colonies. If the protheans managed to completely erase Illos from their records (difficult I grant you but it was a secret facility to begin with), then the sheer size of the galaxy would have prevented them from  finding it.

There is nothing in the story that suggests that the reapers can or are willing to visit every solar system in the galaxy (keep in mind, only 1% of the stars are actually mapped by the current cycle, the actual amount is massive) and there is also nothing there to suggest that they could detect Illos from far away. So I'm good with that.

 

The conduit on the other hand is on the Citadel and since they assume (or even bet on the fact) that the next civilization will come here and make this their central hub, they would need to be careful to clean it thoroughly. Otherwise, Some prothean on the Citadel during the initial battle could just make a short audio recording to warn the next cycle and throw it somewhere. Just leaving it to the keepers and not caring would be just as incompetent as deliberately leaving the conduit in place in my mind. And it's not that they couldn't get there or see it either. The collector general and Grayson both demonstrate how easy it is for the reapers to see through the eyes of their thralls and interact with the world through them. It would have been the easiest thing in the world for them to control a bunch of protheans and make sure the station is clean before leaving.

 

And what themikefest said (although, granted, it may have been completely inert by the time the reapers were there, the humming may only have started after the protheans from Illos actually used it after the reapers were gone).

[Dantriges]

I assumed that the relay monument was somewhere in a remote part of the Citadel when the Reapers appeared and they overlooked it. Perhaps the Keepers left it alone because of reaper tech inside. The protheans who used it, then put it on the presidium in plain sight.

[Arisugawa]

Hm, for me it's the other way round. I can live with Illos because the reapers base their scouring of the galaxy on their assumption that the prothean's main seat of government on the Citadel would have records of all their colonies. If the protheans managed to completely erase Illos from their records (difficult I grant you but it was a secret facility to begin with), then the sheer size of the galaxy would have prevented them from  finding it.

There is nothing in the story that suggests that the reapers can or are willing to visit every solar system in the galaxy (keep in mind, only 1% of the stars are actually mapped by the current cycle, the actual amount is massive) and there is also nothing there to suggest that they could detect Illos from far away. So I'm good with that.

 

Yeah, and that part is difficult for me to accept.

 

If the Protheans were the imperialists that Javik indicates they were, they had complete control of the Citadel and they considered it the seat of the government. Even if it was a secret facility, I'd think some mention of it would have been in government records on the Citadel before the time of the invasion and thus the Reapers would have had access to them when they took control of the station. I don't imagine Ilos would have been able to erase its existence quick enough to prevent records from the Citadel from being utilized.

 

Again, that's just my opinion.

[Han Shot First]

I haven't re-read this thread, so I forget if this has already been mentioned....

 

The Conduit never made sense.

 

Bioware seems to have forgotten its own lore on how the mass effect relays worked. They don't create wormholes. Instead they work by reducing the mass of ships, enabling them to be sling-shotted at speeds many times the speed of light. Shepard should have been able to sit back and laugh while Saren and his Geth were propelled at relativistic speeds into the hull of the Citadel. The Conduit should have killed anyone using it.

[MrFob]

I haven't re-read this thread, so I forget if this has already been mentioned....

 

The Conduit never made sense.

 

Bioware seems to have forgotten its own lore on how the mass effect relays worked. They don't create wormholes. Instead they work by reducing the mass of ships, enabling them to be sling-shotted at speeds many times the speed of light. Shepard should have been able to sit back and laugh while Saren and his Geth were propelled at relativistic speeds into the hull of the Citadel. The Conduit should have killed anyone using it.

 

Actually, what you are describing is the standard FTL travel that ships use on their own. Mass Relays seem to work a bit different from that. Here is what the codex says:

"Mass relays are feats of Prothean engineering advanced far beyond the technology of any living species. They are enormous structures scattered throughout the stars, and can create corridors of virtually mass-free space allowing instantaneous transit between locations separated by years or even centuries of travel using conventional FTL drives."

 

From that, we learn two important facts:

- Mass relays create corridors of mass free space that allow instantaneous transport from point A to B

- None of the current races have that level of technology or understand exactly how the relays work

 

So ultimately, from a writers perspective, the relays are black boxes that can do whatever the writer needs them to do and who knows, crossing a wall without mass might just be possible (I assume in normal space, there is also a chance that there are solid objects in the path between relays, that doesn't seem to be a problem either.

 

What is a bit weird is that it is established in the beginning of ME1 that normal relays produce a drift of several hundred "k" (which I assume means kilometer). So the MAKO should have been drifting in space rather then land on the presidium. However, maybe the protheans overcame that issue (rather unlikely since this was their first attempt at building one but I guess it's possible).

[Invisible Man]

 

What is a bit weird is that it is established in the beginning of ME1 that normal relays produce a drift of several hundred "k" (which I assume means kilometer). So the MAKO should have been drifting in space rather then land on the presidium. However, maybe the protheans overcame that issue (rather unlikely since this was their first attempt at building one but I guess it's possible).

 

i think the drifting in relay transportation is an intentional mechanism installed by the reapers (an assumption on my part i admit), if the protheans successfully dissected relay travel it's possible they could counter act it, not bloody likely, but it's all i got.

 

ps i'm half asleep, forgive any errors spelling, lore, etc. 

[CYRAX470]

Never really understood why Harbinger didn't make absolutely sure Shepard was dead, and blow up the Normandy while it was in plain view. There was no reason why the run to the conduit succeeded. He was blowing up everything in sight, how is it that Shepard survived a nearly point blank blast from a beam throwing molten materials at a fraction of the speed of light?

[sH0tgUn jUliA]

Never really understood why Harbinger didn't make absolutely sure Shepard was dead, and blow up the Normandy while it was in plain view. There was no reason why the run to the conduit succeeded. He was blowing up everything in sight, how is it that Shepard survived a nearly point blank blast from a beam throwing molten materials at a fraction of the speed of light?

 

Harbinger was using its lasers, not its main gun. If it had used the molten metal at the fraction of the speed of light, there would have been a crater after the first shot. The Rannoch Reaper on the other hand was the main gun. And yet Shepard didn't even suffer a sunburn.

[CYRAX470]

Alright, even if it's not the main gun. The weapon he's using is still incredibly effective, vaporizing anything it touches. Also capable of firing multiple blasts at numerous targets. Yet, after just grazing Shepard, (I don't think he'd live if the blast was that close anyway), why in the world does he fly off while Shepard is getting up? No way I can believe that a machine as sophisticated as Harbinger couldn't pick up Shepard's life force or whatever. Then there's still the whole thing with the Normandy just being let go. He had a clear shot, kill them, isn't that what you're here for? 

[Arisugawa]

Alright, even if it's not the main gun. The weapon he's using is still incredibly effective, vaporizing anything it touches. Also capable of firing multiple blasts at numerous targets. Yet, after just grazing Shepard, (I don't think he'd live if the blast was that close anyway), why in the world does he fly off while Shepard is getting up? No way I can believe that a machine as sophisticated as Harbinger couldn't pick up Shepard's life force or whatever. Then there's still the whole thing with the Normandy just being let go. He had a clear shot, kill them, isn't that what you're here for? 

 

The accepted explanation is that the Normandy's Reaper IFF essentially masked it from Harbinger's perception.

 

A lot of fans don't accept this, and feel that Harbinger would actually be looking at the battlefield. I'm less critical of it - I can accept a machine intelligence simply deciding to blast away at anything moving close to the beam that didn't register a friendly IFF signature without caring what the objects in front of it looked like.

[CYRAX470]

I.....I don't buy that one either. He was right there, he has to have a type of visual capability. Just doesn't work. A being as advanced as that, letting something slip despite being able to see it?Nah.

[themikefest]

The biggest problem is that Coates and a female voice are heard saying retreat, regroup after Harbinger flies away. Did no one see the reaper fly away? That would be the perfect time to run to the beam. The other thing is Anderson doesn't get on the comms to tell them to disregard that order and run to the beam. His comms were working fine when talking with Shepard on the Citadel. So why didn't he say anything?

 

If Harbinger didn't see the Normandy, then the destroyer would not of seen it. So why didn't the Normandy fly to the beam in the first place instead of having the beam run?

 

Of course if the Normandy can't be detected by the reapers, then why have all the fleets head to Earth? Just have the Normandy head to Earth by itself, and drop off Shepard at the beam.  Hackett is informed and sends the fleets as well as the Crucible to Earth. How about that. I just saved a lot of lives.

[CYRAX470]

I made a thread on this, which probably wasn't a good idea, given the nature of my question. It can easily just be posted here.

If a weapon or vehicle has a M designation, that means it's used by/made for humans right?

Because the Mako has an M designation, and thats an Alliance vehicle. While the M-8 Avenger is made by the Volus, and wide spread throughout the galaxy.

[MrFob]

We've got no idea what the letters and numbers stand for (at least not that I know of). Might be any number of things.

 

I just googled a random letter-number combination (AL-50). I got results for:

- Skate Shoes

- A 1/2 HP Sand Filter & Pump Kit

- A support ring mount in the field of building technology by Siemens

- An ultra sonic unit

- A Standard Duty Entrance/Office lever lock

 

And that was just page 1 of the search results. I don't think using designations for multiple purposes is a problem.

[Invisible Man]

i thought the m-7 & m-8 were human designed weapons, with the m-8 being licensed to EC? or do i have that wrong?

[KrrKs]

My headcanon says the M-designation is just the alliance inventory number for that equipment type.

It has evidently nothing to do with alliance-based manufacturing as even the Turian (ERC) Vindicator got an M-number.

[Iakus]

The biggest problem is that Coates and a female voice are heard saying retreat, regroup after Harbinger flies away. Did no one see the reaper fly away? That would be the perfect time to run to the beam. The other thing is Anderson doesn't get on the comms to tell them to disregard that order and run to the beam. His comms were working fine when talking with Shepard on the Citadel. So why didn't he say anything?

 

If Harbinger didn't see the Normandy, then the destroyer would not of seen it. So why didn't the Normandy fly to the beam in the first place instead of having the beam run?

 

Of course if the Normandy can't be detected by the reapers, then why have all the fleets head to Earth? Just have the Normandy head to Earth by itself, and drop off Shepard at the beam.  Hackett is informed and sends the fleets as well as the Crucible to Earth. How about that. I just saved a lot of lives.

Of course they missed seeing the two kilometer long cuttlefish flying off!  /sarcasm

[CYRAX470]

My headcanon says the M-designation is just the alliance inventory number for that equipment type.
It has evidently nothing to do with alliance-based manufacturing as even the Turian (ERC) Vindicator got an M-number.

They probably should have done something to really point out the difference between human and alien weapons, aside from bios. I like how in Halo, the UNSC issues names to Covenant weaponry. Like "Type-46 directed energy launcher" or whatever.