347 réponses à ce sujet

[ElitePinecone]

It doesn't seem credible that the project could have been kept completely secret for 2 years. From Shepard, the broker / T'Soni and especially from Cerberus.

 

I think the series has already given many of those characters pretty absurd powers of "finding secret stuff", though. I mean, in real life and in human history nobody (and no organisation) has been that effective at finding things out as easily and in as much detail as people regularly do in fictional movies and games. The game would never accurately depict intelligence gathering or analysis because it takes months and months, and often analysts are just estimating what they're seeing regardless. 

 

That might mean that secrets are hard to keep according to ME lore, but I think it would be entirely possible to keep an ark program secret if the setting were more plausible and if the three or four overpowered shadowy people weren't able to magically conjure information and sources. There are certainly analogous situations from human history where governments managed to keep huge secrets almost perfectly, like the Manhattan Project or the US Air Force's experimental plane programs in the Cold War. At some point if private individuals, a black market information network and a terrorist organisation are so good at intel gathering that they can outsmart government agencies to discover their most secret plans, it begins to feel a bit contrived and unrealistic. 

 

If it comes down to it that the plot requires the ark to be secret from 2183 onwards, I don't think it's too implausible to have a character in ME: N mention that "the whole project was built in secret in a Council race shipyard that wasn't on the map, and nobody left the base for three years, we got resources shipped in by drone transports taking randomised routes", or whatever else needs to be said for it to work. Emphasising the secrecy of the project through the writing can counteract the other writing in the series which tells us how good Liara/TIM/the Shadow Broker are at finding stuff.

[Drone223]

Try not to represent your fanfic as fact.

Pointing out the lack of evidence to support the fact the reaper's are capable of intergalactic travel is hardly a fanfic.

[Han Shot First]

The tantalus drive is turian the first Normandy had one as well and the thanix canon is the exception not the norm. There have been many attempts to research reaper tech and in one way or another the people ended up indoctrinated, researching things such as reaper drive core will only end in the people being indoctrinated.  

 

Not necessarily. Reaper parts were used in construction of the Crucible for example, and we know Thanix weapons were created by the Turians after studying salvage from the wreckage of Sovereign. EDI was created in part from Reaper code and the Geth potentially get upgraded with it as well. In Leviathan we also see part of Sovereign in Bryson's lab. Like the Leviathan artifacts, people were safe from indoctrination around it so long as it was shielded.

 

Also recovery and study of rech salvaged from destroyed Reapers could be done safely with robots. There is no need for humans or other organics to come into direct contact with it.

 

There is no reason why an ark ship couldn't include technology derived from the tech used by the Reapers.

 

 

 

Drone223, on 24 Apr 2015 - 06:09 AM, said:

As far as the lore goes there's no proof that they're capable of intergalactic travel, surely the catalyst would've brought it up that there carried out harvesting in other galaxies

 

That is incorrect actually. I would have preferred the Reapers remained trapped in dark space without the use of mass effect relays, but Bioware introduced new lore in ME3 that gave them ability to travel to the Milky Way without it. That reveal in the codex also gave them the ability to reach Andromeda, whether or not they chose to go there. According to the codex entry on Reaper capabilities in ME3, the Reapers can travel  up to 30 light years per day without needing to refuel or discharge their drives. That would mean they could reach Andromeda in a little over 200 years from the Milky Way, which is no insurmountable obstacle for entities that are practically immortal.

 

If the next game reveals that the Reapers never visited Andromeda it will only because those chose not to, for whatever reason. Because the ME3 codex entry on them does give them the ability  of reaching it.

[Drone223]

*snip*

Except Bryson was studying a very tiny fragment from something 2km long, that's nothing compared to a reaper drive core which the codex states more complex than regular drive core's used by the galaxy (and the thanix cannon for that matter). There is also the fact that some people are superstitious about anything using derived directly from the reaper's the ladon is a good example so convincing people that its self is going to be a issue. Before studying reaper technology it has to be found first and its possible for the reaper's to know when their technology is being experimented on horizon is a good example.

 

As for the FTL thing it does raise the question. In billions of years of harvesting the reaper's could only achieve a FTL speed of 30 light years per day, why haven't they come up with a more efficient system?

[Farangbaa]

http://forum.bioware...kes-warp-field/

Who needs eezo?

[Sion1138]

...

 

If it comes down to it that the plot requires the ark to be secret from 2183 onwards, I don't think it's too implausible to have a character in ME: N mention that "the whole project was built in secret in a Council race shipyard that wasn't on the map, and nobody left the base for three years, we got resources shipped in by drone transports taking randomised routes", or whatever else needs to be said for it to work. Emphasising the secrecy of the project through the writing can counteract the other writing in the series which tells us how good Liara/TIM/the Shadow Broker are at finding stuff.

 

That's the problem though. It's inconsistent given the way things work in Mass Effect.

 

Remember Virmire, Okeer, Sanctuary and so on. All manner of 'top secret' projects were eventually found out.

 

I do hope they have managed to find another way. Top secret is a cheap tactic.

[Han Shot First]

That's the problem though. It's inconsistent given the way things work in Mass Effect.

 

Remember Virmire, Okeer, Sanctuary and so on. All manner of 'top secret' projects were eventually found out.

 

I do hope they have managed to find another way. Top secret is a cheap tactic.

 

That all secrets end up being discovered by someone is actually more unrealistic than the reverse. All intelligence agencies are always in the dark about something. And within each government there are people who are in the dark about some of what their own government is up to.

 

There is nothing implausible about an ark project remaining secret from Shepard, Cerberus, or either of the two Shadow Brokers. 

 

I understand that some people aren't too fond of the Ark Theory, and I get that. Tastes on what makes a good story are subjective. But the objections raised against it as being implausible are reaching a bit. I get the impression that people are looking for any reason to say why it shouldn't be the basis of the next game beyond just saying, "I don't like it."

 

 

 

 

Drone223, on 24 Apr 2015 - 5:47 PM, said:

Except Bryson was studying a very tiny fragment from something 2km long, that's nothing compared to a reaper drive core which the codex states more complex than regular drive core's used by the galaxy (and the thanix cannon for that matter). There is also the fact that some people are superstitious about anything using derived directly from the reaper's the ladon is a good example so convincing people that its self is going to be a issue. Before studying reaper technology it has to be found first and its possible for the reaper's to know when their technology is being experimented on horizon is a good example.

 

Large parts of a Reaper were used in the construction of the Crucible. In fact the 'Reaper heart' war asset is described as being the Reaper's drive core. An ark ship using a Reaper's drive core or technology derived from it would just be following the same path as the Crucible. It is something that has already happened in the lore.

 

 

 

Drone223, on 24 Apr 2015 - 5:47 PM, said:

 

As for the FTL thing it does raise the question. In billions of years of harvesting the reaper's could only achieve a FTL speed of 30 light years per day, why haven't they come up with a more efficient system?

 

30 light years per day is an incredible rate of speed. Technically though the Reapers did develop a method of travelling much faster than that with the relay system. Travel across the Milky Way is instantaneous so long as there are relays connecting the points the Reapers are travelling from and to. 

[themikefest]

Not necessarily. Reaper parts were used in construction of the Crucible for example, 

I agree

 

Wasn't the reaper heart/brain the only reaper tech added to the crucible? If so, the folks working on the project weren't exposed to it for very long since a short time later the crucible heads to Earth

[Han Shot First]

I agree

 

Wasn't the reaper heart/brain the only reaper tech added to the crucible? If so, the folks working on the project weren't exposed to it for very long since a short time later the crucible heads to Earth

 

I believe so. It has been awhile since I've played the game, but those are the only Crucible war assets I can recall that originated with the Reapers.

[dreamgazer]

Reaper Brain:
 

The Illusive Man salvaged the most valuable part of the human proto-Reaper under construction by the Collectors: its central processor. This "brain" has been reactivated for use as a computational device, crunching unheard amounts of data in nanoseconds. The Crucible's engineers are dissecting the processor, working in strictly supervised, drone-assisted shifts. While direct contact with Reapers is dangerous, the engineers feel the risk is worth the potential discovery of vulnerabilities in Reaper construction.

 

Reaper Heart:
 

After Commander Shepard destroyed the Collector base, Cerberus spent months picking through irradiated rubble for anything useful. The human proto-Reaper the Collectors were building lay in pieces. But its incomplete core survived. The power cell would have been capable of fueling a full-fledged Reaper. After studying the device, Cerberus modified it to fuel the Illusive Man's base. Alliance engineers believe they can use the core similarly to power the Crucible.

[Drone223]

That all secrets end up being discovered by someone is actually more unrealistic than the reverse. All intelligence agencies are always in the dark about something. And within each government there are people who are in the dark about some of what their own government is up to.

 

There is nothing implausible about an ark project remaining secret from Shepard, Cerberus, or either of the two Shadow Brokers. 

 

I understand that some people aren't too fond of the Ark Theory, and I get that. Tastes on what makes a good story are subjective. But the objections raised against it as being implausible are reaching a bit. I get the impression that people are looking for any reason to say why it shouldn't be the basis of the next game beyond just saying, "I don't like it."

 

The problem is that such a project would require resources on a scale similar to the crucible and by recruiting large numbers of scientist, engineers in addition to the number of people and resources to sustain a viable population there is no way that it'd go unnoticed. The only way for any project to go unnoticed by the shadow broker is that if the project is a small scale one requiring little in personal and resources to pull off but there is no feasible way for an ark project to be small scale given what would be required for it.

[Sion1138]

That all secrets end up being discovered by someone is actually more unrealistic than the reverse. All intelligence agencies are always in the dark about something. And within each government there are people who are in the dark about some of what their own government is up to.

 

There is nothing implausible about an ark project remaining secret from Shepard, Cerberus, or either of the two Shadow Brokers. 

 

I understand that some people aren't too fond of the Ark Theory, and I get that. Tastes on what makes a good story are subjective. But the objections raised against it as being implausible are reaching a bit. I get the impression that people are looking for any reason to say why it shouldn't be the basis of the next game beyond just saying, "I don't like it."

 

Again, I feel it's implausible in the context of how things work in Mass Effect. Relative to prior experience, not generally.

 

If it's a relatively small project, not comparable in scope to the Crucible, then it's absolutely acceptable.

[Han Shot First]

The problem is that such a project would require resources on a scale similar to the crucible and by recruiting large numbers of scientist, engineers in addition to the number of people and resources to sustain a viable population there is no way that it'd go unnoticed. The only way for any project to go unnoticed by the shadow broker is that if the project is a small scale one requiring little in personal and resources to pull off but there is no feasible way for an ark project to be small scale given what would be required for it.

 

An ark ship might not necessarily require resources on the scale of that required of the Crucible. That depends on how large the ship is. If it is a ship that houses millions than no doubt that would be a herculean task to construct. But what if it is only on the scale of dreadnought? A dreadnought could house thousands. They might not even have to build that ship from scratch. They could just repurpose an existing one or use a hulk currently under construction. Several carriers in the Second World War for example were originally intended to be battleships, but during construction had their hulls repurposed into carriers when it became clear that aircraft had rendered the battleship obsolete. 

 

It would also be quite possible for that to go entirely unnoticed, particularly when the Shadow Broker network is in part compromised due to the Reaper War. The Shadow Broker network was sustaining casualties as well.

[Drone223]

An ark ship might not necessarily require resources on the scale of that required of the Crucible. That depends on how large the ship is. If it is a ship that houses millions than no doubt that would be a herculean task to construct. But what if it is only on the scale of dreadnought? A dreadnought could house thousands. They might not even have to build that ship from scratch. They could just repurpose an existing one or use a hulk currently under construction. Several carriers in the Second World War for example were originally intended to be battleships, but during construction had their hulls repurposed into carriers when it became clear that aircraft had rendered the battleship obsolete. 

 

It would also be quite possible for that to go entirely unnoticed, particularly when the Shadow Broker network is in part compromised due to the Reaper War. The Shadow Broker network was sustaining casualties as well.

Even the we're still talking about a project that require significant man power to pull off since most if not all engineers/scientist are already working on the crucible. You'd also have the get the resources needed to retrofit the ships for long distance travel and the resources to established a new colony to sustain thousands of people which will be rather reasonably costly then there's getting the ships necessary to make the journey since most if not all ships are already being retrofitted for the war effort. Then there's recruiting thousands of refugee's that are needed for the project, it'd still be noticeable and the risk of infiltration by indoctrinated agents is still be there and the shadow broker isn't the only one who's watching there's still the STG and cerberus and maybe the geth.

[Torgette]

An ark ship might not necessarily require resources on the scale of that required of the Crucible. That depends on how large the ship is. If it is a ship that houses millions than no doubt that would be a herculean task to construct. But what if it is only on the scale of dreadnought? A dreadnought could house thousands. They might not even have to build that ship from scratch. They could just repurpose an existing one or use a hulk currently under construction. Several carriers in the Second World War for example were originally intended to be battleships, but during construction had their hulls repurposed into carriers when it became clear that aircraft had rendered the battleship obsolete. 

 

It would also be quite possible for that to go entirely unnoticed, particularly when the Shadow Broker network is in part compromised due to the Reaper War. The Shadow Broker network was sustaining casualties as well.

 

No reason why it had to have been built by the council races, for all we know they simply found it or it was an abandoned secret Cerberus project in case things went south for them.

[Drone223]

No reason why it had to have been built by the council races, for all we know they simply found it or it was an abandoned secret Cerberus project in case things went south for them.

Probably not a good idea given the fan bases view of Cerberus, and if they just simply found one it'll just be contrived.

[ElitePinecone]

Even the we're still talking about a project that require significant man power to pull off since most if not all engineers/scientist are already working on the crucible. You'd also have the get the resources needed to retrofit the ships for long distance travel and the resources to established a new colony to sustain thousands of people which will be rather reasonably costly then there's getting the ships necessary to make the journey since most if not all ships are already being retrofitted for the war effort. Then there's recruiting thousands of refugee's that are needed for the project, it'd still be noticeable and the risk of infiltration by indoctrinated agents is still be there and the shadow broker isn't the only one who's watching there's still the STG and cerberus and maybe the geth.

 

How would it be noticeable, though? People have just pointed out to you that the project might not be anywhere near the scale of the Crucible. You keep saying that it would be, but... why? A single dreadnought could carry thousands of cryo pods all by itself, and the number of individuals required for repopulation is in the low hundreds per species. Why would it require scientists and engineers if they're just retrofitting an existing design?

 

Every species is probably building colony ships all the time for regular journeys to settle new planets. I mentioned above that the galaxy produced six new dreadnoughts in three years, as well as a bunch of smaller ships - carriers, cruisers, frigates - that we've never heard about, and that's not even considering the hundreds of thousands or millions of private and commercial ships that would be in existence. The galactic economy is damn well big enough to support the building of one large colony ship.

 

And if I'm not mistaken, one of the main theories about the Ark was that they'd start building it before 2186, when the Crucible wasn't even being built yet.

[Drone223]

How would it be noticeable, though? People have just pointed out to you that the project might not be anywhere near the scale of the Crucible. You keep saying that it would be, but... why? A single dreadnought could carry thousands of cryo pods all by itself, and the number of individuals required for repopulation is in the low hundreds per species. Why would it require scientists and engineers if they're just retrofitting an existing design?

Every species is probably building colony ships all the time for regular journeys to settle new planets. I mentioned above that the galaxy produced six new dreadnoughts in three years, as well as a bunch of smaller ships - carriers, cruisers, frigates - that we've never heard about, and that's not even considering the hundreds of thousands or millions of private and commercial ships that would be in existence. The galactic economy is damn well big enough to support the building of one large colony ship.

And if I'm not mistaken, one of the main theories about the Ark was that they'd start building it before 2186, when the Crucible wasn't even being built yet.

Your still underestimate the scale of such a project, building privite/commercial ships tend to be small scale projects because they don't need much resources, an ark on the other hand will be huge given what it needs to achieve. Even if it isn't as big as the crucible its going to be a sizable project that going to get noticed at some point. People would be suspicous thousands of cryo pods are brought even for one ship. Not to mention it'd may require more than one dreadnaought sized ship to carry the thousands of people of several different species and getting the nessasry resources to sustain the different biological needs of species such as volos and turian's.

[ElitePinecone]

Even if it isn't as big as the crucible its going to be a sizable project. People would be suspicous thousands of cryo pods are brought even for one ship. Not to mention it'd may require more than one dreadnaought sized ship to carry the thousands of people of several different species and getting the nessasry resources to sustain the different biological needs of species such as volos and turian's.

 

Who are these "people'? How would they be counting the number of cryo pods being sent to a shipyard? 

 

Hide the whole project in a military shipyard, bring the cryo pods in a few hundred at a time. Better yet, send cryo pods to multiple shipyards and install them in the ark over, say, a year. A ship in FTL can't be tracked and "people" would have no idea that it was visiting multiple shipyards.

 

It's entirely not as big of a deal as you're suggesting. How do you think real-life militaries on Earth hide projects that they're working on, and manage to keep them secret for years if not decades?

[Drone223]

Who are these "people'? How would they be counting the number of cryo pods being sent to a shipyard? 
 
Hide the whole project in a military shipyard, bring the cryo pods in a few hundred at a time. Better yet, send cryo pods to multiple shipyards and install them in the ark over, say, a year. A ship in FTL can't be tracked and "people" would have no idea that it was visiting multiple shipyards.
 
It's entirely not as big of a deal as you're suggesting. How do you think real-life militaries on Earth hide projects that they're working on, and manage to keep them secret for years if not decades?

There could be people who are part of said projects that are, shadow broker, Cerberus or STG agents who are all over the galaxy that can gain access to navigational data, supply manifests, com systems etc. The more personal and resources that are involved the more likely these sort of organizations may stumble upon the information. The risk of infiltration can be reduced but even that will be a challenge since it'll be like finding a needle in a haystack.

[ElitePinecone]

There could be people who are part of said projects that are, shadow broker, Cerberus or STG agents who are all over the galaxy that can gain access to navigational data, supply manifests, com systems etc. The more personal and resources that are involved the more likely these sort of organizations may stumble upon the information. The risk of infiltration can be reduced but even that will be a challenge since it'll be like finding a needle in a haystack.

 

Okay, but that's just regular espionage, and organisations (both corporate and military) deal with that all the time. Vetting and restrictions on communications are standard measures even in recent human history; I doubt that would be abandoned in this setting. 

 

Given the existence of projects in our history that were successfully concealed for years or decades, I hardly think it's inevitable that an ark would be discovered by either Cerberus or the Shadow Broker. There has to be a point where the omniscience of those organisations you're talking about becomes unrealistic and artificial. They do not know everything, they aren't all-powerful, and it should be possible to keep a secret from them if one tries hard enough. 

[Drone223]

Okay, but that's just regular espionage, and organisations (both corporate and military) deal with that all the time. Vetting and restrictions on communications are standard measures even in recent human history; I doubt that would be abandoned in this setting.

Given the existence of projects in our history that were successfully concealed for years or decades, I hardly think it's inevitable that an ark would be discovered by either Cerberus or the Shadow Broker. There has to be a point where the omniscience of those organisations you're talking about becomes unrealistic and artificial. They do not know everything, they aren't all-powerful, and it should be possible to keep a secret from them if one tries hard enough.

These sorts of groups aren't interested in the day to day activities of the average person, there interested in things that can shift political, military, technological and economic powers in the galaxy and affect the grand scheme of things. Things such as experimental drive cores, doomsday contenginces are bound to draw their interest. How good these sort of things can remain secret depends on who's in charge, how good they can do it and how few people are in involved.

It's hard to believe that an ark project can be done on a small scale since its going to have to do a lot of things right in order to be successful on it and therefore will require a significant amount of resources to do so. Utilamtely though it's all going to come down to how it's written and I find highly unlikely that Bioware can make it in a manner that is believable.

[Farangbaa]

It's not unthinkable, hell, even plausible that one of the following groups, or all of them, seperatly or together (though some would never work together, pick a combo that works ), started an Ark Ship program directly after ME1:

The Council.
The Salarians.
The Asari
The Shadow Broker, with Liara continuing the effort.
Cerberus.

Ark Ship does not have to unbelieveably massive in scope and size. It just has to house the minimal viable population of each (or one) species, which is remarkably lower than you'd expect. It's not thousands and thousand of individuals, more like hundreds, and with the already present abilities for genetic engineering present in the MEU, you could quite possibly even lower the number more. (think of: storing sperm and eggcells of all kinds of individuals, IVF on the ship. MOthers not the genetic mothers of the babies. You'd only need females on the ship and you wouldn't even need genetic engineering)

Not saying I want Ark Theory, not supporting the leak or whatever, but the reasons people are against an ark ship are becoming silly. Cerberus could do it, entirely on it's own with no one knowing about it.

Reasons for keeping it secret, aside from the Reapers finding out about it, should also be painfully obvious. Not everyone's going to fit in the ship. The less people that know, the better. The people working on it might even think it's just a regular ship with some cool neeto extra functions.

But, seriously, to make an Ark Ship work even with current day technology, you only need a bunch of females on the ship with knowledge of IVF and a storage of genetic material. Keep the population stable (only birth females) while it's travelling, when it arrives birth as many human beings as you can and you're done. You can make the population as low as you want on the ship, but the lower you make it the longer you'll need to establish a stable population on a new planet.

If you throw traditional pregnancy and stuff out of the window and start growing fetuses outside the uterus, you can have a bloody robot do the entire trip, find a safe planet, and have it build up humans from scratch. That would need a tiny ship, two or three robots (in case one breaks down so the others can fix it), a storage of genetic material (sperm and eggcells) and the tech to grow fetuses outside the uturus. That's it. I could probably fit that ship in my house.

p.s.

Salarians would just have to send a robot and enough eggs in cryogenic stasis.
Asari only a few Asari. There's no incest risks in Asari, they reproduce asexually.

[Drone223]

*snip*

Your not taking into consideration the resources needed to build the ship in the first place, having the resources to start a new colony and a means to defend it and that's just for one ship. You can't rely on one ship because if something wrong were to happen then the entire plan goes up in flames. Having multiple ships would increase the likelihood of success and those extra ships will require a decent amount of resources. There is no way this can be done on a small scale since too many things can go wrong and they'll need to get anything they can get to make it successful.

[Farangbaa]

Your not taking into consideration the resources needed to build the ship in the first place, having the resources to start a new colony and a means to defend it and that's just for one ship. You can't rely on one ship because if something wrong were to happen then the entire plan goes up in flames. Having multiple ships would increase the likelihood of success and those extra ships will require a decent amount of resources. There is no way this can be done on a small scale since too many things can go wrong and they'll need to get anything they can get to make it successful.

You could've just typed 'I don't want an Ark Ship, raaaaaaaaargghhhh'.

Because seriously, all that stuff you bring up are things to take into consideration when you're doing it for the exploring and discovery. If you're facing extinction by Mecha Space Cthulhu's, you're just going to send out the ship. In the easiest, fastest way possible.

So you build some robots (and curse the council for banning AI research, as you could really use a shackled AI), stuff genetic material and the means to bring that material to live on a ship and hope for the best.

btw, ex utero growing of humans is far less futuristic as it sounds. It's within our grasp.