38 replies to this topic

[SuperJogi]

I was talking about non-nuclear EMPs.

 

Yeah, my use of the term EMP above was slightly misleading (Added an edit to the above answer), but I thought we were still talking in the context of nuclear weapons.

 

Anyway, photons of higher wavelenghts then visible light, meaning microwaves and radiowaves, are usually blocked by a layer of highly conducting material (which will reflect it), usually in the form of a faraday cage.

 

Edit: Ninja'd

 

add that huge radiation armor we talked about in the other thread and you should be good, no?

 

Depends on the conductivity of the material used. But adding a small mesh of copper just in case would hardly be a problem.

[Vazgen]

Yeah, my use of the term EMP above was slightly misleading (Added an edit to the above answer), but I thought we were still talking in the context of nuclear weapons.

 

Anyway, photons of higher wavelenghts then visible light, meaning microwaves and radiowaves, are usually blocked by a layer of highly conducting material (which will reflect it), usually in the form of a faraday cage.

 

Edit: Ninja'd

So, I think we can take a guess at what the ships are made from - super dense and highly conductive material. That is, if they are indeed shielded against both gamma rays and non-nuclear EMPs

[Bayonet Hipshot]

This made me think. I always wondered how much charge you actually need to generate ME fields for different purposes.

The fact that a charged drive core in a ship can cook the entire crew alive suggests that you need a lot.

The fact that biotics seem to be able to move stuff around with the incredibly low electric potentials that exist within the nervous system implies that hardly any power is required.

Maybe the relationship between charge and field strength is exponential. Until now, I assumed the amp would somehow actually do all the hard work but that doesn't make sense either. It seems a requirement that eezo is present in your nervous system, which means that the amp can't really get a lot of charge to them without damaging the brain. If the amp itself is an ME field generator and biotics just know how to activate it, anyone should be able to become a biotic. Unless of course, it's a developmental thing, where - as an infant - you have to experience the minute ability to be able to affect an ME field with your mind. Even though, that field would not be strong enough to actually do anything useful with it, it generates a plasiticity effect in your brain, which allows you to control ME fields through amps later in your life.

But if the Asari can use biotics without amps (is that actually stated?), then that means that either there is something else going on or that Adari brains somehow work on way more electrical potential differences than humans.

 

The Asari were genetically modified by the Protheans when they were still in their primitive stages, remember ?

 

I believe Javik mentions that Protheans use biotics to brush their teeth which implies an extremely fine motor and sensory control as well as Biotic mastery since we saw in the Citadel DLC that Liara could not do what Traynor's toothbrush could. 

 

So I guess the Protheans worked their magic with the Asari. 

 

As for electricity, I believe you are mistaken with regards to how Biotics work. From my understanding, this is how Biotics work

1. The caster performs a particular movement or gesture that signals to the brain to fire neurons down a specific path to a group of Eezo nodules in the body.
2. Bio Amps synchronize the Eezo nodules to boost the power of the ability. The more Eezo Nodules you can synchronize, the more dark energy you can manipulate and create, hence more power.
3. The caster successfully cast this particular ability, releases some amount of static electricity and now their Bio Amps go on a cooldown.

So when you say electricity, you refer to static electricity which can either be redirected and are typically not strong enough to do significant damage if it comes from one person. What's more, the static electricity generated will be harmless unless if it comes into contact with something that is negatively charged which then allows the electrons to move, causing shock. I say this because many biotic abilities with the exception of something like Dominate and Flare, have low or reasonably average cooldowns. This means that they do not require a huge amount of energy and do not cause the body to release a huge amount of static electricity. 

 

As for why the consume lots of food, I believe that activating these Eezo nodules requires lots and lots of calories because you are essentially creating dark matter from tiny nodules in your body, you are transforming brain signals into dark matter. That will consume a lot of energy. The mental training is there to help improve a biotics' physical mnemonics and mental focus.  

 

So lore wise, a Biotic does not have to worry too much about electricity unless they are chain casting Flare and Dominate. 

[Vazgen]

Is firing neurons an electrical stimuli? Because the codex says, biotics works via the latter

Biotics manipulate mass effect fields using dozens of element zero nodules within their nervous system that react to electric stimuli from the brain.

[SuperJogi]

So, I think we can take a guess at what the ships are made from - super dense and highly conductive material. That is, if they are indeed shielded against both gamma rays and non-nuclear EMPs

 

Yes, a highly conductive, super dense material with a high atomic number, that is not radioactive itself, would be the ultimate radiation shield.

Note: Lead with a copper mesh is the best we can do right now.

[StarcloudSWG]

The Asari were genetically modified by the Protheans when they were still in their primitive stages, remember ?

 

 

Javik is also a notorious troll, and very likely he's constantly making jokes at the other crew's expense.

 

I have no doubt that the Protheans did tamper with Asari genetics to improve their ability to use biotics, but given how Thessia is *saturated* in Eezo, it is impossible to believe that the Asari did not have biotics before the Protheans arrived. Hell, Jack's varren was born on Thessia and IT can use biotics. The Protheans didn't meddle with Varren genes to do that. Hell, the Protheans are probably the ones responsible for *creating* the Ardat-Yakshi syndrome in their quest to improve the Asari's biotics.

 

That said, amps are biotic amplifiers. There's no reason that Asari couldn't use them to enhance their natural gifts.

[MrFob]

@Tishen-13: The "electrical signal" I was talking about has nothing to do with static electricity.

 

Simply put (and by that I mean very oversimplified) nerve cells (or neurons) work on changes in electrical potential between the inside of nerve cells vs. the outside (extracellular space). That is how signals in the brain work. By allowing different kinds of positive and negative ions to pass the cell membrane selectively.

Therefore, in the extracellular space in the brain, we can measure a change in potential of a local electrode vs. a reference electrode whenever lot's of neurons are active simultaneously, e.g. because of an external stimulus like touch or even an internal one like a thought, if you'd know what you were looking for (this is called a local field potential or LFP). That is how for example an EEG works. A number of electrodes a placed on the skull and pick up the changes of the electromagnetic field, resulting from multiple neurons firing at once and therefore creating a change in the local potential of these electrodes. You can measure a more precise potential when you place an electrode in the brain itself instead of on the skull.

Now, the codex tells us that ME fields are generated by changes in current through eezo (which I believe may actually mean charge, applied to the eezo, but whatever, both may ultimately work for this purpose). So if eezo were placed in the brain (and possibly elsewhere in the body near peripheral nerve cells), the changes in the local field potential could change the charge that is applied to the eezo and therefore an ME field could be created.

Now if you can train yourself to activate the neurons that are close to these "eezo nodules" specifically and simultaneously, you could increase the change in LFP and therefore the charge these nodules may receive. This would translate into mind controlling ME fields, read: biotics.

 

In this scenario, it also makes sense that Biofeedback learning with gestures and Mnemonics play a role in learning how to improve your biotics because ultimately, any kind of learning is just a process of training different neuron populations in your brain to adapt specific activity (or firing) patterns.

 

The problem is, the potentials that nerve cells generate are usually in the tens of millivolts and as these signals are attenuating quickly in extracellular space, LFPs are usually in the range of 0.1 to a few mV. These are incredibly small potentials to have such a massive effect as to cause a singularity. Even if a biotic amp stimulates your brain to synchronize a lot of neurons (which by the way should really mess with you and probably cause a seizure, but ok, neuroscience in 200 years may be further than that), you would need thousands of nodes to get just to 1 Volt. In other words, using eezo, you should be able to create a black hole with a potato battery.

 

That's why I am so astonished as to how efficient this stuff is.

[Bayonet Hipshot]

Mr Fob,

 

Interesting. I believe that Biotics are the way they are and their electrical charges does not cause any harm because the resulting Biotics are not very powerful in the first place. That coupled with the efficiency of neurological systems, means that the resulting Biotic display does not electricity that are harmful to the environment. 

 

I know that sounds crazy but if Adepts acutally spawned a proper Singularity, everything would be sucked to its vortex including the ground, cover, etc. The Singularity we have can only lift humanoid enemies with no shielding or armor. The same goes to Pull, in that an actual Pull would rip cover as well as part of the ground apart but it just lifts humanoid enemies that are unarmored and not shielded. As for Throw, for it to do any real damage on, in Mass Effect it typically has to exceed 1000 Newtons and you still cannot cause real damage to a target with shields and armor. I picked this number from the amount of Force you need to destroy ragdoll Phantoms on Insanity. 

 

Furthermore, you have to consider the fact that many Biotics we meet in game as opponents are not high level 60 Biotics like Shepard and his or her squadmates will ever be with the exception of Banshees whom are Reaperized, Tela Vasir who is an Asari and Aria T'Loak who is an Asari. Many of the Biotics we meet usually only use Pull or Throw or Warp and they most certainly do not make use of Biotic Explosions. 

 

I am of the opinion that the true power of Biotics does not lie in the power of their individual abilities. Rather the true power of Biotics lie in Biotic Explosions and the fact that Biotics can finish their opponents without firing a single shot. We see this in portrayed in Mass Effect 3 where Biotic Explosions, not pure Biotics gives Biotic users their DPS. 

 

So yes, individual Biotic powers, with the exception of Flare, are not really that strong which results in not requiring high amounts of neurons or Eezo nodes to trigger. In a way, this actually makes a lot of sense because in a fight, you want to be able to contribute continuously, not sporadically. Having Biotic abilities that are not very strong, does not cause much to trigger and instead relying on Biotic Combos means than any Biotic, especially an Adept, can fight for long periods of time without needing frequent refreshments or endangering other people around them by destroying the environment. 

[MrStoob]

When in doubt: Space Magic! 

[MrFob]

@Tishen-13: What? Sorry, now I'm lost. What "electricity that are harmful to the environment" are you talking about?

 

Also, I am not talking about gameplay but lore. Sure, adjustments had to be made for gameplay but in the lore (the codex, books, cutscenes and even gameplay in ME1) biotics are supposed to affect not only people but everything. And even if not, the effect of a level 1 lift or pull is amazing, actually.

 

I do agree that biotics were probably mostly designed with gameplay in mind (and I am ok with that) but since this is the lore section, that's what I was talking about.

[KrrKs]

This made me think. I always wondered how much charge you actually need to generate ME fields for different purposes.

[...]

The fact that biotics seem to be able to move stuff around with the incredibly low electric potentials that exist within the nervous system implies that hardly any power is required.

Maybe the relationship between charge and field strength is exponential.

Maybe it is not so much about how much potential lies at each node, and more about the overall number of nodes*voltage. Sort of like a serial connection (at least in effect). Is it ever stated what percentage Element Zero makes up in a biotic's body?

 

Yes but steel still faces wear and tear with time. Plus eezo is being actively used when traveling, not like a chassis. I would've expected eezo to lose some of its potency with time but it seems it's not the case. For the same reason biotics can use the eezo in their bodies for probably their entire life with their abilities even getting better with age (Kaidan).

I believe sometime during the Leviathan DLC EDI mentions that Eezo decays over hundreds of years.

 

Also any radiation shielding or thick wall would increase the wavelength of the radiation[...]

Wait, what?

Any change in wavelength would be dependant on the shielding's (permittivity and permeability) properties and only persist inside that material. Or did I get that wrong?

[SuperJogi]

Wait, what?

Any change in wavelength would be dependant on the shielding's (permittivity and permeability) properties and only persist inside that material. Or did I get that wrong?

 

Not in the mid-gamma range (0.5 MeV). There the primary process of interacing with matter is compton scattering, where the photon gets deflected off an electron and gives a part of its energy to it. This reduces the gamma rays frequency with every interaction until it gets fully absorbed by an electron. But yeah, this would only be enough to get it down to the soft X-ray or extreme UV range, still not to what would usually be called an EMP (even though it technically is), bad choice of words on my part. Hope this clarifies it.

[StarcloudSWG]

What they're talking about when they say 'electricity in the body' is the electrochemical signals of nerve cells.

[Callidous]

Tishen, I believe that biotics are simply misunderstood. The same mass effect field that makes up the biotic power also limits it. In the case of a singularity, it's mass would have to exceed the mass of the entire planet to have that kind of a gravitational effect. Which would make sense considering what it is and how it works, but would be far more destructive. I believe it's more likely that the mass effect field that surrounds it also stops it from becoming to powerful. Anything outside the field would remain unaffected. And this goes for any and all biotics.