9 réponses à ce sujet

[Vespervin]

According to BioWare, ME: A is set a long time after the ME trilogy. One question I see a lot is if this is set so far in the future, why are we using old tech? I have a theory on this.

 

Sometime before ME1 or before ME2 the Council races decide to send a massive ship/fleet to the Andromeda galaxy, to escape the Reaper threat. However the technology being used to travel to this galaxy makes this trip a very, very long one. How would they survive this trip? Prothean stasis pods, like the one Javik was found in!

 

Sometime during the past 50,000 years, a species found a large facility containing thousands of Prothean stasis pods (or they just took the ones from Ilos) and used them on the Ark ship/fleet, or they reversed engineered them. During the journey to Andromeda a certain team would awake here and there to make sure everything was okay, or maybe if the Geth come their purpose was to maintain everything.

 

This is why, even though the game is set a long time after the other ME games, we're still using the same old technology? Your thoughts?

 

 

(Sorry about the state of this post, I just thought of this at work and wanted to post it before I forgot!)

 

 

[The Sauce of Awesome]

For why everyone is still using 'old' tech, I think I made a reply in another thread that was somewhat similar to this. I used an example of a town in Venezuela that was settled in the 19th century, and one day the only way to get there was reclaimed by the jungle, essentially wiping it off the map. The settlers were presumed dead but just over a century later the town was not only rediscovered but the townsfolk were found to still speak their original language (German) and still used 19th century-era technology.

 

I used this story as an example to what I believe could be the reason why everyone on this Ark is still using 22nd century tech when ME:A is presumably set centuries after ME 3. I believe that after the Reaper War had ended (whichever way that is) life in the galaxy went on and presumably their tech, too (unless everyone got wiped out, per the refusal ending). Meanwhile, as the Milky Way went along its business, the Ark was still getting to Andromeda, and I doubt there was much opportunity for scientific advancement on a giant ship travelling a near-endless void.

[SNascimento]

I'd say this doesn't need an explanation. It's like asking: why KoTOR uses basically the same technology of the films if its set 4000 years in the past?

The reason technology is similar, although I think it's look more advanced, is because they want Mass Effect to look like Mass Effect. 

[phagus]

Just because tech has a familiar form doesn't mean that it's function hasn't been upgraded. For example, a human/humanoid gun has to fit comfortably in the hand, this will dictate form ,tech will dictate how it works.

 

Anyway like Snascimento says above. Bioware want to make a ME game that fans of ME1-3 can relate to, so the way tech looks will be of a similar recognisable design irrespective of how far in the future it is set.

 

If the tech was too far advanced it could look like magic, no guns just point your finger and shoot, armour could look like ordinary clothes. So for eccentric or aesthetic reasons you could dress like a character out of DA and be perfectly capable of taking on a Reaper while on foot. So mixing DA with ME may be a step too far...

[Hanako Ikezawa]

We use technology that has been around for thousands of years, so why wouldn't they? Some of the guns in the Mass Effect franchise have actually been around for centuries yet are still used. If it works, use it. 

[Han Shot First]

I think that is most likely the reason for both the game being set long after the events of the Shepard trilogy, and the colonists using tech that resembles stuff from the Reaper War era. 

 

The protagonist is probably one of the original Milky Way colonists rather than a descendant, and they probably spent a couple centuries in cryosleep while their ship made the long journey to Andromeda.

[Sgt.Adam93]

The Asari counselor did mention "plans for the continuity of civilization" after the fall of Thessia, perhaps this is it. A top secret backup plan to save us from the reapers, only known to the council, which they would have kept in their back pockets in case the Crucible failed or until the last possible moment.

 

As for the logistics, I do not think a single, large, purpose-built "ark-ship" would be practical, the fact is that to build a single ship like that would take too much time, effort and resources to build which the Council and all the other races were already pouring into building the Crucible. I believe they would have assembled a fleet of smaller vessels (perhaps using the Quarian flotilla as a model) that were begged, borrowed, or bought by the Council during the war. 

 

As for the timing, the plan would have been put into action after the fall of Thessia, the ships would have been assembled and equipped, and the people selected and briefed. The only logical jumping-off point for this expedition (to me anyway) would be the Citadel, considering that the Citadel is a giant mass relay and probably the only one big enough to get us to Andromeda. The flotilla would then have been forced to use the Citadel relay when the Reapers arrived to move the Citadel to Earth orbit.

 

As for who would be going, I'm sure the Council would have reserved space for themselves, and selected those who would be useful at establishing colonies and wouldn't have been useful in the current war against the Reapers, assuming they all individually decided to go and made it to the ships in time. Then you would have the Citadel residents who would have scrambled to try and get aboard to escape the Reapers when they arrived like members of the Citadel government, C-Sec, the Spectres, the various militaries, ordinary people, criminals like Aria T'Loak, anyone who could manage to get to an "ark-ship" or had a ship of their own that would have been sent through the relay when they turned it on.   

 

 

[goishen]

As to why we're still using the same old tech, we're using what we thought was reverse engineered Prothean tech.  Which it was.  But that was reverse engineered from the race before, the race before, etc.   All the way until the Reapers and their fateful decisions to wipe Leviathan off the map (or almost).

 

So, you can only get so far with discovered tech.  And then, new discoveries will happen at a much slower pace.  Until everybody gets used to the tech that's around them.  And grows bored with it.

[Killroy]

Do we think stasis is the only thing that would prevent ark-goers from designing, testing, manufacturing and distributing wholly new firearms during the trip? What would be the point of making new firearms on the way to Andromeda? We have no idea what we'll encounter so we couldn't make specialized firearms to deal with new threats.

[Ahriman]

Regarding tech level.

ME1. Mako M35.

ME2. Hammerhead M44.

MEA. "Your Mako" M40.