31 réponses à ce sujet

[KaiserShep]

I keep thinking about Battlestar Galactica (the reimagined series) and the way it depicted politics as another part of a desperate scramble for survival. Content as I am with the move to Andromeda, the one thing I'll regret leaving behind with the old trilogy will be the sense that we're exploring an immense galactic civilization at it's pinnacle, with all the excess that comes with it. Humanity was rising towards the top of an interlacing society of different, ancient, cultures. All I can imagine for the future is something more fragmented, splintered by cataclysm. A war and the aftermath that can unite people or turn them against each other. I personally liked the council, and I really liked the idea of the shadow broker when I first encountered it in ME1. 

 

Plus, I think I've seen some ongoing improvement in how Bioware approaches political dilemmas, and I hope we get more. More political machinations, more subtext heavy dialogue, more characters like the Shadow Broker and Lorik Qui'in. Or maybe exactly Lorik Qui'in. Basically, I hope we retain big aspects of those elements as we touched on them in the trilogy. 

 

This is the part where I'd usually go, "Thoughts?" but I don't like that question anymore.

 

I can get on board with this, so long as it doesn't devolve into the politicians bad soldiers good thing that ME got a tad out of hand with. Anyway, it really does need a bit of politics here and there so that the swaths of people surrounding your group actually play a part in some capacity in the story. In the end, it just won't be the same unless someone can chime in with: they're fools; you should eat them. 

[Lady Artifice]

It's not necessarily a negative and still relies on the type of character you make and what that character as Pathfinder chooses to do. The alliances you build will simply be more directly garnered and brokered.

 

Moreover every ->strictly<- political decision you made in ME didn't remotely matter, the moral and action based ones did.

 

Kind of telling.

 

It's not necessarily a negative. It's just not my personal preference, because I like political stories. 

[Dantriges]

I'm not intimating they're blameless saints blinded by technology and shinies, I'm saying the era of smiling and lying and using committees and basically letting the council take all the blame/praise whilst doing the heavy logistical lifting behind the scenes with backroom deals isn't going to accomplish much, even if the Ark is large enough to be a mini-citadel of its own accord.

 

We see with the krogan rebellions and ME2 and 3 that the asari method was cartoonishly inept in the face of any form of organized discord or  contention, particularly without other folks to nod and smile and agree and then send actual troops in, the policy of letting things exist over there out of sight and raking in benefits from illicit stuff while decrying it publicly only works when the people decrying it or some other third party lack the guns and means to make their beliefs a physical reality.

 

In theory the political system of the council must have been totally awesome. It was running for 2700 years and they only had two major wars on a galactic scale with the last one ending 1200 years ago, the Morning War/quarians where they dropped the ball and several incidents with the batarians until they finally left. Compared to human history where we managed to achieve worldwide peace for only something between three or five weeks after WW 2 that´s really great.

 

But well in theory and in stuff that we never saw on screen.       

[BabyPuncher]

I would think that really depends on how you define 'politics'...

 

Is 'politics' any action or decision that has a large impact? I don't really see how the Shadow Broker is particularly more of a 'political' character than any other major character.

 

Also, I can count the number of stories I know that have done 'machinations' well on one hand. Mass Effect really does not need a complete clown of a character like Vivienne.

 

...Plus, I think I've seen some ongoing improvement in how Bioware approaches political dilemmas...

 

Uh-huh...and where was this, exactly? Like I said, complete clown of a character. Of course, it goes back to how you define politics. There are some arcs that were certainly very well written, but I wouldn't particularly call them 'political'...the word would quickly lose meaning.

[Xaijin]

In theory the political system of the council must have been totally awesome. It was running for 2700 years and they only had two major wars on a galactic scale with the last one ending 1200 years ago, the Morning War/quarians where they dropped the ball and several incidents with the batarians until they finally left. Compared to human history where we managed to achieve worldwide peace for only something between three or five weeks after WW 2 that´s really great.

 

But well in theory and in stuff that we never saw on screen.       

 

 

As long as you were in the serpent area and the like sure, mindoir or anywhere the council wasn't interested in?

 

Not so much.

 

The fact that spectres exist and the basis of ME1 that you spend over half the game trying to get the council to get their heads out of their asses says things were a lot closer to Earth than one would suppose on the surface.

[Lady Artifice]

I would think that really depends on how you define 'politics'...

 

Is 'politics' any action or decision that has a large impact? I don't really see how the Shadow Broker is particularly more of a 'political' character than any other major character.

 

Also, I can count the number of stories I know that have done 'machinations' well on one hand. Mass Effect really does not need a complete clown of a character like Vivienne.

 

 

Uh-huh...and where was this, exactly? Like I said, complete clown of a character. Of course, it goes back to how you define politics. There are some arcs that were certainly very well written, but I wouldn't particularly call them 'political'...the word would quickly lose meaning.

 

I'm using the term loosely, I admit. Technically, politics is supposed to refer to governance or statecraft. Lorik Qui'in might be a stretch, since he's just a suave businessman, but I think the Shadow Broker easily qualifies. They might not be directly involved in the political landscape, but they will know everything about it, and be able to influence it.

 

I'm not having another debate with you about Vivienne. Live and let live. 

[Lady Artifice]

An article I found today, when I snuck a peak online during work, mentioned alliances the pathfinder will have to make. Potentially unstable alliances. I hope so. I want fragile, large scale alliances with lots of shady double speak.