320 réponses à ce sujet

[themikefest]

Wasn't the energy wave traveling at FTL speeds?  If so, perhaps the wormhole/macguffin/whatever opened before the light from the wave reached the eyes of anybody it affected?

It wasn't when the crucible was first activated. When looking at the crucible just after Shepard chooses whatever, the player can see the green/blue/red for a few seconds before the space magic is released. If Hackett can see that, others can see it just before they leave the area
 

edit:  admittedly, that's pretty dumb, but we're talking about the writers who invented synthesis here.

What's dumb about it? If Hackett can see that the crucible is activated, others can too.

[AlanC9]

Even if the color could be seen, nobody but Shepard would know what it meant.

[AlanC9]

Other than to ease the stress of the single most importaqnt person in the war against the Reapers by letting them know there are other plans and not everything and everyone relies on them.

I dunno if that's worth compromising operational security for.

[Big Bad]

It wasn't when the crucible was first activated. When looking at the crucible just after Shepard chooses whatever, the player can see the green/blue/red for a few seconds before the space magic is released. If Hackett can see that, others can see it just before they leave the area
 

What's dumb about it? If Hackett can see that the crucible is activated, others can too.

I meant that my idea was dumb but that dumber things have actually appeared in game already!

I don't remember exactly what was said, but perhaps Hackett can see mechanically that the crucible is doing something but doesn't see the actual energy wave produced when he makes that statement. 

And I don't think the fact that the player can see the energy waves is indicative of what the actual characters are supposed to be able to see.  We can also see the Normandy traveling at FTL speeds in that cutscene, which is not possible for the in-universe characters to do. 

[themikefest]

If we get to Andromeda and those folks see the color and say it was red or green or blue, the characters may not know what it means, but the player would

[Hanako Ikezawa]

I dunno if that's worth compromising operational security for.

They wouldn't have to give any specifics, so there wouldn't be any compromise to operational security. 

 

Plus if the timeline in the other thread is correct, you'd think Shepard's "friend" Liara would say at least something after seeing Shepard suffering.

[sH0tgUn jUliA]

If that happens, then there's a good possiblity those folks would know what ending was chosen. As soon as Shepard chooses the whatever ending, Hackett says the crucible is armed. When looking at it the player see's, green/blue/red, just as Hackett does to tell everyone to get out of the area. If he can see it others can see it as well before leaving the area

 

 

Also if blue or green were chosen, any nearby reapers would go through the wormhole, and thus this would be unacceptable because it would require making canon one of the endings. Plus there would not be sufficient numbers to sustain a population.

 

And one other thing. Does Shepard have to know everything? I know he/she's The Shepard. The all knowing all seeing dumb ass who thought asari needed other species to reproduce. Let's give it a rest. It's a big galaxy. People are given assignments on a need to know basis. Shepard didn't need to know about the ark. The game was a big enough power trip for the player.

[SNascimento]

It doesn't really cheapen the Reapers. Why do you think so? Because they allowed it to happen? That is actually extremely believable to me for the same reason that the Crucible wasn't found and the same reason the Heretic Station wasn't found. If you construct the thing in interstellar space...hell, even just immediately outside of a star system, there is pretty much a zero percent chance that you could find it if you tried to look. Once ships entered the system and travelled to the coordinates via FTL, it would be untrackable. It would be like a finding a needle in a cosmic sized haystack. That's how big space is. Just like the Crucible, they wouldn't have to keep the project itself a secret...they only had to keep the location a secret, which is much easier. Location, location, location.

Finding it just by searching would be certainly difficult. But the thing is there are a lot of people who knows about the Crucible, maybe not is precise location, but at least knows it's being built. How difficult and/or unlikely it would be for the reapers to get at least one indoctrinated agent in such ranks? And from there, how long untill they know its exact location? Don't you think it would be a priority for them?

It's being a while since I played ME3, and prejudice blinds you. But if I remember right, the amount of stuff that we find that ended up being used in the Crucible is significant, one agent in one of those missions is all it would take the reapers to find and finish the Crucible off. And we know high ranking individuals got indoctrinated. That's the reason I find keep the Crucible, even its location, a secret to be far fetched. It had to be done though. But twice? I feel my dislike for such thing is well founded. 
 

 

We could list dumb things about these games all week. In the grand scheme of things, in a universe where Cerberus existed, how is a secret Ark project so irredeemably dumb that it ruins the franchise?

 

I don't disagree there are "dumbs" things in the trilogy. I believe every work of fiction have them. Some are better, some are worse. I just want the Ark to be the former, and I don't believe the standard theory is that. Also, I never said it would ruin the franchise. I think it would hurt the original trilogy a bit, but it would be a flesh wound (an unnecessary one though). 
 

 

Branching off an idea that I dig from another poster on here: firing the Crucible created an accidental wormhole to Andromeda that unintentionally transported nearby ships and individuals to the new galaxy.  It eliminates the "ran away from the Reapers" mentality and ensures a wide variety of personalities would be there, some who embrace the challenge and others who "didn't ask for this".

 

That's interesting. It's more in the line of something I would approve. It's not something that was organized by the governments of the galaxy, but something else. 

[Monica21]

Other than to ease the stress of the single most importaqnt person in the war against the Reapers by letting them know there are other plans and not everything and everyone relies on them.

Hackett/whoever is building the Ark doesn't care about Shepard's stress level. Everyone is stressed. Think Anderson isn't stressed trying to save Earth? Telling Shepard is a distraction at best, and at worst a "well why aren't I going?" And the goal is still to win, no matter what. If the Ark leaves before the Crucible is fired then trillions still die. Shepard's job doesn't change whether he knows about an Ark or not.

[Drone223]

A common theme with these anti-ark threads/posters is a pretty apparent lack of hindsight. What came before Andromeda? Lots of space magic, moron logic and a$$pulls. Somehow this Mass Effect tradition is no longer acceptable and must be avoided at all costs.
How is Cerberus a secret organization even though they have 900 trillion double-dollars and slap their logo on everything? And how did they go from a rogue black ops group to the evil corporation with endless resources in less than 2 years?
How did no one find the Catalyst plans on Mars until BioWare needed an a$$pull? That Mars archive was the most important discovery in human history but we're to believe that humans just found a few cool things like FTL travel and then stopped caring about the archive?
How do you explain anything sci-fi that doesn't make sense? Mass effect fields. Element zero.
Why did Sovereign have to activate the Citadel's relay to let the Reapers through when his boss was right there in the Citadel the whole time? Uhhhhh...
Why were the Collectors going after left handed Batarians and Turian twins and all that? They clearly had no grand plans involving such subsets of non-human species, let alone the species they came from. Such specific people serve no purpose for Reaperization, obviously. Were they just goofing off until Harbinger got to work?
Etc.
 

How is Bioware going to improve themselves if their allowed to continue using contrived plot devices? They need to be called out on it if they want to improve their writing.

[sH0tgUn jUliA]

All games have contrived plot devices. 90% of stories and movies have contrived plot devices yet we enjoy them.

 

If we defeated the reapers conventionally it would have required a contrived plot device.

 

Some events in the real  world if they were written as stories instead of real events could be seen as contrived plot devices.

[dreamgazer]

I think they need to earn the right to travel to Andromeda with some credible narrative magic, but yeah, let's not forget that the series was founded on systematic brain filters, the digested "essence of being a Prothean", and 90% of a MacGuffin that turned into a prototype relay ... which fudged the lore by operating more like a teleportation device. 

[Hanako Ikezawa]

Hackett/whoever is building the Ark doesn't care about Shepard's stress level. Everyone is stressed. Think Anderson isn't stressed trying to save Earth? Telling Shepard is a distraction at best, and at worst a "well why aren't I going?" And the goal is still to win, no matter what. If the Ark leaves before the Crucible is fired then trillions still die. Shepard's job doesn't change whether he knows about an Ark or not.

Admiral Hackett is shown to be a good commander, and a good commander cares about the stress level of those under them. The reason being it puts strain on people, and people under strain can snap. That's why soldiers get things like shore leave, to help reduce stress. 

No, telling Shepard simply that there are other plans rather than the "Everything relies on the Crucible" being beaten into our heads throughout the game would not be a distraction. 

Shepard has been shown to not be one who runs away from a fight where they are needed. They are not a coward. 

If the goal is to win, you'll want every cog in the war machine working at maximum efficiency. Purposefully keeping secrets from the main cog in your machine is not beneficial and is in fact detrimental. 

[phagus]

A common theme with these anti-ark threads/posters is a pretty apparent lack of hindsight. What came before Andromeda? Lots of space magic, moron logic and a$$pulls. Somehow this Mass Effect tradition is no longer acceptable and must be avoided at all costs.
How is Cerberus a secret organization even though they have 900 trillion double-dollars and slap their logo on everything? And how did they go from a rogue black ops group to the evil corporation with endless resources in less than 2 years?
How did no one find the Catalyst plans on Mars until BioWare needed an a$$pull? That Mars archive was the most important discovery in human history but we're to believe that humans just found a few cool things like FTL travel and then stopped caring about the archive?
How do you explain anything sci-fi that doesn't make sense? Mass effect fields. Element zero.
Why did Sovereign have to activate the Citadel's relay to let the Reapers through when his boss was right there in the Citadel the whole time? Uhhhhh...
Why were the Collectors going after left handed Batarians and Turian twins and all that? They clearly had no grand plans involving such subsets of non-human species, let alone the species they came from. Such specific people serve no purpose for Reaperization, obviously. Were they just goofing off until Harbinger got to work?
Etc.

We could list dumb things about these games all week. In the grand scheme of things, in a universe where Cerberus existed, how is a secret Ark project so irredeemably dumb that it ruins the franchise?

When the asspulls become so numerous that they force the player to question the very plot that is holding the trilogy together, and in doing so reveal an incoherent mess, that a sequel has to somehow rise from, and then deciding to use another asspull as a way to tackle it, and throw away the MW setting in the process. Do you mean that irredeemably dumb?

 

Yeah I have a feeling its going to be asspulls all the way to Andromeda. Lets hope we don't need to buy DLC's to retroactively explain them.

 

On the plus side I'm sure MEA will look nice and have lots of cool toys to play with and places to explore. Interesting characters to talk to and bang, and even some good voice acting and dialogue wheel options. Maybe we'll even see the dark space relay, which may even look like the Citadel, before we travel to Andromeda to face another big bad unstoppable force bent on destroying humanity.

[sH0tgUn jUliA]

Hackett was  the  main cog.

[Hanako Ikezawa]

Hackett was  the  main cog.

 Hackett wasn't the main cog. Hackett didn't do things like getting all the species of the Milky Way to join in the effort, getting tech and resources for the Crucible, etc. Without Shepard, the main cog, driving all the other cogs in the war machine, the galaxy would have lost. 

[Dean_the_Young]

Other than to ease the stress of the single most importaqnt person in the war against the Reapers by letting them know there are other plans and not everything and everyone relies on them. 

 

I thought that was what the warm shower, private quarters, unlimited fraternization policy, unlimited shore leaves, short missions, never having to remain on the front, freedom from indoctrinated support base, and stealth drive to be able to hide from the Reapers were for?

 

Shepherd's got some of the softest living conditions in the war, and his/her combat requirements are basically day-trips rather than constant stress.

[Monica21]

Admiral Hackett is shown to be a good commander, and a good commander cares about the stress level of those under them. The reason being it puts strain on people, and people under strain can snap. That's why soldiers get things like shore leave, to help reduce stress. 

No, telling Shepard simply that there are other plans rather than the "Everything relies on the Crucible" being beaten into our heads throughout the game would not be a distraction. 

Shepard has been shown to not be one who runs away from a fight where they are needed. They are not a coward. 

If the goal is to win, you'll want every cog in the war machine working at maximum efficiency. Purposefully keeping secrets from the main cog in your machine is not beneficial and is in fact detrimental. 

 

Come on. No one's job was to wonder how Commander Shepard is feeling. Everyone my Shepard talked to was worried about whether she could get galactic support to fight the Reapers and help her with that. Not to say, "Oh, it's not terribly important because we've also got this Ark that's going to leave soon."

[dreamgazer]

Shepard's the "tip of the spear" in saving the galaxy. S/he not knowing about this kind of initiative is a little dubious.

[Monica21]

Shepard's the "tip of the spear" in saving the galaxy. S/he not knowing about this kind of initiative is a little dubious.

 

Is Shepard working on the ark? No. Is Shepard going to be on the ark? No. Therefore, Shepard doesn't need to know.

[Hanako Ikezawa]

I thought that was what the warm shower, private quarters, unlimited fraternization policy, unlimited shore leaves, short missions, never having to remain on the front, freedom from indoctrinated support base, and stealth drive to be able to hide from the Reapers were for?

 

Shepherd's got some of the softest living conditions in the war, and his/her combat requirements are basically day-trips rather than constant stress.

And we saw how well those worked. Someone who has constant PTSD nightmares is stressed to extreme levels. Shepard had what they thought was the fate of the entire galaxy on their shoulders. Having a comfy room won't help that. 

 

Come on. No one's job was to wonder how Commander Shepard is feeling. Everyone my Shepard talked to was worried about whether she could get galactic support to fight the Reapers and help her with that. Not to say, "Oh, it's not terribly important because we've also got this Ark that's going to leave soon."

What? There were several times in ME3 when people you knew asked how you were doing/feeling or were worried about your state of being. 

 

Is Shepard working on the ark? No. Is Shepard going to be on the ark? No. Therefore, Shepard doesn't need to know.

Yes, Shepard does. The ark specifically? Perhaps not. Contingency plans in general? Absolutely. 

[SNascimento]

Is Shepard working on the ark? No. Is Shepard going to be on the ark? No. Therefore, Shepard doesn't need to know.

Well, Shepard is responsible for almost every major decision that has an impact on the war and thefore in the civilizations of the galaxy, It might be a big deal for him to know all the angles. 

[dreamgazer]

Is Shepard working on the ark? No. Is Shepard going to be on the ark? No. Therefore, Shepard doesn't need to know.

If significant resources are being diverted from the Crucible, something the Broker is closely monitoring, then Shepard should know why.

Shepard should also know the location of the ark, so as not to direct attention there.

[Iakus]

Shepard's the "tip of the spear" in saving the galaxy. S/he not knowing about this kind of initiative is a little dubious.

Especially since Shep's scrounging every resource, scientist, warship, and Prothean artifact in the galaxy to get sh-stuff done.

[Monica21]

I think we have different ideas of what "need to know" mean. Also on whether Shepard (and by default, the player) needs to be omniscient.