1395 réponses à ce sujet

[In Exile]

Consistency isn't a virtue if it's being practiced without thought. I don't see the problem with a character discovering that the plan he's been trying to follow isn't necessarily the right thing to do

 

People have weird complaints. The issue isn't that we suddenly have more options when it comes to the reapers. The problem is the execution, in a way that seems to be inconsistent with other stuff the game does (e.g. they spend 2 games on how being made of meat isn't what makes us human, that it's thought, a whole arc dedicating to EDI experiencing love, etc.... and then conclude that all AI is Skynet™), and some options that clearly seem to be trolling the player (e.g. Destroy's "and btw all geth and EDI die so It's A Hard Choice ™"). 

[AlanC9]

I meant "interstellar", actually.  Travel between star systems.  The assumptions seemed to be that it would all come to a grinding halt without the relays.  

Who was assuming that, except for idiots?


 

Anyway Bioware wanted to make it clear that "no one starved"  Apparently that wasn't considered a violation of artistic integrity 

Who said "no one starved"? Is that a real quote?

[In Exile]

Hey, the destruction of the relays was pretty much the only thing I was okay with as far as the original endings go (so of course it gets retconned).  So no argument from me.

 

Heck, it could have even been a springboard towards intergalactic travel.  Without the relays, the species had to find another way to travel vast distances, and found another way.  a better way.  

 

But you do seem to have an issue with it, because you suggest that there's no way to get to Andromeda apart from the relays. At least in other posts (not sure if you made the argument in this thread). I apologize if I mischaracterized your position, but it seems to me that you can't think (A) there are non-relay ways to travel and ( it's implausible to get to Andromeda by means of something that isn't a mass relay. 

[AlanC9]

Bioware clearly didn't think through what a complete collapse of society would mean. I'm sure they were horrified when they realized that all of their endings basically would have meant the death of something like 80% of all galactic life anyway.

I don't think Bio ever considered that so many of us would get confused about the relay explosions. But yeah, a real tech collapse would have resulted in a pretty rapid depopulation of the galaxy. Revolution mostly fudged this issue too, exceot for a couple of flashbacks.

[Iakus]

Who was assuming that, except for idiots?
 

 

*shrug*  Like I said, it's the one aspect of the ending I didn't have a problem with

 

 

Who said "no one starved"? Is that a real quote?

 

It was a Twitter quote, yes.  I think it was Jessica Merizan, but I could be wrong.

 

 

 

But you do seem to have an issue with it, because you suggest that there's no way to get to Andromeda apart from the relays. At least in other posts (not sure if you made the argument in this thread). I apologize if I mischaracterized your position, but it seems to me that you can't think (A) there are non-relay ways to travel and ( it's implausible to get to Andromeda by means of something that isn't a mass relay. 

 

My problem is FTL travel as it currently exists makes travel to Andomeda travel a virtual impossibility.  In addition, the relay network itself is not fully explored, nor the Milky Way in general.  And exploring this galaxy is far more plausible with current FTL tech.  Why would anyone want to go explore a new galaxy when this one is barely used?  Why would anyone bother researching new FTL systems either?  

 

The galaxy relied on the relays for thousands of years.  They are utterly dependent on them.  And now with EC, they persist.  Making new methods of travel even less likely.

 

Now maybe a mass relay could get a ship to Andromeda, but that would all but confirm Reaper presence.  ANd the furthest relay we know of is hanging out in dark space "only" a couple years' travel away.  

[In Exile]

I don't think Bio ever considered that so many of us would get confused about the relay explosions. But yeah, a real tech collapse would have resulted in a pretty rapid depopulation of the galaxy. Revolution mostly fudged this issue too, exceot for a couple of flashbacks.

 

I think the ending was generally haphazard enough that Bioware didn't put much thought into it. I'm trying to remember the era during which ME3 was written. It was around the time of the Dark Knight, right? When a really dark take on the usual B-movie hero plots was popular? 

 

Funny enough, Foundation (of Asimov fame) has a somewhat realistic take with that city-world (the capital, can't remember the name now) and how there would be mass starvation because it is, by far, a net consumer of food. 

[Drone223]

My problem is FTL travel as it currently exists makes travel to Andomeda travel a virtual impossibility.  In addition, the relay network itself is not fully explored, nor the Milky Way in general.  And exploring this galaxy is far more plausible with current FTL tech.  Why would anyone want to go explore a new galaxy when this one is barely used?  Why would anyone bother researching new FTL systems either?  

 

The galaxy relied on the relays for thousands of years.  They are utterly dependent on them.  And now with EC, they persist.  Making new methods of travel even less likely.

 

Now maybe a mass relay could get a ship to Andromeda, but that would all but confirm Reaper presence.  ANd the furthest relay we know of is hanging out in dark space "only" a couple years' travel away.  

Let's not forget that developing the means for traveling to other galaxies in a few months or 2-3 years is just contrived as synthesis and LP.

[In Exile]

My problem is FTL travel as it currently exists makes travel to Andomeda travel a virtual impossibility.  In addition, the relay network itself is not fully explored, nor the Milky Way in general.  And exploring this galaxy is far more plausible with current FTL tech.  Why would anyone want to go explore a new galaxy when this one is barely used?  Why would anyone bother researching new FTL systems either?  

 

The galaxy relied on the relays for thousands of years.  They are utterly dependent on them.  And now with EC, they persist.  Making new methods of travel even less likely.

 

Now maybe a mass relay could get a ship to Andromeda, but that would all but confirm Reaper presence.  ANd the furthest relay we know of is hanging out in dark space "only" a couple years' travel away.  

 

Well, no. There are far too many unecessary assumptions in this argument. One, it presumes that there has never been any society preceeding the Leviathans in any part of the universe that could have discovered any non-relay means of travel. Two, it presumes that the reapers - the comically incompetent space trolls - left the galaxy in execution of a mission because of something approach a coherent thought (this is the species of AI that, among other things, solved the problem of how to save "organics" from synthetic genocide by perpetrating an earlier genocide). Three, it ignores the possibility that the colonization effort with the Ark is entirely within the Milky Way, before Presursor Race ™ happens that just plops everyone in Andromeda. In fact, the third is the likeliest possibility because of the reported leak that we will be stuck within one cluster. 

[In Exile]

Let's not forget that developing the means for traveling to other galaxies in a few months or 2-3 years is just contrived as synthesis and LP.

 

But certainly less contrived than magic neutrons that break the laws of physics. 

[Sifr]

People have weird complaints. The issue isn't that we suddenly have more options when it comes to the reapers. The problem is the execution, in a way that seems to be inconsistent with other stuff the game does (e.g. they spend 2 games on how being made of meat isn't what makes us human, that it's thought, a whole arc dedicating to EDI experiencing love, etc.... and then conclude that all AI is Skynet™), and some options that clearly seem to be trolling the player (e.g. Destroy's "and btw all geth and EDI die so It's A Hard Choice ™"). 

 

Or for the other endings, Shepard having witnessed the Reapers twist man and machine together into monstrosities in visions from the Beacon, watch as humans are pulped into becoming a new Reaper and fight two enemies who espouse this belief in "ascension" is a good thing.

 

Then decide in the Synthesis ending that actually, that plan is golden and the solution is turn everyone into organic cyborgs... all while ignoring the ethical considerations of transforming people into transhuman beings against their will, whether the husks transformed will be self-aware now and horrified at what's been done to them (and what they have done in that state) or that the possibility that the Reapers could possibly use the fact that everyone's part-machine to enact "Assuming Direct Control" on a galactic scale if they wished?

 

Meanwhile, in the Control ending you get to decide that the only way to deal with an insane AI that's got godlike power and has been operating on broken programming for billions of years... is to upload yourself into the system and become the new Master Control Program, despite calling the Illusive Man totally insane when he suggested it, because the road to somewhere was paved with something something, I forget how it goes?

 

Destroy was bad enough with being forced to sacrifice innocent AI's to take down the Reapers, but it left an even worse taste to realise that you were siding with the bad guys in the other two.

 

[Drone223]

But certainly less contrived than magic neutrons that break the laws of physics. 

No it isn't, eezo is made believable within the limitations of the lore. The galaxy suddenly developing the means to travel to other galaxies in a ridiculously short time span when its impossible with their current level of technology is contrived.

[Iakus]

Well, no. There are far too many unecessary assumptions in this argument. One, it presumes that there has never been any society preceeding the Leviathans in any part of the universe that could have discovered any non-relay means of travel. 

For our purposes, we should probably limit "the universe" to "the galaxy" since a hyperdrive system does us little good if it's in a galaxy far far away 

 

At any rate, the Reapers have ensured that all advanced life coming later them developed the tech they wanted.  Any relics of other systems would be over a billion years old.  

 

 

Two, it presumes that the reapers - the comically incompetent space trolls - left the galaxy in execution of a mission because of something approach a coherent thought (this is the species of AI that, among other things, solved the problem of how to save "organics" from synthetic genocide by perpetrating an earlier genocide).

Actually, the Reapers leaving the galaxy in a search for other organics to smoothify fits in rather well with their absolutist stance on the SYnthetic Revolution being inevitable without them to smoothify everyone.

 

 

Three, it ignores the possibility that the colonization effort with the Ark is entirely within the Milky Way, before Presursor Race ™ happens that just plops everyone in Andromeda. In fact, the third is the likeliest possibility because of the reported leak that we will be stuck within one cluster.

 

That...sounds like a Star Trek episode.   And not one of the better ones...

[Natureguy85]

They did start the series anew without the baggage of the ME3 endings they just did it without having to resort to a canon ending. The issue isn't that they took that step the issue is that they did so in away you don't like. You wanted a canon destroy ending and didn't get it so now the IP can't be a ME because it isn't in the milky way. I see nothing inherent in the ME IP that forces it to be confined to any single location. Mass effect Technology, Biotics and the Races make up the bulk of the feeling and setting of the ME IP. Locations have for the most part been transitory with only a few locations ever being returned to from one instalment to the other. For the most part locations have not been key any of the stories told. The citadel is perhaps the only 'Key' location in the first trilogy and it gets destroyed in all 4 endings, granted it takes the next cycle to use the crucible in the refusal ending but eventually the only 'key' location of the series is GONE. There is nothing tying the series to a location anymore.

 

You're right that the characters and races matter more to the setting than the physical location, but it's a concern when they poll on what races we are ok with losing.

 

That the Catalyst is the embodiment of all Reaper intelligence is completely irrelevant.  There isn't a shred of lore that states one way or the other that Reapers are in Andromeda.  Which comes down to the question of Is it possible to get there from here?

 

While you're right that there is no direct evidence that the Reapers are not in or have never been to Andromeda, not only is there no evidence that they have, but there is simply no reason for them to be there. They are based on the Leviathans, and both the Leviathans and the Reapers talk only about the galaxy, meaning the Milky Way. Secondly, their mandate is to keep synthetics from wiping out all life. So if they protect the Milky Way, the achieve their mandate, no matter what happens elsewhere.

 

What, exactly, did the EC retcon? We see Reapers fixing a relay, yeah. Fast enough to prevent starvation? And they're not doing that in Destroy.

Not that a retcon was needed. The vast majority of sapients live on or near garden worlds anyway. Sure, people were hysterical about this, but they're idiots.

 

 

It made the relays not blow up so that the galaxy isn't annihilated. It got the fleet away from Earth so not everyone is stranded.

 

 

The trailer I think just depicts conventional FTL travel, since the destination was only a few light years away. 

 

 

Yes they are. There have been lots of images promoting the games and EU with Mass Relays. They were symbolic for the Reaper plot but they are also symbolic of the Mass Effect itself.  They were also a key part of each game. 

Mass Effect 1: The Conduit is what we search for the entire game and the Citadel Relay was how the Reapers planned to return

Mass Effect 2: The Omega-4 Relay is how we take the fight to the Collectors and the Alpha Relay was where the Reapers were going to come from

Mass Effect 3: The Citadel and Mass Relay Array is how the Reapers across the galaxy are stopped by amplifying the Crucible

 

 

Seems to me like the entire trilogy basically exhausted their narrative significance then. The whole reaper trap involved with the relays basically came full circle by the end. There's no more stories left to tell with them. They're just a transit device now, but in this setting, it seems as though we won't need them. I don't see why that's a bad thing. Symbolism in and of itself is not really that big a deal. 

 

Anyway, this all seems premature. We just don't know what the heck is really going on yet.

 

 

And all of that was connected to the Reapers, their symbolic significance ended with them

 

The Relays may have used up their narrative significance, but they are still central to the setting and iconic to the franchise.

[AresKeith]

The Relays may have used up their narrative significance, but they are still central to the setting and iconic to the franchise.

 

But not a necessity to keep the name Mass Effect

[Master Warder Z_]

The Cision Pro Mk 4

I wish I could have made her watch as I ejected that thing out the airlock

[Iakus]

 

While you're right that there is no direct evidence that the Reapers are not in or have never been to Andromeda, not only is there no evidence that they have, but there is simply no reason for them to be there. They are based on the Leviathans, and both the Leviathans and the Reapers talk only about the galaxy, meaning the Milky Way. Secondly, their mandate is to keep synthetics from wiping out all life. So if they protect the Milky Way, the achieve their mandate, no matter what happens elsewhere.

 

Actually, they don't.  I've listened to what they say several times.  And the mandate is to protect ALL life, at any cost.

 

 ANd again, even if that were not the case, synthetics could eventually arise in other galaxies, and travel to the Milky Way.  It would be in the Reapers' best interest to keep that from happening anyway.

 

If that was how they operated, the Reapers would simply keep some petri dishes in stasis or something and call it a day.

 

Instead, they scour the entire galaxy of advanced life to keep synthetics from ever being developed.

[In Exile]

For our purposes, we should probably limit "the universe" to "the galaxy" since a hyperdrive system does us little good if it's in a galaxy far far away.

 

It doesn't have to be a method of propulsion. The mass relays aren't really propulsion anyway - they're basically space-folding devices. I suppose technically they're more like a catapult, but they're stupid gibberish science anyway. 

 

 

At any rate, the Reapers have ensured that all advanced life coming later them developed the tech they wanted.  Any relics of other systems would be over a billion years old.  

 

Exactly. Why would this be an issue at all? Comically ancient Precursor civilizations is basically part and parcel of science fiction. 

 

Actually, the Reapers leaving the galaxy in a search for other organics to smoothify fits in rather well with their absolutist stance on the SYnthetic Revolution being inevitable without them to smoothify everyone.

 

It doesn't follow at all. For the Reapers - who, again, are comically incompetent - to realize that more than the Milky Way has "organic" life, they'd have to use a form of reasoning abstract enough to capture, for example, the fact that the label "organic" life is giberish (and what they want to save is sapient life, which then leads them down the rabit hole of having to distinguish why non-meat life is special when it can be so alien to our understanding of sapience that it can be functionally like AI). 

 

That...sounds like a Star Trek episode.   And not one of the better ones...

 

Mass Effect has a C-list plot. I'm not sure what you're expecting out of this series, because it was pretty clear since ME1 the kind of quality you're getting here. I mean, this trope is straight up how humanity even found the rest of the galaxy (precursor technology on Mars). 

[Natureguy85]

Consistency isn't a virtue if it's being practiced without thought. I don't see the problem with a character discovering that the plan he's been trying to follow isn't necessarily the right thing to do

 

You're right, yet we still use the Crucible after finding out our antagonist wants us to use it.

 

Well, hold on. The original implication was that the galaxy would find its own way to build a future separate from the reapers. That part of the ending was OK, if a bit over-the-top. But, anyway, acting as if relays are the only way to travel is a bit like acting that cars are the only possible application of internal combustion engines. 

 

How do you figure? The relay's allow for instantaneous travel across distances that would take centuries to travel by FTL. Isn't it more like trying to run our modern day economy with horse drawn wagons?

 

 

 

But not a necessity to keep the name Mass Effect

 

It would be strange without them.

 

Actually, they don't.  I've listened to what they say several times.  And the mandate is to protect ALL life, at any cost.

 

 ANd again, even if that were not the case, synthetics could eventually arise in other galaxies, and travel to the Milky Way.  It would be in the Reapers' best interest to keep that from happening anyway.

 

If that was how they operated, the Reapers would simply keep some petri dishes in stasis or something and call it a day.

 

Instead, they scour the entire galaxy of advanced life to keep synthetics from ever being developed.

 

Sorry if you posted it elsewhere, but where did they say that they seek to protect all life? We know they don't make a Reaper out of every species so saving all life out of the question by that alone. Again, their mandate is to prevent Life = 0.

 

No, they don't keep synthetics from being developed. They just keep them from developing to the point of deadly technological singularity. As to the petri dishes, well that's what the Reapers are.

[Sifr]

Wasn't the actual goal of the Reapers to preserve life, not protect it, which they were doing by harvesting and pulping the various races into Reapers, Reaper-Destroyers or the various husks that the Reapers used as ground troops?

 

Would the Catalyst bother with another Galaxy, since he's already locked down the Milky Way pretty much already into a permanent lab for him and his toys to play around in, performing the same 50,000 year long experiment over and over again?

 

Sending Reapers into Andromeda (or anywhere else) would allow him to glean more results for his little shop of horrors, but it's a level of outside the box thinking that we clearly see him lack, since not once in millions of years has he realised that the problem in the Milky Way between man and machine was often down to his interference rigging the results each Cycle.

[AlanC9]

...... or that the possibility that the Reapers could possibly use the fact that everyone's part-machine to enact "Assuming Direct Control" on a galactic scale if they wished?

I guess you can contrive a way to make this a possibility if you assume that some of what the Catalyst said was a lie and other stuff wasn't, but there's no rational basis for stopping at the point you're proposing here. If you don't know that Synthesis will do what it's supposed to do, how do you know that Destroy will do what it's supposed to do. This sort of thinking leads to Refuse.

Meanwhile, in the Control ending you get to decide that the only way to deal with an insane AI that's got godlike power and has been operating on broken programming for billions of years... is to upload yourself into the system and become the new Master Control Program, despite calling the Illusive Man totally insane when he suggested it, because the road to somewhere was paved with something something, I forget how it goes?

The Catalyst continually working on broken programming for billions of years isn't really a bad thing for Control. It'd be worse if the Catalyst had drifted from its programming. Most of the paranoid fantasies about the Sheplyst going bad start with that.

As for the conversation with TIM, that's a problem with the conversation options. And Sheoard isn't forced to say that TIM's insane, IIRC.

 

Destroy was bad enough with being forced to sacrifice innocent AI's to take down the Reapers, but it left an even worse taste to realise that you were siding with the bad guys in the other two.
 

Hey, if that bugs you, don't pick them.

[AlanC9]

You're right, yet we still use the Crucible after finding out our antagonist wants us to use it.

Only because it's still the best available alternative.

[Natureguy85]

Wasn't the actual goal of the Reapers to preserve life, not protect it, which they were doing by harvesting and pulping the various races into Reapers, Reaper-Destroyers or the various husks that the Reapers used as ground troops?

 

Would the Catalyst bother with another Galaxy, since he's already locked down the Milky Way pretty much already into a permanent lab for him and his toys to play around in, performing the same 50,000 year long experiment over and over again?

 

Sending Reapers into Andromeda (or anywhere else) would allow him to glean more results for his little shop of horrors, but it's a level of outside the box thinking that we clearly see him lack, since not once in millions of years has he realised that the problem in the Milky Way between man and machine was often down to his interference rigging the results each Cycle.

 

You mention something I'm sad to say I hadn't thought of. The Catalyst says that Organics always develop Synthetics that overpower and destroy them. Sovereign says they leave their technology so that Organics develop along paths the Reapers desire... so is it the Reapers' fault that Organics create Synthetics that destroy them?

Obviously Leviathan means the problem predates the Reapers, but it puts another layer of silliness on the premise.

 

 

Only because it's still the best available alternative.

 

Only because the writer says so. There was no reason for the story to be written that way. Why not let us convince the Catalyst to go away or let us find our own solution somehow, making Refusal a real, winning ending?

[Iakus]

 

Sorry if you posted it elsewhere, but where did they say that they seek to protect all life? We know they don't make a Reaper out of every species so saving all life out of the question by that alone. Again, their mandate is to prevent Life = 0.

 

 

The Catalyst:  "Without us to stop it, synthetics would destroy all organics" 

 

Listening to the entire Catalyst conversation, i found nothing that indicated that they were only supposed to protect life in this galaxy.  

 

Leviathan: " To solve this problem, we created an intelligence with the mandate to preserve life at any cost"

Leviathan:  "The intelligence has one purpose:  the preservation of life."

 

The Leviathan refers to the galaxy and the cycles as "an experiment" but that's as far as it goes.  The mandate is universal in scope.

[AresKeith]

It would be strange without them.

 

Would it really? I wouldn't mind seeing another form of traveling to different clusters

 

Even though it seems like we're only staying in one this game

[Iakus]

 

 

Sending Reapers into Andromeda (or anywhere else) would allow him to glean more results for his little shop of horrors, but it's a level of outside the box thinking that we clearly see him lack, since not once in millions of years has he realised that the problem in the Milky Way between man and machine was often down to his interference rigging the results each Cycle.

Given they pulped their own creators, I think the Reapers are very much "outside the box" thinkers.

 

In addition, if left unchecked, synthetic life in other galaxies could surpass the Reapers, and screw everyone over if they invaded the Milky Way.