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[Drone223]

 

 

"Element zero FTL drives accumulate a static electrical charge when a vessel has been in FTL flight for some time. This charge steadily increases with the amount of time a vessel spends in FTL. Eventually, it must be discharged. The safe method involves discharging into a planet's magnetic field (for large ships, incapable of planetary landings) or actual surface contact (in the case of smaller vessels). Space stations and similar structures which are not located near planets are usually equipped with their own discharging facilities; the Citadel has dozens of these."

 

link

 

But we aren't talking about space stations its about ships staying in constant FTL for centuries no ships in the galaxy are equipped with this technology because if they were there would be no need for these facilities.

 

Nothing breaks the laws of physics. When something appears to break the laws of Physics, it is because our understanding of the universe is flawed or our calculations are off. The Council species do not understand how Reaper drives work, because they've never seen inside one. The only thing they are able to observe is that the Reapers travel seemingly without the need to refuel, but what is going on within a Reaper is a complete unknown. That could potentially change during the course of the Reaper War, when you have multiple destroyed Reapers lying about that are largely intact.

 

But the council aren't being handed blue prints they have to start from scratch they'll have to understand how drive core works first before they can start building their own.

 

How long is a reasonable amount of time to reverse engineer an entirely fictional piece of technology of which next to nothing is said in the games?

 

It actually has a lot to do with being believable, there is no way something as advance as a reaper drive core can be reversed engineered in one or two years its just contrived.

 

Indoctrination is no barrier considering there is already precedent in the lore of recovering and reverse engineering Reaper technology. Robots and drones also exist in universe. In fact it is what Shepard uses to obtain a tech upgrade from one of the destroyed Reapers.

 

Getting the thing somewhere else and setting up the protection is going to be easier said than done this isn't debris its a drive core.

[Sylvius the Mad]

I am not thinking like a person here.  I am thinking like a machine.  WIth absolutist if/then logic.

 

They were told to "preserve organic life at all cost."

 

At

 

All

 

Cost.

 

If they were told "at all cost, then that means no constraints.  A detail the Leviathans learned to their sorrow then the Catalyst mulched them because they were "part of the problem" 

Your operators, yes, but not your definitions.

 

What's life?  What's all?  How do the Reapers determine whether something is life?  How do the reapers decide where to look?

 

You don't know those answers.  You're still using natural language to extrapolate.  You're resolving ambiguity rather than being stumped by it.

[Sylvius the Mad]

That's a long time for leaks to NOT happen.

Yes, it is.  But that doesn't mean it's impossible.

 

It's also not the only possible explanation.

 

To be confident that the ark can't work, you need to be able to conclusively explain away all possible answers, even those that no one has presented yet.  You can't possibly do that, therefore your confidence is misplaced.

 

You keep shooting down my examples as if they matter.  They don't matter.  I'm not saying this is exactly what's happening.  I'm not advancing a positive position at all.  I'm asserting that there is no defensible positive position.

[Drone223]

 You haven't connected those dots adequately.

 

Do the Reapers consider that possibility?  How do you know?  Do you have actual evidence of that, or are you simply offering conjecture based on your natural language understanding of something a computer said to you?

 

The mandate was given no constraints, it wasn't given a specific galaxy or a specific method of preserving life. It was just "preserve all life" there was no limitation as to how that objective can be achieved and were to carry out that objective.

 

 

Yes, that's the plan.

 

Does it always work?  Would the Reapers know if it didn't?

 

The reaper's leave behind a vanguard to monitor technological development. If a species is about to develop technology that exceeds then they're going to know.

 

We don't know that.

 

Cut off from other colonies, limited means of travel and resources limited to what they had when they became isolated means that its unlikely that pulling off such a feat would be possible.

 

So they say.  They can't know for sure that it's true.  So neither can we.

 

Again the reaper's leave behind a vanguard to check on the progress of technological development.

 

Why do you think that?

 

 

Its based of what is established in the franchise.

[Drone223]

It's the exact same principle. And it's completely illogical. You're saying that the tree doesn't make a sound.

I'm not, intergalactic travel isn't consistent with the technology during the trilogy, the codex clearly points out the limitations of FTL.

[Sylvius the Mad]

The mandate was given no constraints

You don't know that.  It was given no explicit constraints that you can see.  Any conclusion you draw beyond that is your own invention.

 

It may have constraints of which you're unaware.  The Reapers might also be unaware of them.

 

Think about where you learned all this.  On what are you basing your knowledge of the mandate?

[Sylvius the Mad]

I'm not, intergalactic travel isn't consistent with the technology during the trilogy, the codex clearly points out the limitations of FTL.

Is the codex infallible?  Or does it describe information only as it is understood by Shepard?

 

How do you know?

 

I assert that you don't actually know that.  You can't say with certainty that the codex is infallible.

[Sylvius the Mad]

But we aren't talking about space stations its about ships staying in constant FTL for centuries no ships in the galaxy are equipped with this technology because if they were there would be no need for these facilities.

That's not necessarily true.  Those discharging facilities might be especially cumbersome and impractical to put on ships.  They might be enormous.  They might be dangerous to transport in FTL (a risk ships can't take, but the ark wouldn't have the luxury of choice).

 

We also don't know that intergalactic travel would stay in constant FTL.  They could drop out of FTL for an hour a day to discharge static.

 

Yes, if we invent constraints that prevent it, it won't work.  But why would you do that?

[Iakus]

This is simply false. A machine will work even if you don't understand why it works, as long as you assemble it correctly.

And only an idiot would trust that they assembled a machine correctly if they don't know how it works.

 

Yes, I'm including the Crucible in this.

[AlanC9]

So you hit the power switch. Either it moves the ship, or it fails, or it blows up.

[Drone223]

You don't know that.  It was given no explicit constraints that you can see.  Any conclusion you draw beyond that is your own invention.

 

It may have constraints of which you're unaware.  The Reapers might also be unaware of them.

 

Think about where you learned all this.  On what are you basing your knowledge of the mandate?

"Preserve all life at any cost" you can't any more broad than that.

 

Is the codex infallible?  Or does it describe information only as it is understood by Shepard?

 

How do you know?

 

I assert that you don't actually know that.  You can't say with certainty that the codex is infallible.

We know enough that if the reaper's weren't able to develop the technology to travel to other galaxies in the billions of years they've existed than neither could this cycle.

 

That's not necessarily true.  Those discharging facilities might be especially cumbersome and impractical to put on ships.  They might be enormous.  They might be dangerous to transport in FTL (a risk ships can't take, but the ark wouldn't have the luxury of choice).

 

We also don't know that intergalactic travel would stay in constant FTL.  They could drop out of FTL for an hour a day to discharge static.

 

Yes, if we invent constraints that prevent it, it won't work.  But why would you do that?

2000+ years is more than enough time to make that technology practical enough to be on any ship otherwise they wouldn't be heavily dependent of the mass relay's for long distance travel.

[Drone223]

So you hit the power switch. Either it moves the ship, or it fails, or it blows up.

Its much better to know if its going to blow up or not before you hit the switch.

[Iakus]

Your operators, yes, but not your definitions.

 

What's life?  What's all?  How do the Reapers determine whether something is life?  How do the reapers decide where to look?

 

You don't know those answers.  You're still using natural language to extrapolate.  You're resolving ambiguity rather than being stumped by it.

Organic life at the very least, given the Catalyst's explanation.  So yes, if an energy-based life form was found dwelling in some nebula, or SIlicon-based life was found on some moon, the Reapers may have a hard time qualifying it as "life".

 

I'm gonna give a pass to the whole "non-DNA based life" since it appears all organic life carries it genetic code in DNA.

 

And I told you why they'd look in other galaxies.  Even if they weren't concerned with life there, they'd be concerned with potential threats coming from outside the Milky Way.

 

Preserve life at all cost

 

Yes, it is.  But that doesn't mean it's impossible.

 

It's also not the only possible explanation.

 

To be confident that the ark can't work, you need to be able to conclusively explain away all possible answers, even those that no one has presented yet.  You can't possibly do that, therefore your confidence is misplaced.

 

You keep shooting down my examples as if they matter.  They don't matter.  I'm not saying this is exactly what's happening.  I'm not advancing a positive position at all.  I'm asserting that there is no defensible positive position.

You're conflating "possible" with "probable"

 

Anything is possible.  I could win the lottery six times in a row.  It's possible.  But it sure isn't freaking likely.  And you yourself just mentioned how stupid governments can be.  Part of that stupidity is leaks.  Heck the existence of the Crucible is leaked, which you can discover by talking to people around the Citadel.

 

That's not necessarily true.  Those discharging facilities might be especially cumbersome and impractical to put on ships.  They might be enormous.  They might be dangerous to transport in FTL (a risk ships can't take, but the ark wouldn't have the luxury of choice).

 

We also don't know that intergalactic travel would stay in constant FTL.  They could drop out of FTL for an hour a day to discharge static.

 

Yes, if we invent constraints that prevent it, it won't work.  But why would you do that?

Discharge static where?  Into the vacuum of space?  I'm no physicist, but I don't think it works that way.

[Iakus]

So you hit the power switch. Either it moves the ship, or it fails, or it blows up.

Might as well stay in the Milky Way then.  Your odds don't seem to be any better.

[RoboticWater]

Is the codex infallible?  Or does it describe information only as it is understood by Shepard?

 

How do you know?

 

I assert that you don't actually know that.  You can't say with certainty that the codex is infallible.

I'd argue that the codex's authoritative tone (both in the prose and in the voice of the narrator) gives the reader/listener the impression that the information is completely accurate. At no point does narrative indicate where the codex information is coming from (as far as I can tell from the Mass Effect wiki), so one assumes that it comes from a 3rd person, omniscient, and trustworthy narrator.

 

However, that does not mean the codex couldn't be lacking information, overwritten by updated science (much like f=ma -> relativity), or simply reinterpreted in a loose manner by BioWare (not like they haven't done it before).

[Han Shot First]

But we aren't talking about space stations its about ships staying in constant FTL for centuries no ships in the galaxy are equipped with this technology because if they were there would be no need for these facilities.

 

 

The point is that the technology already exists in universe, and there is no reason why the writers couldn't also apply that to an ark storyline. We don't know why it is only used on space stations. It could just be that it previously wasn't cost effective to apply to ships. Cost of course wouldn't be an issue with a project on which the fates of several species may depend.

 

 

But the council aren't being handed blue prints they have to start from scratch they'll have to understand how drive core works first before they can start building their own.

 

There is no reason why that couldn't be done in less than a year. We're talking about an entirely fictional piece of technology, so any limits placed on how long it should take to reverse engineer would be entirely within the realm of head canon. It takes exactly as long as the writers say it takes. 

 

Besides the Batarians have been poking around a Reaper for twenty years. Who is to say that some information for what later becomes the ark project wasn't gained from some Batarian Hegemony military or government refugee, or gathered in some raid of a Batarian server?

 

The Council species also had a couple years to study Sovereign's debris, so who is to say they didn't already have some pieces of a Reaper drive core and that information gathered during the Reaper War enabled them to fill information gaps and complete a copy?

 

Maybe it is gained for the Leviathans. Reaper tech is ultimately Leviathan tech.

 

The writers have plenty of options of having the Council species replicate the Reapers system of propulsion that would be plausible.

 

 

It actually has a lot to do with being believable, there is no way something as advance as a reaper drive core can be reversed engineered in one or two years its just contrived.

 

 

Reaper drive cores are an entirely fictional piece of technology. As such saying that "it takes X amount of time" to reverse engineer is head canon. 

 

The galaxy reverse engineering a Reaper drive core, when Reaper tech has already been reverse engineered multiple times in the game universe, when the Leviathan of Dis has been lying around for decades, when Sovereign's debris was being studied for years, when Shepard gained technology from a destroyed Reaper, and while there are multiple intact destroyed Reapers lying around would be about the farthest thing possible from contrived. 

[Drone223]

The point is that the technology already exists in universe, and there is no reason why the writers couldn't also apply that to an ark storyline. We don't know why it is only used on space stations. It could just be that it previously wasn't cost effective to apply to ships. Cost of course wouldn't be an issue with a project on which the fates of several species may depend.

 

If the technology can't be applied to ships then it can't be applied to an ark since they've yet to integrate the into regular ships. If it can't work on regular ships than an ark wouldn't fair much better.

 

There is no reason why that couldn't be done in less than a year. We're talking about an entirely fictional piece of technology, so any limits placed on how long it should take to reverse engineer would be entirely within the realm of head canon. It takes exactly as long as the writers say it takes.

 

Even fiction needs limitations of what can and can't be done otherwise the lore ends up contradicting itself too often and people can't suspend their disbelief.

 

 

Besides the Batarians have been poking around a Reaper for twenty years. Who is to say that some information for what later becomes the ark project wasn't gained from some Batarian Hegemony military or government refugee, or gathered in some raid of a Batarian server?

 

The Council species also had a couple years to study Sovereign's debris, so who is to say they didn't already have some pieces of a Reaper drive core and that information gathered during the Reaper War enabled them to fill information gaps and complete a copy?

 

Maybe it is gained for the Leviathans. Reaper tech is ultimately Leviathan tech.

 

The writers have plenty of options of having the Council species replicate the Reapers system of propulsion that would be plausible.

 

Not without making it contrived or major retcons to the established lore and Bioware has a bad record with retcons.

 

 

Reaper drive cores are an entirely fictional piece of technology. As such saying that "it takes X amount of time" to reverse engineer is head canon. 

 

See my second comment.

 

The galaxy reverse engineering a Reaper drive core, when Reaper tech has already been reverse engineered multiple times in the game universe, when the Leviathan of Dis has been lying around for decades, when Sovereign's debris was being studied for years, when Shepard gained technology from a destroyed Reaper, and while there are multiple intact destroyed Reapers lying around would be about the farthest thing possible from contrived.

 

A thanix cannon is much simpler than a reaper drive core and reaper's can still indoctrinate even after their killed so its easier said than done.

[Drone223]

You don't know that.  It was given no explicit constraints that you can see.  Any conclusion you draw beyond that is your own invention.

 

It may have constraints of which you're unaware.  The Reapers might also be unaware of them.

 

Think about where you learned all this.  On what are you basing your knowledge of the mandate?

Its based on what we've been told and what was told was extremely broad and if there were limitations the leviathans wouldn't have been turned in to juice.

 

Is the codex infallible?  Or does it describe information only as it is understood by Shepard?

 

How do you know?

 

I assert that you don't actually know that.  You can't say with certainty that the codex is infallible.

The codex is reliable enough to give the basics of things work in the ME universe.

 

That's not necessarily true.  Those discharging facilities might be especially cumbersome and impractical to put on ships.  They might be enormous.  They might be dangerous to transport in FTL (a risk ships can't take, but the ark wouldn't have the luxury of choice).

 

We also don't know that intergalactic travel would stay in constant FTL.  They could drop out of FTL for an hour a day to discharge static.

 

Yes, if we invent constraints that prevent it, it won't work.  But why would you do that?

Writers often have limitations on what can and can't be done in a fictional setting in order to maintain consistency. When something breaks the laws of that established setting that's when the problems start to occur.

[Oldren Shepard]

If ME:A just tries to sweep the mess that was ME3 ending structure under the rug without a short and sweat gloss over of the who, where and why of ME3's endgame then ignored inconsistencies will eat away at any and all plot forwarding development. First of all Synthesis would preclude all of ME:A as would likely the Refusal option. Then we look at Control and realistically the Reapers would prevent any and all attempts at a organic being exodus. Finally all that's left is Destroy which was the most selected player ending (even if I didn't go that way in my game) and it's the only one that can make any sense furthering the Mass Effect Universe.

No, for synthesis they can go crazy with all the possibilities exploring and studying the universe.

 

In control shep memories and ideals guide this army of ship/nations to protect the many, i don't see how that could make shep stop  them to explore.

 

Destroy...i don't care about that option.

 

Refusal it's like letting shep die in Mass effect 2, it hasn't continuation.

 

My opinion, they could (if its post reaper war) make the background the 3 choices (synthesis, control, destroy) like earth born, spacer or colonist.

[Innocent Bystander]

2000+ years is more than enough time to make that technology practical enough to be on any ship otherwise they wouldn't be heavily dependent of the mass relay's for long distance travel.

We have technology to build amphibious vehicles. So why aren't all cars equipped with it? Because it's impractical. Yes, it's THAT simple.

[Killroy]

The technology exists according to the codex and the Reapers' goal makes no sense as stated. They don't actually care about preserving life since they don't save races from natural disasters or animals from extinction. Now everyone shut up.

[Sylvius the Mad]

"Preserve all life at any cost" you can't any more broad than that.

Are you intentionally avoiding my questions?

We know enough that if the reaper's weren't able to develop the technology to travel to other galaxies in the billions of years they've existed than neither could this cycle.

I suggest you examine the assumptions behind that assetion.

2000+ years is more than enough time to make that technology practical enough to be on any ship otherwise they wouldn't be heavily dependent of the mass relay's for long distance travel.

On what basis could you possibly draw that conclusion? You know literally nothing about the technology. Miniaturization might require the violation of fundamental physical laws (like superposition).

We don't know.

[Sylvius the Mad]

Organic life at the very least, given the Catalyst's explanation.

And there's your problem.

What evidence do we have that the Catalyst is trustworthy? Or omniscient? Your position requires both.

And I told you why they'd look in other galaxies. Even if they weren't concerned with life there, they'd be concerned with potential threats coming from outside the Milky Way.

Unless they weren't coded to do that.

Preserve life at all cost

Again, that information comes from the Reapers or the Catalyst. They're all constrained by the same core perspective. What if that perspective is limited?

There's no evidence that it is, but there's no evidence it isn't. So holding either opinion is irrational.

You're conflating "possible" with "probable"

No I'm not. You only just noticed that I haven't been talking about probability at all.

I've been discussing possibilities this while time. That's where our ambiguity is, and that's where the new lore could fit.

Discharge static where? Into the vacuum of space? I'm no physicist, but I don't think it works that way.

How do the space stations do it?

[Sylvius the Mad]

I'd argue that the codex's authoritative tone...

Tone is irrelevant. Tone conveys no denotative meaning.

[Sylvius the Mad]

Writers often have limitations on what can and can't be done in a fictional setting in order to maintain consistency. When something breaks the laws of that established setting that's when the problems start to occur.

We're not the writers. Why should we do that?