13 réponses à ce sujet

[cap and gown]

I thought the Sol relay was called the Charon Relay. But the very first words out of Joker's mouth are that the Arcturus Prime Relay is in range. What's going on?

[Monica21]

Most likely an oversight, as they're clearly still in the Sol system when Joker says it.

[Current Future]

I'm by no means an expert, but IIRC: the Sol system's Mass Relay, the Charon Relay, is a secondary, meaning it "communicates" with only with one other relay - the Arcturus relay.  The Arcturus relay is primary relay that can "communicate" with a lot more, and is essential for getting to places like Eden Prime or The Citadel.

 

Joker's words about the Arcturus relay being in range is the issue.  I'm not debating the quote (it's been a while since I've played the 1st game, but it sounds right) I'm debating what it should have been.  Even though the Arcturus relay is in Sol's "neighborhood", there's no way it should have been in range of anything in Sol.  The line should have been: the relay is open, or available or something like that.

 

Anyway, that's my take.

[RedCaesar97]

I think Current Future pretty much nailed it. 

 

The only thing i would add is that you have to be within a certain range of a relay to use the relay. Therefore, they were within range of the Arcturus Relay to use the relay.

 

Or something like that.

[Monica21]

That's actually more confusing, at least to me. The Arcturus Relay isn't actually in range until they go through the Charon Relay, because it's not "in range" using just FTL speed.

[BronzTrooper]

I'm by no means an expert, but IIRC: the Sol system's Mass Relay, the Charon Relay, is a secondary, meaning it "communicates" with only with one other relay - the Arcturus relay.  The Arcturus relay is primary relay that can "communicate" with a lot more, and is essential for getting to places like Eden Prime or The Citadel.

 

Joker's words about the Arcturus relay being in range is the issue.  I'm not debating the quote (it's been a while since I've played the 1st game, but it sounds right) I'm debating what it should have been.  Even though the Arcturus relay is in Sol's "neighborhood", there's no way it should have been in range of anything in Sol.  The line should have been: the relay is open, or available or something like that.

 

Anyway, that's my take.

 

Close, but it's actually the reverse:  http://masseffect.wi...#Specifications

 

"There are two kinds of mass relay, primary and secondary. Primary relays can propel a ship thousands of light years but only link to one other relay, its "partner". Secondary relays can link to any other relay over shorter distances, only a few hundred light years."

 

Not sure if the Charon Relay is a primary or secondary relay, though.  The wiki doesn't say one way or the other.

[cap and gown]

Since there is apparently only one relay in the Sol system, it seems apparent the Charon relay is a secondary relay. Systems with Primary relays, like Omega and Widow also have Secondary relays. For instance, we know that the Omega system (Sahrabarik) has at least 4 relays, with the Omega 4 relay apparently being a Primary relay with its partner located in the galactic core.

[Monica21]

That seems to presents it's own timeline issue though, because what's the first relay you see the Normandy entering? It makes sense that it's Charon because they're still in the Sol system. After exiting the relay though, Nihlus is on board, so when did they pick up Nihlus? Is there a weird black hole in the timeline where we exit Charon, picked up Nihlus, and then enter Arcturus, and then the, "drift; just under 15000k" is the line you hear from Joker?

[Fixers0]

The codex entry for Arcturus station confirms the Charon Relay is a secondary relay.

 

"The expense of bringing construct materials into the system was acceptable due to its strategic value. With three primary mass relays in addition to the secondary one to Sol, Arcturus is a major communications and military chokepoint"

 

 

The way I see it, one has to first travel to Arcturus and then take another relay which leads directly to Eden Prime, the opening scene should have taken place in  the Arcuturus system instead.

 

 

This does create the problem as to to why the Alliance couldn't send any ships to Eden Prime when the Geth attacked considering it's just one relay removed from Arcturus, as well as it beign like one of the most important human colonies. It would have made more sense if Eden Prime was recently established colony at the very frontier of Human space.

[Dantriges]

Did they accidentally flip primary and secondary in the codex?

 

My interpretation was that they meant that other ships wouldn´t be there in time. The fleet is probably spread out to patrol the system, incoming craft don´t have to appear close to the receiving relay. It seems that it´s rather unlikely anyways. Then they still have to synchronize jump and fly to Eden Prime from whereever they arrived. In normal cases they would have enough time. IIRC the local garrison is rather weak but strong enough to resist for some time.

 

Or in short, yeah ships are just one jump away but they won´t arrive in time as the enemy had already overrun the ground forces, the Normandy is in or close to orbit already.

[aoibhealfae]

I thought they were at Arcturus Stream in the beginning on ME1 and that Normandy was just leaving the Arcturus Station.

[cap and gown]

I thought they were at Arcturus Stream in the beginning on ME1 and that Normandy was just leaving the Arcturus Station.

 

The scenes of the Normandy flying past Jupiter and Neptune make it pretty clear they are in the Sol system.

[Kabooooom]

The codex entry for Arcturus station conforms the Charon Relay is a secondary relay.

"The expense of bringing construct materials into the system was acceptable due to its strategic value. With three primary mass relays in addition to the secondary one to Sol, Arcturus is a major communications and military chokepoint"


The way I seee it, one has to first travel to Arcturus and then take another relay which leads directly to Eden Prime, the opening scene should have taken place in the Arcuturus system instead.


This does create the problem as to to why the Alliance couldn't send any ships to Eden Prime when the Geth attacked considering it's just one relay removed from Arcturus, as well as it beign like one of the most important human colonies. It would have made more sense if Eden Prime was recently established colony at the very frontier of Human space.

This is correct. The mass relay network is sort of designed like an enormous, three dimensional spider web. The galaxy map does not do a good job of illustrating this because it wouldn't be an elegant game mechanic.

In reality, the way it really looks is this: There is a "backbone" to the web constructed of primary relay hub systems. There are minor and major hub systems. Minor hub systems, like Arcturus, contain a handful of relays. Major hubs, like the Widow System, contain dozens (exact number is never listed). Omega is also likely a major hub system, but this is never clarified.

Each hub system contains a number of primary relays and secondary relays. The primary relays link to other relays within the backbone. The secondary ones link to relatively "local" relays. In the case of Arcturus-Charon, they are 36 light years apart. Their range can go up to hundreds. Primary relays, on average, have a range of thousands. Secondary relays can also move their orientation to link to other secondary relays. In this manner, each hub system has several long connection points to other hub systems, and multiple short connection points to secondary relay systems.

In the game, multiple systems are shown having only ONE relay for gameplay purposes. This is not the case. The closer a system is to the backbone of the network, the more relays it has. Sol has one, because it is relatively distant. It require first linking to Arcturus, and to get to major hub systems on the backbone, more relay jumps are needed. Again, the game shows a single relay jump to the Serpent Nebula for gameplay reasons. This is not the case. Dozens of jumps are probably necessary.

Once in major systems, it is relatively easy to rapidly navigate the relay network. Navigation still takes time though. In the game it is shown to take 15 hours to reach the Serpent Nebula from Eden Prime. Relay travel is instantaneous, but the time to travel in a star system between relays, even at FTL, adds up.

Hope that cleared a little up. The game does a horrible job of actually showing the relay network. But instead of what the galaxy map shows, imagine a massive spider web like structure spread across the entire galaxy in three dimensions.

Also worth noting is that the relay network does NOT link every star in the galaxy - either directly by relay or indirectly by FTL to nearby stars. This is a very common misconception when people say 99% of the relay network is unexplored. False. Realistically, the relay network only links all habitable, previously habitable, or potentially habitable worlds and all nearby star systems and systems with particularly valuable resources. We know from the description of the network that there are vast swaths of space thousands of light years across that must be traversed to reach a given star if the network is not utilized. This is illustrated by the description of attempts to reach Ilos via FTL and the Reapers having to travel 5,000 or so light years to the nearest relay system after the Alpha Relay was destroyed.

[BronzTrooper]

That seems to presents it's own timeline issue though, because what's the first relay you see the Normandy entering? It makes sense that it's Charon because they're still in the Sol system. After exiting the relay though, Nihlus is on board, so when did they pick up Nihlus? Is there a weird black hole in the timeline where we exit Charon, picked up Nihlus, and then enter Arcturus, and then the, "drift; just under 15000k" is the line you hear from Joker?

 

I'm pretty sure Nihlus is already on board when it shows the Normandy heading past Jupiter.  We only see him from behind, but his body-style is clearly turian and the armor is the same type Nihlus wears.  Would have to rewatch that sequence to know for certain, though.

 

Did they accidentally flip primary and secondary in the codex?

 

My interpretation was that they meant that other ships wouldn´t be there in time. The fleet is probably spread out to patrol the system, incoming craft don´t have to appear close to the receiving relay. It seems that it´s rather unlikely anyways. Then they still have to synchronize jump and fly to Eden Prime from whereever they arrived. In normal cases they would have enough time. IIRC the local garrison is rather weak but strong enough to resist for some time.

 

Or in short, yeah ships are just one jump away but they won´t arrive in time as the enemy had already overrun the ground forces, the Normandy is in or close to orbit already.

 

I think it's more that Saren's attack on Eden Prime was closer to a raid than an actual full-scale attack.  They were there for the beacon, which wouldn't require holding the colony for more than a half-hour/hour, too quick for Alliance forces from Arcturus to respond.  Also, iirc, when we get the transmission from Ash's company, Joker mentions something about the signal being weak (could be wrong about this, though).  Wouldn't be surprised if the Geth/Sovereign cut off long-range transmissions (system to system), so the fact that the Normandy was in the system meant that they would likely have been the only ship to receive the transmission in the first place.  Plus, the Normandy is supposed to be the fastest ship in the Alliance fleet, so that means that if the Normandy had received the transmission from Eden Prime near Arcturus station, along with the rest of the fleet, they still would've been the first to get there.

 

It's more that the Normandy was at the right place at the right time than anything, imo.  And even if the entire Arcturus fleet had been able to reach Eden Prime before Sovereign and Saren left, there is a really good chance that Sovereign would've taken out at least half of the fleet before escaping.  Less people died on Eden Prime than would've died had the fleet confronted Sovereign at Eden Prime.