212 réponses à ce sujet

[Iakus]

I'm going with the repurposed Collector Ship Dark Ark theory with a hint of BioWare space magic; there are enough resources then.

 

I swear the lead scientist on this project better have a long white beard and conical hat with stars all over it

[AlanC9]

Why saving Milky Way if we can easly space jump to the neighbor Galaxy that is even more than twice bigger as ours ?

Because evacuating some thousands of people isn't at all the same thing as evacuating billions?

[AlanC9]

And in, or after, all this, a second (or is it third, given both the Alliance and Cerberus each had one?) project to accomplish something likely not even considered before the invasion: to breach the gulf of dark space between the galaxies?

This is something I highly doubt the Protheans had plans secreted away on Mars too.

Dean already nailed you on this. All the work in this argument is being done by your estimate of the relative costs of the escape project and the war effort. You don't have enough data to make that estimate yet, since we don't know the method of transportation. I take it you're planning to waste all our time with this until that information does come out?

[Chealec]

I swear the lead scientist on this project better have a long white beard and conical hat with stars all over it

 

Better that than try and stick in the Milky Way in the state I left it in

 

He can even have two 'Z's if he likes:

 

[Iakus]

Dean already nailed you on this. All the work in this argument is being done by your estimate of the relative costs of the escape project and the war effort. You don't have enough data to make that estimate yet, since we don't know the method of transportation. I take it you're planning to waste all our time with this until that information does come out?

The "relative cost" of the war effort, at least, appear to be "everything".  Including the kitchen sink.  

 

The escape project?  Even if it was a conventional escape, that would stretch plausibility.  But we're talking the use of technology which this cycle simply does not have.  Thus, it would have to be researched, reverse-engineered, or found in a convenient Prothean archive, or somesuch.  

 

So, who cares if we don't know what the method of transportation is?  If it's anything more than "close your eyes and wish real hard" It's taking something away from the Alliance, Cerberus, or both.

[Eryri]

The "relative cost" of the war effort, at least, appear to be "everything". Including the kitchen sink.

The escape project? Even if it was a conventional escape, that would stretch plausibility. But we're talking the use of technology which this cycle simply does not have. Thus, it would have to be researched, reverse-engineered, or found in a convenient Prothean archive, or somesuch.

So, who cares if we don't know what the method of transportation is? If it's anything more than "close your eyes and wish real hard" It's taking something away from the Alliance, Cerberus, or both.

Indeed. Plus, I also seem to remember many of the side quests being about salvaging some bit of second-hand, technological brick-a-brack to plug into the Crucible. I doubt the Alliance would have had to do that if resources were not an issue.

[AlanC9]

The "relative cost" of the war effort, at least, appear to be "everything". Including the kitchen sink.

The escape project? Even if it was a conventional escape, that would stretch plausibility. But we're talking the use of technology which this cycle simply does not have. Thus, it would have to be researched, reverse-engineered, or found in a convenient Prothean archive, or somesuch.

So, who cares if we don't know what the method of transportation is? If it's anything more than "close your eyes and wish real hard" It's taking something away from the Alliance, Cerberus, or both.

Sure, it will divert resources from the Crucible effort. That doesn't mean it isn't worth doing. Diverting 0.01% of theoretical maximum production into a Plan B continuity-of-civilization plan has a very low chance of making the difference between success and failure for the Crucible. But it makes a very large difference in the utility of the possible outcomes, since there's a fairly large probability of the Crucible plan failing outright even with that additional 0.01%. Failure of the Crucible project because of lack of resources has to be on the table or your whole argument goes away, and there's no particular reason to think that the resources required will exactly equal total available production. Might be a lot less, might be a lot more. Not diverting that 0.01 percent is a bet that you will win because of that additional 0.01%, and that's a silly bet.

Of course, I made up that 0.01% figure. Feel free to make up your own, larger figure, which will make not diverting resources to plan B look like a sound decision. Actually running the numbers on this is conceptually impossible, though, since we have no way to assign in-universe probabilitiies of success to either plan, even if we could come up with a way to score different levels of success. (The games are no help since both plans in-game have a success rate of 100%, barring a Critical Mission Failure or Shepard Refusing. I suppose we could do something with EMS points, though, and the difference between low- and high-EMS states.)

That does raise a question, though. How much do you value mere continuity-of-civilization vis-a-vis billions of lives lost? For me maximizing the chance of someone making it through the cycle is paramount, even if that reduces the chance of saving the general population somewhat.

[ZombiePopper]

Having a "plan B"
Doesn't sound impractical.
Certainly resources would be an issue.
But historically,
Almost every organization creates a "Plan B" (or C, D, et cetera).
Even in the midst of war, in fact, it's SOP.
Even today most operations consist of numerous plans, should one or two fail.

[Iakus]

Sure, it will divert resources from the Crucible effort. That doesn't mean it isn't worth doing. Diverting 0.01% of theoretical maximum production into a Plan B continuity-of-civilization plan has a very low chance of making the difference between success and failure for the Crucible. But it makes a very large difference in the utility of the possible outcomes, since there's a fairly large probability of the Crucible plan failing outright even with that additional 0.01%. Failure of the Crucible project because of lack of resources has to be on the table or your whole argument goes away, and there's no particular reason to think that the resources required will exactly equal total available production. Might be a lot less, might be a lot more. Not diverting that 0.01 percent is a bet that you will win because of that additional 0.01%, and that's a silly bet.

Of course, I made up that 0.01% figure. Feel free to make up your own, larger figure, which will make not diverting resources to plan B look like a sound decision. Actually running the numbers on this is conceptually impossible, though, since we have no way to assign in-universe probabilitiies of success to either plan, even if we could come up with a way to score different levels of success. (The games are no help since both plans in-game have a success rate of 100%, barring a Critical Mission Failure or Shepard Refusing. I suppose we could do something with EMS points, though, and the difference between low- and high-EMS states.)

That does raise a question, though. How much do you value mere continuity-of-civilization vis-a-vis billions of lives lost? For me maximizing the chance of someone making it through the cycle is paramount, even if that reduces the chance of saving the general population somewhat.

But you're diverting resources to develop another tech that the Alliance simply doesn't have, while two other techs (the Crucible and Cerberus' Reaper control technology) are being developed and a galactic war on many fronts is being fought (and lost).   

 

Resources are already being spread very thin.  And this would take more than a tiny fraction of them to develop.  You are talking extending the effective rang of an eezo core by many, many orders of magnitude.  This is one of those "violates known physical laws" things which in peacetime would have reshaped the galaxy as much as learning to mass-produce relays would.

 

This isn't a matter of "Coming up with a Plan B is stupid" (though I'd argue the Crucible is already Plan I'm saying that this particular plan is no less ambitious than anything Hackett or TIM cooked up.   And as such, is unsuitable to be a backup plan.  Backup s are more modest, like Liara's time capsules.  Or, in an extreme case, the Prothean plan with Javik.

 

Which, incidentally, you saw them in stasis in an underground vault, not flying off to Andromeda 

[AlanC9]

Like I said, your argument really does depend on the resource commitment being a significant percentage of the Crucible effort's costs. My made-up numbers say it won't be, your made-up numbers say it will. Until we see how it actually works, there's no reason to prefer your made-up numbers to mine.

Edit: I should probably mention that I don't really buy the premise here in the first place. I find it highly likely that the journey to Andromeda will not be about using a newly-developed tech. If one ship can do it, another can follow, and if Bio wanted the problems that will open up they shouldn't be moving us to Andromeda in the first place. More likely, it'll be a one-shot -- unstable wormhole, some alien drive core that can't be reverse-engineered but can be mounted on a space station, maybe a captured Black Ark like the other thread mentions.

[ZombiePopper]

Personally, I think it's just logical, that someone, somewhere started planning for the reapers arrival...
But Truth is,
The prologue of MEA, is going to be lackluster.
We can debate it until you're blue-in-the-face.
But we won't know until we pop that disc in our drives.
-It's not going to be perfect. (In this situation, no matter what they do, it isn't going to be "perfect". There's going to be space magic, ass pulls and unicorns farting rainbows.)
-It's not going to make sense (at least not all if it will.)
-We're going to have more questions than answers-ugh.
And that's just the beginning.
Me personally,
I'm starting to head cannon the hell out of possible ways they reached Andromeda and explanations.
It's all we can do...
I'll admit I'm not a fan of the endings, but I'm still excited about MEA. Despite the prologue I still think MEA can be a great enjoyable game.

[Gamedam Meister]

I'm going with the repurposed Collector Ship Dark Ark theory with a hint of BioWare space magic; there are enough resources then.

Yay! My idea is someone else's go-to idea now. 

[Dean_the_Young]

Like I said, your argument really does depend on the resource commitment being a significant percentage of the Crucible effort's costs. My made-up numbers say it won't be, your made-up numbers say it will. Until we see how it actually works, there's no reason to prefer your made-up numbers to mine.

 

Why are we even accepting the false delimma that these made-up numbers would be zero-sum between the Ark and the Crucible? Why can't someone else lose out to both? There are other financial money streams other than the Crucible that could lose out to a separate/other continuiity-of-civiliation project. If the war is going to be won or lost in a year regardless, do space forces not committed or supporting the Crucible fleet need as much support? Do guerrila movements on Reaper-conquered worlds need so much support? Is there really a point to fighting tooth-and-nail for the Turian homeworld, rather than just avoiding catastrophic defeat?

 

Do we even know that the backers of the Ark could be supporting the Crucible in the first place? What if the backers are suspect/possibly compromised and not trusted by the Council/Shadow Broker alliance backing the Crucible? If the 'ARKCON is a Cerberus front' theory is true, why not let suspect/not-quite-trustworthy-enough factions fund/create the slightly-less-critical project? If it's a Cerberus-front, perhaps it's better to push Cerberus money and spies towards something useful rather than critical. If there's Reaper indoctrinated/infiltrated companies involved, perhaps the Reapers consider the Ark a low-priority issue that can be hunted down/mopped up with ease at a more convenient date, until RBG occurs. Or perhaps there's unique contexts that make key resources important to the Ark not particularly useful for the Crucible. Wormhole theorists not in much demand for dark energy engines, or what not.

 

 

The point of the above isn't 'this is the way it is', but just to show how little anything is nailed down, to the point that 'it can't make sense' is, well, non-sensical. Based on what we have so far, claiming the Ark would inherently take away from and jeopordize the Crucible is about as logical as claiming that, oh, MP is to blame for all the writing flaws of the SP story in ME3. It makes sense if you believe them zero-sum... but far less so if they are, in fact, not.