234 réponses à ce sujet

[Iakus]

 
The only way to make this work is to rewrite the Reapers to be much weaker in technology. Fewer Reapers wouldn't help, since that would just mean that their sane play is to stay concentrated and pick off organic worlds one by one. (This is a basic problem with the way ME1 set up the lore -- planets are not defensible, and relay transits help the attacker. It's like they read Niven and Pournelle's essay about space warfare, and deliberately did the opposite.)

Eh, it "works" if the writers say it works.

 

I mean, if the Reapers can be stopped with "organic energy" or by shooting a random tube, why shouldn't any plan work, regardless of how preposterous it is?

[angol fear]

Eh, it "works" if the writers say it works.

I mean, if the Reapers can be stopped with "organic energy" or by shooting a random tube, why shouldn't any plan work, regardless of how preposterous it is?

No it doesn't work this way. You can't see the difference between what you want being totally incoherent and childish and what they wrote. Once again you can't understand the context, the basis of the writing.

[Iakus]

No it doesn't work this way. You can't see the difference between what you want being totally incoherent and childish and what they wrote. Once again you can't understand the context, the basis of the writing.

Well, you're getting better.  You made it to the second sentence before stooping to personal attacks. 

 

But just to correct you a bit.  I have never stated that conventional victory is what I "wanted" or even expected.  To the contrary, it has been my position that ME3 ever should have happened because the Reapers were so stupidly powerful and numerous, that Shepard never should have gotten off Earth alive, let alone made it to the Citadel.

 

That the Crucible plans were even found, let alone used, required contrivances and pot-hammering of the highest order.  And the functions, not to mention activation of it are laughable (again, "organic energy" and shooting a tube)

 

So, from that perspective, why is conventional victory somehow less realistic?  So many impossible things have been introduced, what makes this one so special?

[CYRAX470]

I never really could get past the fact an Alliance cruiser blew two legs off a capital ship. Because of that have always thought "huh...maybe it could have been written to be possible". Now I understand that same Reaper continued on to blow that ship to pieces, but I still see it as significant.

[themikefest]

So, from that perspective, why is conventional victory somehow less realistic?  So many impossible things have been introduced, what makes this one so special?

If it was possible, how would you have a conventional victory in the game?

[Iakus]

If it was possible, how would you have a conventional victory in the game?

"You would not know them, and there is not enough time to explain"  

 

On a more serious note, what does it matter how it's done?  You kill the Reapers by shooting a tube, or upload your brain pattern into them by grabbing a pair of electrodes, or rewrite everyone's DNA by leaping into a beam of space magic.  Is how a conventional victory is achieved really important when compared to that?

 

Maybe it's by raw EMS.  High enough number and enough Reapers are destroyed where galactic civilization can continue, though the Reapers remain a recurring threat for centuries to come.

 

Or there could have been a secondary plot through ME3 of breakthroughs in weapons.  More powerful thanix weapons.  Directed energy weapons.  Nukes.  Fulfill certain side missions and Sword and Shield will have weapons the Reapers have no defense against, evening the fight. (I'd hesitate to call this "conventional" though

 

Or Heck, Jeff Goldblum and Will smith fly into the Citadel and upload a virus from an omnitool that drops the Reapers' kinetic barriers while Randy Quaid flies a missile-laden gunship into Harbinger.

 

is that really more nonsensical than Synthesis?

[CYRAX470]

The way to implement conventional victory was already in the game.

 

Gaining alliances and war assets. Find more weapons and ships, apply upgrades to them etc. Lakus has the right idea, raw EMS.

[ImaginaryMatter]

"You would not know them, and there is not enough time to explain"  

 

On a more serious note, what does it matter how it's done?  You kill the Reapers by shooting a tube, or upload your brain pattern into them by grabbing a pair of electrodes, or rewrite everyone's DNA by leaping into a beam of space magic.  Is how a conventional victory is achieved really important when compared to that?

 

Maybe it's by raw EMS.  High enough number and enough Reapers are destroyed where galactic civilization can continue, though the Reapers remain a recurring threat for centuries to come.

 

Or there could have been a secondary plot through ME3 of breakthroughs in weapons.  More powerful thanix weapons.  Directed energy weapons.  Nukes.  Fulfill certain side missions and Sword and Shield will have weapons the Reapers have no defense against, evening the fight. (I'd hesitate to call this "conventional" though

 

Or Heck, Jeff Goldblum and Will smith fly into the Citadel and upload a virus from an omnitool that drops the Reapers' kinetic barriers while Randy Quaid flies a missile-laden gunship into Harbinger.

 

is that really more nonsensical than Synthesis?

 

My CV idea would be to have the Crucible revealed to be a Reaper trap (which seemed obvious during my first playthrough). Every one would start getting down then someone would come up with a crazy plan, Shepard would give a speech about coming together, some sort of mission takes place, and war assets determine the outcomes.

 

I don't think the how or why would really matter, either. At the end of the day the only interaction the player really has with the Reapers is across a gun barrel, earning war assets (which Shepard and friends and random N7s completely rock at). Since CV is fighting the Reapers across flying gun barrels with war assets, it doesn't seem like too big a stretch. Maybe it is overly simple, dumb, naive, childish, whatever, but most of the game is spent doing that kind of thing any way and rewarding you for it.

[Dantriges]

You have to reduce the numbers of Reapers, but if we are talking about stuff happening at the writing level, the a billion years number only came up in ME 3. So you could drop down the number quite a lot and you have a lot less reapers flying aound. Add in a modified Crucible and a bit more of prep work. Ok, it´s a bit odd when the fleet that darkens the skies consists only of a few hundred ships or so.

[themikefest]

On a more serious note, what does it matter how it's done?

It matters. I would  make it believable if possible
 

You kill the Reapers by shooting a tube,

I do have a problem with shooting the tube. I like to hear from Bioware  why I couldn't shoot the tube from a distance. Of course I like to give them a handgun and tell them to shoot a container full of explosives so it will explode. I doubt they would do that. I'm sure they would want to shoot at it from a distance.
 

or upload your brain pattern into them by grabbing a pair of electrodes, or rewrite everyone's DNA by leaping into a beam of space magic.

I won't comment on these two since I don't care about them especially the green stuff
 

Is how a conventional victory is achieved really important when compared to that?

If conventional victory was possible, you might complain since you have posted that its not possible with the numbers they have. And if you didn't complain about that, you might complain about the way a conventional victory was achieved. You might want a victory to happen this way or that way.
 

Maybe it's by raw EMS.  High enough number and enough Reapers are destroyed where galactic civilization can continue, though the Reapers remain a recurring threat for centuries to come.

Why would the reapers retreat if they lost x number?

The ems was a joke. A player can head to Earth with 3100 ems and get the same results as a player heading to Earth with 10 000 ems. Since 3100 is needed for the breath scene, what is the other 6900 ems doing? The game gives no incentive to get more war assets.

If a player is able to get peace between the geth and quarians, how many ships are seen coming through the relay heading to Earth? I don't know if anyone has counted or if there has been a number posted for how many. I'll just use the number 1000 for the heck of it. I have read a post that someone counted about 100 reapers over Earth. So the organics have the reapers outnumbered 10 to 1. You would think it would be a mismatch.

The problem with that is all those ships are bunched together. Spread them out. The other thing is to have each ship assigned to firing on a reaper instead of just firing at whatever. There's no way all those reapers would've been destroyed, but a lot would've been. The other thing is, once they start taking losses, they can call for reinforcements. We can't since all the fleets are at Earth. We would lose.
 

Or there could have been a secondary plot through ME3 of breakthroughs in weapons.  More powerful thanix weapons.  Directed energy weapons.  Nukes.  Fulfill certain side missions and Sword and Shield will have weapons the Reapers have no defense against, evening the fight. (I'd hesitate to call this "conventional" though

Not sure what nukes could do against the reapers since we're not given the opportunity to use them.
 

Or Heck, Jeff Goldblum and Will smith fly into the Citadel and upload a virus from an omnitool that drops the Reapers' kinetic barriers

I've posted a few times before. No one knows exactly what the crucible will do. Once the arms to the citadel are completely opened, the crucible fires some kind of pulse that reprograms the reapers. They stop the harvest and are seen leaving the galaxy. Yes this does require the use of the crucible and its not a conventional victory, but it does get rid of everything after Shepard passes out.
 

while Randy Quaid flies a missile-laden gunship into Harbinger.

I wouldn't make it that easy. The game can be setup to where destroying Harbinger would cause the other reapers to stop and leave the galaxy. I believe it would be harder to destroy Harbinger than getting the crucible attached to the Citadel

Another way is after the thing tells Shepard that it controls the reapers, Shepard tells Hackett to destroy the citadel. Will that be enough to stop the reapers? Only one way to find out. But that option is not available.
 

is that really more nonsensical than Synthesis?

I won't comment on the green stuff. I will just say I'm not a fan of it

 

 

For a conventional victory to happen, you need to have leaders that know  what they're doing when attacking the reapers. It will also take a very long time to get that victory. The more losses the organics take, the longer the war will take. Its possible a victory would happen after Shepard dies of old age.

 

I have posted that if the reapers had only 300 capital ships plus destroyers, troop transport ships and processing ships, they would beat us easily. All they have to do is enter a system, shutoff the relay. It cuts off any reinforcements. The reapers destroy the military in that system. They repeat this for each system then start harvesting.

 

If those same 300 did not shutoff the relay and spread themselves all over the galaxy, then yes, I would agree a conventional victory can happen. It all depends on who is leading the attacks and how those attacks are done.

 

Its up to Bioware to decide how many reapers there are. Here's a post with the possible number they may have at the start of this cycle
 

[ImaginaryMatter]

I don't think you need to reduce Reaper numbers to make CV plausible. To get a grasp on how many Reapers there are you have to pay close attention to the Codex entries and do some math, however, the rest of the series doesn't hold up to that level of scrutiny either. Most players and even the writers don't seem to care one way or another.

 

All you really need is to have is the protagonist winning against the Reapers and, I think, you already have enough of that in the game. Shepard has taken them out on foot, war assets almost continuously grow, all the multiplayer plug-ins, etc. Maybe, you need some sort of singular objective to smooth the corners (for example, "Shepard, if we take out Harbinger the Reapers will be disorganized and we can blow them all up out of the sky").

 

If it seems like I am ignoring the details, I am. I realize that, logistically, it makes no sense for CV to happen. But drama can carry a story really far, as the rest of the series has shown; so much so that I don't think CV would feel out of place. The only way the player ever really interacts with the Reapers is across a gun barrel and in those situations they certainly aren't unstoppable. CV is basically gun barrels in space.

[AlanC9]

The way to implement conventional victory was already in the game.

Gaining alliances and war assets. Find more weapons and ships, apply upgrades to them etc. Lakus has the right idea, raw EMS.

Again, this isn't believable without a total rewrite of the course of the war. Of course, if you want to follow iakus and ignore believability, this won't be an issue. But I still don't see how you compel the Reaoers to fight on disadvantageous terms.

[Reorte]

You have to reduce the numbers of Reapers, but if we are talking about stuff happening at the writing level, the a billion years number only came up in ME 3. So you could drop down the number quite a lot and you have a lot less reapers flying aound. Add in a modified Crucible and a bit more of prep work. Ok, it´s a bit odd when the fleet that darkens the skies consists only of a few hundred ships or so.

Yeah, a bit of tweaking and it could've sounded at least plausible. Half maybe half a dozen cycles and then the advanced warning from the Protheans could conceivably be enough of an edge. Delay ME3 long enough to actually make use of that edge (in an ideal world ME2 would provide some of the key parts to the means of the Reapers' defeat).

[Reorte]

Again, this isn't believable without a total rewrite of the course of the war. Of course, if you want to follow iakus and ignore believability, this won't be an issue. But I still don't see how you compel the Reaoers to fight on disadvantageous terms.

I don't think that Iakus does want to ignore believability, he's just saying that since it's no more unbelievable than the solution we did actually get then "believability" isn't much of an argument against it compared to what we actually got.

[Fixers0]

The (im)possibilty of a conventional victory against the Reapers was entirely for the writers to make up. Like so many aspects of the Mass Effect universe the nature of the reaper threat could be changed in a whim, argueably the most obvious example of this is Cerberus.

[angol fear]

The (im)possibilty of a conventional victory against the Reapers was entirely for the writers to make up. Like so many aspects of the Mass Effect universe the nature of the reaper threat could be changed in a whim, argueably the most obvious example of this is Cerberus.

 

Mass Effect 1 and 2 were written to lead to an unprepared galaxy. They never changed that idea. Writing this way means no conventionnal victory (so wanting a CV when it was obviously written to not create that, that's what I called childish. A child cry when he didn't have what he wants, he doesn't care if he is right or wrong so he complains. Don quixote can be seen like a fool because he was fighting chimeras, but when people complains about chimeras, that's childish). And if the game (Mass Effect 3) starts with the idea that a conventional victory is impossible, it only makes explicit the intention they had since the first game.

 

Cerberus never really changed during the trilogy, or you have to prove it. They are extremist in Mass Effect 1, they do experiences on human. In Mass Effect 2, they lie to you, they manipulate you, and in the end you have to make a choice which make us think that Cerberus wants to control the reapers (in the end of Mass Effect 3 you still have the experiences). They never turned into good guys in Mass Effect 2. It's just the perception that changed (from an external point of view to an internal point of view), but Cerberus itself is the same.

[voteDC]

We know that Reapers can be taken down by conventional weapons if you use the right tactics, the turians proved this.

So surely arming all the ships with Thanix Cannons would have shifted the odds even more, with less shots needed to do the same level of damage, and a far better spend of resources than building a device which you don't know what it does or how it works.

Then you bring war assets into play. The more you get the more possibility there is of gaining that conventional victory.

I would have liked to have seen this be an option for the refuse ending to be honest. You'd need pretty much every war assets available but you tell the Catalyst to go do one and win anyway.

[AlanC9]

I don't think that Iakus does want to ignore believability, he's just saying that since it's no more unbelievable than the solution we did actually get then "believability" isn't much of an argument against it compared to what we actually got.

Well, like I said upthread -- or was that another thread? -- we're talking about different kinds of unbelievability. Adding flat-out irrational behavior on both sides, on top of the space magic the series was always built on, makes things even worse than they already were. Of course, YMMV if you didn't already think that ME was about on par with Doctor Who in its commitment to scientific plausibility. (I don't mean that as a slam on ME; if wacky space magic bothered me I wouldn't have come back after ME1, or been watching Doctor Who since the Fourth Doctor.)

Remember, the strategic problem that the Citadel forces need to solve here is very difficult. Thanks to the horrible botch ME1 made of the space combat lore, planets are not really defensible. Merely being superior to total Reaper fleet strength doesn't give you a win if you can't bring the enemy to battle, and you can't keep the Reapers from entering a cluster by blockading the primary relay, since transit uncertainty works in favor of attackers, not defenders.

[Kabooooom]

The only way I could see conventional victory working is by utilizing the Geth. Have the Geth go off the relay network, into uncharted space. Once there, have them begin constructing a fleet of dreadnaughts. Thousands of them.

It could take years, it could take decades. But they don't need to eat, or sleep. They can live anywhere and utilize all resources. After you've built your fleet, return and fight the Reapers. They would never be able to find you in the interim BC of how absolutely massive space is.

Reapers can be taken down,it just requires extraordinary effort and firepower. So, strategy - create more firepower.

It isn't impossible, just impossible for organics.

[themikefest]

The only way I could see conventional victory working is by utilizing the Geth. Have the Geth go off the relay network, into uncharted space. Once there, have them begin constructing a fleet of dreadnaughts. Thousands of them.

Here's a post explaining the possible numbers the reapers have before this cycle starts. How many ships do you think the geth will need to build to stop the reapers? The other thing is where do the geth get the materials from while the reapers are harvesting the Milky Way? If one reaper catches a geth ship gathering materials, its possible that reaper and others may follow that geth ship back to where the geth are building those ships

How would the geth build these ships if the quarians are chosen over the geth? Unless they disappear into uncharted space before the reapers arrive, I don't see how they could build those ships. Shortly after the reapers enter the Milky Way, the geth are under reaper control.
 

It could take years, it could take decades.

Any idea how long it would take them to build the number of ships needed to defeat the reapers? Not only do the reapers have thousands of capital ships, but they have even more destroyers. I would be curious how long it would take the geth to build those ships

 

Reapers can be taken down,it just requires extraordinary effort and firepower. So, strategy - create more firepower.

More firepower doesn't always mean victory, though it does help. Its how that firepower is used that makes a difference.
 

It isn't impossible, just impossible for organics.

The reapers win by numbers alone no matter what. To stop the reapers, the plans to the device are found, its built, and then used before they enter the Milky Way

[grey_wind]

I'm just going to repost my thoughts on conventional victory from a few months back:

"A conventional victory makes the most sense from a thematic point of view. But conventional doesn't have to equal just more dakka like most people think.

You can still have a super-weapon be the key to winning in a conventional victory scenario. For example, if the Crucible was something built and designed by this cycle alone, most people wouldn't have a problem with it. Hell, it's not even a far fetched concept. At its most basic level, the Crucible is a weapon that combines with the Citadel to release the energy of the mass relays, exclusively targeted at the Reapers. It's not implausible that after all the knowledge the Protheans gathered about how the Citadel works archived in Ilos combined with all the knowledge about Reapers EDI datamines from the Collector Base, this cycle could build such a weapon as described above.
Throw in TIM's research on Horizon paying off, and you can write in the Control ending reasonably well.

Of course, such a scenario makes including Synthesis in the final narrative completely impossible, but that's not too great a loss.

The reason people hate the stupid Crucible as presented in-game is because it feels unearned. It's a long-forgotten "I Win Button" that's just conveniently dropped into your lap when you have no other solution and the threat is most dire. It feels like divine (plot) intervention, and completely undermines the thematic resonance behind breaking the destined cycle the Reapers impose upon every civilization."

[CYRAX470]

I think it could have been cooler to build our own super mega weapon. 

[Kabooooom]

Here's a post explaining the possible numbers the reapers have before this cycle starts. How many ships do you think the geth will need to build to stop the reapers? The other thing is where do the geth get the materials from while the reapers are harvesting the Milky Way? If one reaper catches a geth ship gathering materials, its possible that reaper and others may follow that geth ship back to where the geth are building those ships

How would the geth build these ships if the quarians are chosen over the geth? Unless they disappear into uncharted space before the reapers arrive, I don't see how they could build those ships. Shortly after the reapers enter the Milky Way, the geth are under reaper control.

Any idea how long it would take them to build the number of ships needed to defeat the reapers? Not only do the reapers have thousands of capital ships, but they have even more destroyers. I would be curious how long it would take the geth to build those ships


More firepower doesn't always mean victory, though it does help. Its how that firepower is used that makes a difference.

The reapers win by numbers alone no matter what. To stop the reapers, the plans to the device are found, its built, and then used before they enter the Milky Way

Like I said, they can find the materials anywhere. Space is filled with planets ripe for the picking. And like I also said, they would have to go off the relay network to avoid the reapers. The network covers less than 1% of the galaxy (this is a fact often misinterpreted by fans as having only explored a small fraction of the network - not true). It would be incredibly east to avoid the reapers because of how big space really is, which is something I think most people dont really grasp. If they went off the network, they would never be found.

And like I also said, it would take decades probably. But that's inconsequential considering it would take the reapers a century to finish harvesting the galaxy.

[themikefest]

Like I said, they can find the materials anywhere. Space is filled with planets ripe for the picking. And like I also said, they would have to go off the relay network to avoid the reapers.

Like I said. When do these geth go off the relay network? The only time would be before the reapers enter the Milky Way.
 

The network covers less than 1% of the galaxy (this is a fact often misinterpreted by fans as having only explored a small fraction of the network - not true). It would be incredibly east to avoid the reapers because of how big space really is, which is something I think most people don't really grasp. If they went off the network, they would never be found.

So you're saying they're still in the Milky Way, but in an area that hasn't been explored? That's possible, though it would be hard to believe the area they're in would have enough materials to build thousands of ships to fight the reapers. I guess it would depend on the area they hide in.

 

The other thing is if geth are still in the Milky Way doing all this building, can't any of the species hide in any of those areas without the reapers knowing? They just do what the Protheans did on Ilos.
 

And like I also said, it would take decades probably. But that's inconsequential considering it would take the reapers a century to finish harvesting the galaxy.

Doesn't that depend on how many ships they need to build. In the post that I linked, the reapers have about 13 667 capital ships plus destroyers at the start of this cycle. The reapers have more destroyers than capital ships. Hard to say how many more, but if I had to guess the number might be at least 50 000. I have no idea how many ships would be needed to defeat the reapers. Obviously the more the better, but the reaper can one-shot a geth ship unless the geth somehow come up with barriers equal to that of a capital ship.

[Dantriges]

Never heard that only 1% of the galaxy is connected to the relay network. AFAIK most of the relay network is dormant.