588 réponses à ce sujet

[Hanako Ikezawa]

Plus the big advantage that they've only got the one captured ship. If the intergalactic travel problem really is solved, moving to Andromeda doesn't solve much of anything.

Yeah. And even if the captured Black Ark dropped off all the personnel and supplies aboard it then headed back for more, it would take around 463 years for the next batch of Milky Way colonists and supplies to arrive. So it still gives them that isolated and independent feeling to work with if that's what Bioware's going for. 

[o Ventus]

I feel people tend to overstate the infeasability of that. 

 

Ignoring for a moment that this is a purely fictional universe and the inhabitants of it are capable of whatever Bioware says they're capable of, it really wouldn't take that much lore bending to handwave cryosleep and a thousand+ year journey. 

 

That's a lot less effort than trying to work in all the endings and, even if it violates the lore someway, the backlash on that is nothing compared to the backlash of canonizing one of the endings would be.

 

While "capable of whatever Bioware says they're capable of" is true, making them capable of intergalactic travel would devalue the imposed restrictions on space travel in the series. Ships can't go very far without having to discharge their drive cores, and the effective range of FTL in-universe is rather low since going from galaxy to galaxy would take decades, if not centuries via conventional travel. That's the entire purpose behind the mass relays in the first place, is to circumvent the limitations of regular FTL travel.

 

So they would either have to give the new group of characters some kind of super ship that can travel indefinitely for however many years without stopping, or they could introduce a new relay that leads to Andromeda. Neither of those options are any good, since the former invalidates the entire codex when it comes to space travel and effectively retcons the technology of the original trilogy, and the latter would imply that there are Reapers in Andromeda.

[o Ventus]

​

Essentially. The Codex is simply what's considered "common knowledge" for the setting. If I remember right, the ME1 codex (and every character in the game) would have us believe that the Protheans were responsible for all our technology. It was only a few hours later that we learned this wasn't the case.

 

IIRC, whenever the codex makes any mention of the protheans, it says things along the lines of "supposedly" and "apparently", never actually stating it as canon fact. In fact, the latter games codices mention the relays and Citadel to be "once thought constructed" by the protheans.

 

ME's codex has always come off as a sort of encyclopedic matter-of-fact entry on the subject, whereas Dragon Age had the more "as people understand it" feel to it, where the codex carried the biases and slants of the people who wrote the entries.

[Former_Fiend]

While "capable of whatever Bioware says they're capable of" is true, making them capable of intergalactic travel would devalue the imposed restrictions on space travel in the series. Ships can't go very far without having to discharge their drive cores, and the effective range of FTL in-universe is rather low since going from galaxy to galaxy would take decades, if not centuries via conventional travel. That's the entire purpose behind the mass relays in the first place, is to circumvent the limitations of regular FTL travel.

 

So they would either have to give the new group of characters some kind of super ship that can travel indefinitely for however many years without stopping, or they could introduce a new relay that leads to Andromeda. Neither of those options are any good, since the former invalidates the entire codex when it comes to space travel and effectively retcons the technology of the original trilogy, and the latter would imply that there are Reapers in Andromeda.

 

Beyond the fact that travel taking decades if not centuries being perfectly inline with the idea that the meat of MEA is going to take place "long after" the original trilogy, there's no need for whatever technology they make up to get them there to have been available long before it's implamentation, and there are plenty of justifications for it not being wide spread.

 

I could literally list dozens off the top of my head - I've already posited several over the course of this thread - but I'm just be spitballing hypothetical that the writers have had three years to think about. I don't have much faith in the ME writing staff, but I believe they're capable of coming up with a justification for this that doesn't break the preexisting lore. Bend it, probably, but that's part of the writing process. You get new ideas and sometimes the old ones have to be compromised to make the new ones work. That doesn't ruin the whole thing. 

[NeonFlux117]

Naw, Bioware gonna Bioware. They'll totally ignore everything and anything with ME1-ME3. And you guys will just have to suck it up or not.

[7twozero]

It's not like wormholing yourself to Andromeda was useful before the Reapers showed up.

If only we could do this to some bsners.

[shodiswe]

In my mind Destroy is the worst of the original endings, but at least it ends the harvest unlike Refuse which isn't one of the original endings.

I can't see why Control or Synthesis would make Andromeda impossible or even affect it.

If they leave Before the ME3 ending then none of it ever matters.

If they leave after, very Little matters.

Lets assume they leave after the endings(which I don't Think they will)

Destroy, they leave. Arrive at Andromeda, conflict happens.
Control. they leave. Arrive at Andromeda, conflict happens.
Synthesis. they leave. Arrive at Andromeda, conflict happens.

That's how I see it. Even in Synthesis they are still people and individuals, you can still make a normal game out of that. They may or may not have glowing nanocirquitry with builtin Internet/extranet and Shepard like enhancements.

But Ican't see how any of that makes Andromeda any less viable other than for people who are dead set on a specific ending and would refuse to play with anything else.

I was hoping this argument would stay in the EM3 forums, where it's mostly died off by now. Just like IT.

[shodiswe]

Game romances are just sidemissions, you got billions of real people in the real World.

I didn't opt out of them and found them entertaining, but it's certainly not my biggest concern.

[Former_Fiend]

In my mind Destroy is the worst of the original endings, but at least it ends the harvest unlike Refuse which isn't one of the original endings.

I can't see why Control or Synthesis would make Andromeda impossible or even affect it.

If they leave Before the ME3 ending then none of it ever matters.

If they leave after, very Little matters.

Lets assume they leave after the endings(which I don't Think they will)

Destroy, they leave. Arrive at Andromeda, conflict happens.
Control. they leave. Arrive at Andromeda, conflict happens.
Synthesis. they leave. Arrive at Andromeda, conflict happens.

That's how I see it. Even in Synthesis they are still people and individuals, you can still make a normal game out of that. They may or may not have glowing nanocirquitry with builtin Internet/extranet and Shepard like enhancements.

But Ican't see how any of that makes Andromeda any less viable other than for people who are dead set on a specific ending and would refuse to play with anything else.

I was hoping this argument would stay in the EM3 forums, where it's mostly died off by now. Just like IT.

 

Well, for starters, there's the question of why we wouldn't bring some Reapers with us in Control and especially in Synthesis, especially when they'd be our most viable form of travel.

 

Further more, regarding Sythesis completely we're all cyborgs now, and the ending slides really drive home the point of us becoming really goddamned advanced because of it. And yet that conflict that is going to happen is going to have the same level of difficulty for the Synthesized society as it would for the others, even without Reaper back up? The characters are going to behave in exactly the same way despite being cyborgs in one playthrough and not in the other? Because if not then what the hell was the point?

[NeonFlux117]

ME3 ended in such an encompassing and polarizing way, you can tell that Hudson intended it to be the last ME. But EA is making Bioware shill out another "mass effect" game to try and get a share of the soon to be booming Action Scifi RPG market (Deus Ex, Cyber Punk (in 2017ish),The Surge). Hell even Destiny has stepped it up in solid content.

EA just wants a share of the market and they already had an established series to further exploit.Even tho it is quite clear, narratively, that the MEU story was wrapped up pretty poignantly with ME3s ending(s).

[shodiswe]

Well, for starters, there's the question of why we wouldn't bring some Reapers with us in Control and especially in Synthesis, especially when they'd be our most viable form of travel.
 
Further more, regarding Sythesis completely we're all cyborgs now, and the ending slides really drive home the point of us becoming really goddamned advanced because of it. And yet that conflict that is going to happen is going to have the same level of difficulty for the Synthesized society as it would for the others, even without Reaper back up? The characters are going to behave in exactly the same way despite being cyborgs in one playthrough and not in the other? Because if not then what the hell was the point?

Even with the Changes happening change wont be instant, the Synthesis ending mostly talks about the future EDI hopes they will achieve, eventualy. They might have gotten hold of some Reaper Tech and knowledge, but they havn't got any post Singularity Tech until they start creatign it. In a way, they have been enabled for further development change and Tech development, but it's still their job to accomplish it and work for it.
The Geth were AI but they hadn't advanced beyond the Reapers, still they had advanced Tech, no doubt about it and they favoured the most high Tech solutions.
Technological evolution is not a miracle that just happens, it's born out of need for something and hard work.
Think of Shepard as the Blueprint for the change, how much did Shepard change? Synthesis might be slighlty more but from what commes through, Shepard provides the designs, which commes from the Lazarus Project, using a combination of Cerberus and Reaper Tech to upgrade and change Shepard.
How strange was Shepards behaviour in ME2 and 3 compared to Before that point? How strange was Shepards Cyborgness?

Seeing the Pictures, I would expect them to behave fairly similarly. They still come together in classrooms, they still spend time together they still work. They still reach for different goals. But they might have an easier access to knowledge which could affect the speed they process a problem or find answers or analyse scanner data.

Also, I don't expect Bioware to make Three different versions of ME:A. They either launch Before ME3, or they pick an ending and I don't Think Synthesis would make things woulse, in fact, it could explain new cool abilities of the main character and companions and fighting techniques.
More interesting moves and combos.
I tend to favor Control, even if it's questionable to enslave the Reapers who are already voctims, but it saves the Citadel and it allows peopel to make choices about their future and saves the Geth aswell.

Synthesis, is ok, imo, but the exploding Citadel with all those millions of people on it, is kind of dissconcerting... Some tweets claims most of them were safe in sheleters though..

But, I expect them to go for a pre ME3 ending launch. Ignore the ME3 endigns all together, run an Andromeda Trilogy for a decade, then possibly continue on that or go back to the Milkyway when most people have forgotten abotu the ME3 endings or matured to the point where they don't care enough to make too much of a fuss about it.

We can probably continue the ME3 ending discussion after 2025, if they announce a return to the milkyway. Somehow I doubt it unless Andromeda is a failure. They wern't happy about how spread out civilisation was in the milkyway. Even if it was said that only 1% was explored, it still looked like civilisation was all over.

As for the Reapers, In synthesis, they have free will, and they help the people of the milkyway as a form of redemption. They are not a form of transportation but sentient beings. (I guess they could provide people passage ifthey wanted to though)
In Control, they have been Conscripted by the Shepard AI, both to protect, aswell as a penance for their crimes. They are paying back by rebuilding and helping to protect people.(least in the Paragon endings)
Renegade endings could be more dictatorial, but not that very hands on.
I doubt the Reapers would follow in either of those endings, unless there was a Reaper in Synthesis interested in exploration. If one of them followed, then it might have been destroyed in the initial attack trying to protect the colonists from the hostile natives.

[shodiswe]

If BW wants Reaepers in the story then they could include them despite any ending, just say a few were left in Dark space due to repairs or sentry duty...

I don't want a Reaper story, I've just had one.

The poitn of ME:A is for the writers to get a mostly Clean slate using some of the original lore that created the Mass Effect universe and "mythology"... Then they can destroy yet Another Galaxy in the third installment for maximum outcry

[Gothfather]

No, now you have two miracle projects, neither of which is guaranteed to work, splitting resources that are dwindling fast as the Reapers trash the galaxy and kill all your guys.

 

 

Exact numbers about fictional products in a fictional economy?  What would it prove?  What would these numbers actually mean? 

 

What we do have is:

 

Genocidal war with millions of people dying every day

Massive project straining this cycle's scientific know-how to the max  With "everyone know knows how to hold a hammer" being assigned to it

Huge fleet buildup, larger than has been seen in recorded history

A terrorist organization opening a second front

An economy due to collapse in a year due to the strain of the war

 

Add to this a second miracle project introducing technology never before hinted at as a "Plan B" (or C, or D, or whatever) that can be accomplished in a few months just by skimming a bit off the Crucible Project (which again, was repeatedly said to be the galaxy's only hope)

 

Does this make any sense at all?

 

The harvesting of the Protheans in the last cycle took centuries. I think this idea of dwindling resources is within the first few years of the war is being WAY over blown by you. The knowledge we have of the reapers is that NORMALLY they strike hard seize the citadel and kill the leadership of the current cycle in one blow and then systematically harvest which take centuries.

 

This cycle they had to split their forces and attack multiple homeworlds to try and cut off the heads of this cycle's leadership. This spread them thinner and it kept both civilian and military leadership of most species intact along with communications and supply. If the Protheans can have secret projects on Ilos and one on Eden prime, after years of war with the reapers when they are in even worse shape for dwindling supply then so could the current cycle when they don't have the same chaos the lose of the citadel had in past cycles. Are you seriously going to sit there and say two independent secret projects at the BEGINNING of the war means you have divided your resources and you lose?

 

The allies in WWII had multiple secret projects and they still won the war. Bletchley park, the Manhattan project come to mind seems these were separate secret projects that didn't result in this scenario of splitting your resources so you fail and lose. You are making huge assumptions that are not back up by any facts and have actually been historically shown to be untrue. 

 

There is nothing about the Reaper war that suggest that the Crucible and the Ark are mutually exclusive projects. In fact history shows nations at war can have more than one expensive project in the works they don't always bare fruit but having two projects doesn't equate to failure. The Germans in WWII tried to build rockets, jets and the atomic bomb. They succeeded in two of those projects and they didn't lose the war because of those projects either the lost the war for other reasons. Your base assumptions are simply WRONG.

[spinachdiaper]

There are two options:

1. Make a forward moving plot that begins after ME3 and has a direct continuation from the ending of ME3.

2. Take the Plot to the maximum Recton level possible and have ME:A launch during a undermined ME3.

[FKA_Servo]

There are two options:

1. Make a forward moving plot that begins after ME3 and has a direct continuation from the ending of ME3.

2. Take the Plot to the maximum Recton level possible and have ME:A launch during a undermined ME3.

 

I don't think those are our only two options.

[Former_Fiend]

There are two options:

1. Make a forward moving plot that begins after ME3 and has a direct continuation from the ending of ME3.

2. Take the Plot to the maximum Recton level possible and have ME:A launch during a undermined ME3.

 

I think you vastly underestimate the level of retcon video game developers are capable of if you think that is the maximum.

[Iakus]

The harvesting of the Protheans in the last cycle took centuries. I think this idea of dwindling resources is within the first few years of the war is being WAY over blown by you. The knowledge we have of the reapers is that NORMALLY they strike hard seize the citadel and kill the leadership of the current cycle in one blow and then systematically harvest which take centuries.

 

This cycle they had to split their forces and attack multiple homeworlds to try and cut off the heads of this cycle's leadership. This spread them thinner and it kept both civilian and military leadership of most species intact along with communications and supply. If the Protheans can have secret projects on Ilos and one on Eden prime, after years of war with the reapers when they are in even worse shape for dwindling supply then so could the current cycle when they don't have the same chaos the lose of the citadel had in past cycles. Are you seriously going to sit there and say two independent secret projects at the BEGINNING of the war means you have divided your resources and you lose?

 

The allies in WWII had multiple secret projects and they still won the war. Bletchley park, the Manhattan project come to mind seems these were separate secret projects that didn't result in this scenario of splitting your resources so you fail and lose. You are making huge assumptions that are not back up by any facts and have actually been historically shown to be untrue. 

 

There is nothing about the Reaper war that suggest that the Crucible and the Ark are mutually exclusive projects. In fact history shows nations at war can have more than one expensive project in the works they don't always bare fruit but having two projects doesn't equate to failure. The Germans in WWII tried to build rockets, jets and the atomic bomb. They succeeded in two of those projects and they didn't lose the war because of those projects either the lost the war for other reasons. Your base assumptions are simply WRONG.

Um.  No, just the opposite in fact.

 

In the Prothean cycle, the Reapers took the CItadel immediately and shut down the relay network.  From there they attacked each world individually with overwhelming force while the Protheans could not maneuver quickly enough to reinforce everything.  This is a very slow, but safe method that minimizes Reaper losses.  But again, they have to fight each world as they unlock them.  And the Protheans expanded further than the COuncil did.

 

This cycle, they left the network open and hit many worlds at once.  this resulted in far more losses for the Reapers, but the galaxy was burning through their resources much, much faster.  Palaven being a notable example, as the Hierarchy was able to maneuver fleets to hit the Reapers from behind, and land krogan troops to reinforce their ground forces.  And even get the quarians in on the action.  It slows the taking of Palaven down, but you're draining the resources of several planets at once.  

 

Not Garrus in the end has to advise Victus to stop all actions on the defense of Palaven to ensure they had enough troops to hit Earth with the Crucible.

 

I'd also argue that in WW2, we didn't have "the largest undertaking in human history"  Things that are quantum leaps forward in scientific understanding.

[The Twilight God]

There is no acceptable way that the start of ME:A happening before the ending of ME3. The rectonning would be beyond preposterous since jumping galaxy to galaxy is something so far out of the reach of the Citadel & Council races grasp it's laughable to think it. Here is how ME3 endings cannot coexist with MEA, Synthesis would create a universe where there's no need for anything since everyone's a perfect bio-organic robot, Refusal is a cop out ending in which all sentient life gets exterminated without exception, Control leaves doubt about the reaper's new intentions but it's unlikely that they would allow expansion or departure from the milky way. Basically any ending with the Reapers still running around in any capacity undermines the entire possibility of ME:A.

Every ending in ME3 outside of Destroy was laughable outside of the protagonist being indoctrinated, leaving the player "indoctrinated" with a false sense of victory postgame. Even in the case of Destroy there is no room left for any semblance of "happiness". I'm not going to get into details here, but the relays would not have been repaired and intergalactic civilization would have been effectively destroyed. No krogan heroes returning to Tuchanka, no asari chilling on her homeworld with her daughter, etc. For anyone who actually thinks the Star Child was telling the truth about the Reapers or accepts any ending as anything more than the narrators' HOPES for the future verses what actually occurs off screen, the plot and narrative consistency has already been thoroughly tossed out of the window.

I don't see how you can be surprised that Bioware would simply ignore established lore and take a huge crap on the story they have already told once again. ME3 DLC sales told them all that they needed: You people will eat their diarrhea and call it a chocolate milkshake. They don't have to be consistent. They just make up new canon via random twitter posts when convenient. Like how they completely dismissed the importance of mass relays after ME3. And I'm paraphrasing, "Oh, relays? Who needs those? They just made travel a little faster. Nah, they don't NEED relays."

[Iakus]

Really?

 

Building a better spaceship is just a implausible as a magic ray that transmogrifies the galaxy?

 

I'm sorry, what.  I mean seriously in game there are semi-plausible excuses for super long space travel based on a variety of things, from the codex can be wrong, to its obvious the reapers beat it.  so stealing tech rapidly but still existing tech is just as implausible as magic rays the change the entire effing galaxy.

 

On the ME space magic scale the Ark isn't even a blip on the radar. 

What if, tomorrow there was a press release that a car engine was developed that could run constantly for over a century without any maintenance?

 

Yeah, a leap from what the cycle is currently capable of to traveling to other galaxies would be a leap akin to that.

[AlanC9]

ME's codex has always come off as a sort of encyclopedic matter-of-fact entry on the subject, whereas Dragon Age had the more "as people understand it" feel to it, where the codex carried the biases and slants of the people who wrote the entries.

I think this just reflects the difference between the two 'verses. Thedas doesn't have as efficient a communications setup as the MEU does, so there's no opportunity for a sort of Wikipedia that compiles the consensus "truths" about everything.

[Killroy]

What if, tomorrow there was a press release that a car engine was developed that could run constantly for over a century without any maintenance?
 
Yeah, a leap from what the cycle is currently capable of to traveling to other galaxies would be a leap akin to that.

That's 1,000,000x more believable than a magical wave of green light turning every living thing in the galaxy into technorganic chimeras.

[AlanC9]

I'm not going to get into details here, but the relays would not have been repaired and intergalactic civilization would have been effectively destroyed. No krogan heroes returning to Tuchanka, no asari chilling on her homeworld with her daughter, etc.

It's not a coincidence that we only saw krogan and asari getting home. Krogan and asari live for centuries. Even if it takes longer to repair the network -- my personal preference for a sequel was to have it set 700 or so years after ME3 with the relays still out of action (picture an aged Liara in the Kreia role) -- getting home through standard FTL is not impossible for them.

Like how they completely dismissed the importance of mass relays after ME3. And I'm paraphrasing, "Oh, relays? Who needs those? They just made travel a little faster. Nah, they don't NEED relays."

That was simply true. Mass Effect drives are a bit better than Star Trek warp drives. Reaper drives are substantially better.

[Iakus]

That's 1,000,000x more believable than a magical wave of green light turning every living thing in the galaxy into technorganic chimeras.

They're both fairy tale pipe-dreams.  Arguing which is the less implausible is kinda silly, dontchathink?

[Killroy]

They're both fairy tale pipe-dreams.  Arguing which is the less implausible is kinda silly, dontchathink?

No. One is an eventuality and one is an impossibility. This line you've drawn in the sand is entirely illogical. The Mass Effect universe already has Frankenstein projects and magical waves of light that change everything in the entire galaxy into technorganic chimeras. Going to another galaxy is pedestrian in comparison. Saying "yeah, but they probably didn't have the tech to do it" is entirely moronic seeing as how the tech that exists in the ME universe is whatever the writers decide it is. And arguing for "consistency" at this point is even more moronic.

[Iakus]

No. One is an eventuality and one is an impossibility. This line you've drawn in the sand is entirely illogical. The Mass Effect universe already has Frankenstein projects and magical waves of light that change everything in the entire galaxy into technorganic chimeras. Going to another galaxy is pedestrian in comparison. Saying "yeah, but they probably didn't have the tech to do it" is entirely moronic seeing as how the tech that exists in the ME universe is whatever the writers decide it is. And arguing for "consistency" at this point is even more moronic.

Arguing for consistency is asking for a higher-quality narrative.  The magical waves of light, the Lazarus Project, and such drag the story down.  It doesn't matter if going to another galaxy is "pedestrian" compared to Synthesizing the entire galaxy.  It's like saying a unicorn is less magical than a chimera because the former is just a horse with a horn.

 

It's hard to take a game seriously when all you have to do is run out the clock for another deus ex machina to swoop down and fix everything.  Solving conflict with a wave of the hand from the author takes all the tension out of a story.