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[AlanC9]

After the seeming destruction of the mass relays and a significant portion of civilization in the galaxy, I thought it would be fun for the next ME series to take place in a battered galaxy where interstellar travel is limited and people are rebuilding wherever they are. I thought a sort of post-acopalyptic ME game might be interesting, where you play someone trying to survive and rebuild might be a fun starting point.

Yeah, that was pretty much what I wanted. Of course, I've been plugging canon endings ever since I realized that DA:O's DR was going to fizzle. Bio hasn't listened to me yet.

[Fade9wayz]

Yes it is. Our ships can only go 50 light years before having to discharge. We have no idea how the Reapers surpassed this limitation, so we'd still have it if the voyage left before or during the Reaper War. And since Andromeda is a lot further than 50 light years away, going there is a problem. If that problem is suddenly solved, it is a DEM. 

 

It would need to be a ship or ships that can make the trip without killing the crew for hundreds of years, carry the hundreds or thousands of people that are going on the mission, carry all the necessities like water and food for both the trip and the time it takes to find a place and cultivate it, a fuel tank that has enough fuel to get us there, a powerful Mass Effect drive to help us get there, tools to build once we get there, weapons and vehicles to defend in case of attack by hostiles, and so on. That project is massive, no matter how you slice it. Too large to hide before the Reapers arrive, and too large to do after they've arrived and all top minds and resources are going to the Crucible. That's not baseless assumption, that's logical deduction. 

It isn't. Let's examine what we know we have in lore. 

1) We have FTL. In a world where ships can travel faster than light, I feel hard-pressed to believe they couldn't build an ark travelling near-light speed. Heck, if fuel is a problem, we could use our super black hole to accelerate the ship to the desired speed. If wandering planets without engines can do that, I fail to see how a ship couldn't. We don't need fuel for deceleration, since the ark would just have to enter FTL once it reaches Andromeda. It doesn't require ground-breaking new tech. Not a DEM. 

2) We have cryo-pods. We know that properly maintained, they can go up to 500 000 years. By your own count, we only need about 3500 years. Some members of the crew can be awakened regularly and any time a malfunction is detected to check it. Asari would be the ones suffering the least from being awakened from time to time - Krogan too, but I doubt Salarians would agree with being at the mercy of Krogans. If Geth and a decent AI similar to EDI are even part of the crew, that makes maintenance even easier (I'm not very hopeful about Geth being part of this venture though. We'll see). Water and food supplies can be reduced to the quantity necessary for the maintenance crew and in the end, the exploring crew. Hydroponics chambers could be set up to ensure viable food, if the exploring crew takes more time than anticipitated to find a first suitable planet (we need at least one dextro and one levo planet). As long as suitable settlements aren't found, the rest of the refugees are kept in cryo-pods. 

3) We have stealth technology. The Normandy has proven numerous times it could go around undetected by Reapers, even in systems under direct attack. It would be idiotic not to incorporate such features in any ship involved in the Ark project. Besides, Reapers are not omnicient. They overlooked the Thorian, Ilos, numerous Prothean beacons, even one of their own near Mnemosyne. They don't have access to the Citadel archives anymore, and even if they did, it wouldn't be so hard to hide the Ark expenses in the Crucible ones. Mafias and corrupted politicians do that kind of things all the time. Hiding the Ark-project isn't as far-fetched as you make it sound, especially considering that at this point in the war, Reapers are concentrating their attention on the main civilisations hubs, not the remote, unhabited worlds they would only check once they crushed the main military forces.

 

All the necessary tech is already available, and the project can be hidden pretty easily despite it's massive scale (the Ilos facility was massive too, and yet it went undetected). It just needs really careful organisation. Is it a fool-proof plan? No. Could some of the refugees die during the travel? Of course. However, the Milky-Wayists are desperate enough to risk it. 

 

Edit: ...Milky-Wayans? Milky-Waynese?

[Tim van Beek]

The Conduit fits the definition of a MacGuffin more than anything in the Mass Effect franchise. It absolutely is one up until it turns into a teleportation device.

Right, but then it turns out to be a teleportation device, after that it's not a MacGuffin anymore.

 

Vigil's datafile is the only tried-and-true DEM in the franchise. Completely unforeshadowed, completely necessary to solve an unsolvable dilemma, given by a literal god of the machine at the end.

Ugh, I'll really try not to be the nit-picky type, at least over here on the forum (not questioning the use of "dilemma", for example, as a synonym for "problem"), but a VI is not a god   (so it is a metaphorical "god" that literally spawns from a machine).

Well, Vigil enables the heroes to do what others have already done before, namely Saren and the geth. I forgot that Shepard needed a data file from it in order to use the conduit. Why is that? Seems to be an unnecessary complication from the POV of the writers. When I played the mission, I simply assumed that the geth activated the conduit and where still using it, when Shepard crushed through in her Mako...seems to be logical...probably the reason why this did not get quite as many thumbs down?

 

BTW: I think all these "it's a DEM!", "no it is not" discussions are missing the point, which is "is this too much of a stretch so that we lose our audience/credibility?". This is not a yes/no question.

 

Another example: If we don't like lobbyists in politics, let's build a parliament building that does not have a lobby. Problem solved, as the word is no longer applicable. Doesn' really change the situation and what's problematic about it, but the scary label is off the table.

[Dantriges]

The datafile was for the Citadel controls.

[dreamgazer]

Right, but then it turns out to be a teleportation device, after that it's not a MacGuffin anymore.

For 90-95% of the game, it is one. Literally could have been anything, from a super-weapon to Sovereign's favorite candy bar. That's the closest anything in the MEU comes to one. Even the Crucible has an explicitly-stated purpose and origin.
 

Ugh, I'll really try not to be the nit-picky type, at least over here on the forum (not questioning the use of "dilemma", for example, as a synonym for "problem"), but a VI is not a god .

Vigil, the digital ghost of an extinct species, appears out of nowhere (from a machine!) and gives the heroes: 1) all the necessary information they need, else they'd be lost; and 2) an unforeshadowed datafile that does something absolutely mandatory, regaining control of the Citadel, that the heroes wouldn't have been able to do otherwise and, therefore, would've been screwed without it.
 

Well, Vigil enables the heroes to do what others have already done before, namely Saren and the geth. I forgot that Shepard needed a data file from it in order to use the conduit. Why is that? When I played the mission, I simply assumed that the geth activated the conduit and where still using it, when Shepard crushed through in her Mako...seems to be logical...

Ultimately, Saren's plan all along is to gain control of the Citadel. Guess what the datafile does? Guess what the heroes wouldn't have been able to do without it?

[DaemionMoadrin]

 Even the Crucible has an explicitly-stated purpose and origin.

 

No, it has not. No one knows what it does until the Catalyst tells you. That was the most stupid part of ME3: "Hey, we found some incomplete blueprints to a device that is supposed to defeat the Reapers, but we don't have the faintest idea how that would work. It has never worked in the past, but each cycle added to it. Let's pool all our resources to build it and hope that we'll find the missing parts before we have to use it."

 

Not that the plot of ME1 was any better...

[dreamgazer]

No, it has not. No one knows what it does until the Catalyst tells you. That was the most stupid part of ME3: "Hey, we found some incomplete blueprints to a device that is supposed to defeat the Reapers, but we don't have the faintest idea how that would work. It has never worked in the past, but each cycle added to it. Let's pool all our resources to build it and hope that we'll find the missing parts before we have to use it."

From the beginning, it's made clear that it comes from the Protheans and that it was designed to stop the Reapers. That's an origin and a purpose.

Hence, not a MacGuffin.

[Ahriman]

 

 

Deus Ex Machina:  a character or thing that suddenly enters the story in a novel, play, movie, etc., and solves a problem that had previously seemed impossible to solve.

 

If you finished reading the sentence, you'd see I continue and address the "lore-friendly" ways. 

 

Oh I did, have some faith in me. MEA writers have all the timeline before ME3, but somehow you assume that they'll pull out something in last day before departure.

It would not surprise me if we're already in Andremeda at the start of the game and learn how everyone gets there through dialogue, codexes and datapads as the game is played.

That would be a total waste of excelent drama point.

[DaemionMoadrin]

From the beginning, it's made clear that it comes from the Protheans and that it was designed to stop the Reapers. That's an origin and a purpose.

Hence, not a MacGuffin.

 

Well okay, fine. If you are content with such vague descriptions, okay.

 

I am not.

[dreamgazer]

Well okay, fine. If you are content with such vague descriptions, okay.

I am not.

That's the way MacGuffins work. If it has an expressed function in the narrative, it's not a MacGuffin.

The Crucible fits the definition of a Sword of Plot Advancement far closer.

[felipejiraya]

I don't know **** about physics but one of the solutions for the trip to Andromeda wouldn't be inertia? I mean, the ark has a initial acceleration at launch to achieve FTL but then turn off the thrusters and let inertia do it job? 

 

I know light doesn't have inertia because it doesn't have mass but the same would apply to a spaceship at FTL because of the mass effects fields (who nulifies the mass)? 

[Tim van Beek]

For 90-95% of the game, it is one. Literally could have been anything, from a super-weapon to Sovereign's favorite candy bar. That's the closest anything in the MEU comes to one. Even the Crucible has an explicitly-stated purpose and origin.
 

Vigil, the digital ghost of an extinct species, appears out of nowhere (from a machine!) and gives the heroes: 1) all the necessary information they need, else they'd be lost; and 2) an unforeshadowed datafile that does something absolutely mandatory, regaining control of the Citadel, that the heroes wouldn't have been able to do otherwise and, therefore, would've been screwed without it.
 

Ultimately, Saren's plan all along is to gain control of the Citadel. Guess what the datafile does? Guess what the heroes wouldn't have been able to do without it?

Agreed, seems to be right to me. Why didn't I think that this is a problem while playing? Actually, I wondered how the Reapers could possibly not discover Ilos in the first place. this inabiliy casts serious doubts about how the cycles worked out over such a long period, without any advanced race every being able to carry over to the next cycle.

Hm. I believe that the Protheans were able to create VIs and power systems that can last for tens of thousands of years, not a big stretch for me. I do believe that the Protheas were able to control the citadel and therefore can give Shepard whatever is necessary for that. Then this happens at a point were I, like most players, thought "quick, we have to stop Saren" instead of "wait a minute, let's think this through, does Vigil make sense?". If people do a lot of the latter, the game has failed on a much larger scale with regard to story telling and pace.

 

That's a big difference between a DEM of this sort in the middle of the climax, and one at the ending   and the reason why it is so much harder to write a good ending. 

[Tim van Beek]

I don't know **** about physics but one of the solutions for the trip to Andromeda wouldn't be inertia? I mean, the ark has a initial acceleration at launch to achieve FTL but then turn off the thrusters and let inertia do it job? 

 

I know light doesn't have inertia because it doesn't have mass but the same would apply to a spaceship at FTL because of the mass effects fields (who nulifies the mass)? 

I don't know much about the mass effect universe, but I'm a physics graduate  .

Mass effect isn't hard sci fi. Most of the codex entries in the game that describe FTL and mass effect fields are much too vague, and those who are not contradict the established science of our time. But, for a moment, let's assume that mass effect fields can reduce the mass of a spaceship and that it is possible to somehow accelerate it (traveling faster than light still violates special relativity). 

 

I assume that the writers would like to have momentum conservation to be still valid in their universe. So, if you deactivate the mass effect field (really really slowly, of course), the mass of your spaceship increases and momentum conservation implies that it slows down. With the mass effect field deactivated, it will be as fast as it could have been without one in the first place.

 

Just some "rule of thumb" and gleefully ignoring both special and general relativity  .

[Chealec]

I kind of suspect that it might have been better all round had they not called this Mass Effect: Andromeda then people wouldn't get hung up on Shepard, Starbrat and the Rippaz... it's set in the same universe (tech, races, biotics and so on) but it's otherwise, AFAICT, a completely new franchise.

 

The Shepard story has finished - it's over, done and dusted, deader than Monty Python's Norwegian Blue, it's been George R.R. Martin'ed, it is, in short, done.

 

BioWare don't have to deal with the endings from ME3 - that was a different story in a different galaxy and can now be largely ignored.

[Chealec]

You think that's bad, one time this scruffy nerf herder on some back woods planet tried to tell me his brokeass ship could make the kessel run in twelve parsecs. As if!

 

*ahem*

 

 

Yup - somebody actually bothered to explain that one - doing the Kessel run in under 12 parsecs means taking a really dangerous shortcut and surviving (granted it doesn't fit the context of the conversation in the film but hey ho).

[AlainSki]

Lol she (gamermd83 - the one from the Youtube video) stole my idea.

 

 

 

In Topic: Can Bioware still use ME3 endings in Andromeda?

19 June 2015 - 04:52 AM

They'll have to adres it. You can't expect this game to completely ignore a cataclysmic event that nearly destroyed the universe as we know it in its entirety. What, in my humble opinion, you can expect is a dragon age keep like module which adresses all general endings and makes vague references to these in the codex and throughout the game. For example, crewmembers 3/4/7/9 survived and were declared heroes and it took us 25/50/250 years to rebuild.

 

Just don't expect that these past endings/decisions will influence the game itself because it would most likely we set after the universe has completely recovered. Personally, I found the dragon age keep a really elegant of make the transition between games. The downside is probably that not all details (conrade verner,etc.) will be included.

 

Alternatively, they still use a dragon age keep like module and have ME:A start as following:

 

Control: We fled, or were send by, our overlord

Synthesis: We want to promote cooperation between robots and organics in Andromeda

Destroy: We've advanced enough to jump to Andromeda and explore it

4th ending: We fled like hell, fell into a wormhole and ended up here - however, given the fact that the universe still exists they can ignore this ending

 

However, to me this sounds really complicated.

Penny for your thoughts?

 

So yes, nice idea but its been raised before you bleedin 'Post' stealer  

[AlanC9]

I assume that the writers would like to have momentum conservation to be still valid in their universe. So, if you deactivate the mass effect field (really really slowly, of course), the mass of your spaceship increases and momentum conservation implies that it slows down. With the mass effect field deactivated, it will be as fast as it could have been without one in the first place.

Note that this doesn't happen with the weapons. They're all about violating CoE.

[Killroy]

I kind of suspect that it might have been better all round had they not called this Mass Effect: Andromeda then people wouldn't get hung up on Shepard, Starbrat and the Rippaz... it's set in the same universe (tech, races, biotics and so on) but it's otherwise, AFAICT, a completely new franchise.

If gamers weren't so stupid and childish this wouldn't be a problem. Shepard WAS Mass Effect? The Milky Way WAS Mass Effect?
You know a group is ****ing stupid when a constant complaint is game franchises getting tired and repetitive, but complaining equally loudly when anything is changed.

[Thetford]

Is Deus ex Machina necessarily a bad thing? It worked for the Greeks and all ...

 

I wouldn't be adverse to the decision for a future title in the series set in the Milky Way, but have refusal non canon, non importable (like Shepard's death at the end of ME2), and for example canonise Destroy, but work Control into it, by having someone else enact Destroy (for example, the Council, who deem such power dangerous - which admittingly, would be a first for them), after which events, the game starts a thousand or so years later, so pretty much every character is dead aside from a select few Asari, Krogan, Leviathans, Cryogenically Frozen Human Popsicles if Plot Requires. Have each planet and colony separated and isolated from each other that by the time the Mass Relays are restored (likely by some long living Asari boffins who deem it their Galactic duty to reunite the Galaxy), the various cultures and races are immediately distrustful of each other, essentially like ME1+1 for all races and cultures this time, not just humans. However, I know this is likely full of plotholes, lore breaches, and is probably at the end of the day, likely a stupid and unusable idea, and no doubt fans would get infuriated. But they can't seem to do anything these days without infuriating someone, so you might as well make an Omelette that breaks the fewest eggs (whichever one that may be), or at the very least, distract everyone with toast (from that new fangled toaster that burns N7 on it). So they should choose to do whatever that breakfast may be and whatever that involves.

[Kabooooom]

A deus ex machina is generally considered a bad thing in writing, yes Thetford.

But, like I pointed out and I think others expanded upon (I'm not going to read this whole thread since I last posted), most of the time people are using the term DEM inappropriately. There are similar literary concepts that are not technically DEM's but are also considered unfavorable.

It's usually taken as a sign of bad writing and poor forethought.

There is, in my opinion, a very select few instances and a select few literary genres when a DEM can make sense and CAN be appropriately used in the context of the story. Science fiction is one of those genres. But these are very specific circumstances.

[Tim van Beek]

Note that this doesn't happen with the weapons. They're all about violating CoE.

I doubt I can come up with a theory about how mass effect fields work that does not violate the conservation of energy or some simple consequence of general relativity, or how mass effect fields could make FTL possible without violating special relativity etc.

It was never a goal of ME to be hard sci-fi, but if people come up with concrete questions about what physics would have to say to certain Gedankenexperimenten within the ME lore, I'll happily offer my opinion, if I'm around   .

 

I also note that obviously it is a topic of interest that the ME lore does not become too absurd, and that there should be some explanation about how a trip to Andromeda could be possible that makes sense to people.

 

From a writer's perspective I would be worried if communication with Earth is not possible, or if the events in Andromeda are in a very distant future, because then the story becomes less relatable. For this reason, I would try to make up a Star Trek wormhole that allows instant transportation.

 

From a hard sci-fi perspecive one could think about a von Neumann probe that replicates humans once it has reached Andromeda. But it would need to travel at sublight speed, as FTL over such a distance is not possible, given the ME lore (and special relativity  ).