3578 réponses à ce sujet

[themikefest]

Its easy to get rid of the thing.

 

Hackett mentions that scientists believe there's enough energy to defeat the reapers. Why not have it do exactly that? After the crucible attaches to the Citdadel, and the arms are fully opened, the crucible fires its bag of goodies that destroy the reapers. Or instead of that, it sends out a powerful pulse that reprograms the reapers to stop the harvest. A few moemnts later, they're seen flying away. I would let BioWare flip a coin to decide which one to use.

 

The mystery of why the reapers did what they did will remain unknown. Or that could be something that could be in a sequel. Of course that won't happen since BioWare is taking the game on a road trip to Andromeda.

[gothpunkboy89]

 

 

@gothpunkboy89: Now this is going in circles. One last time (then I'm done), I answered your question of "Why would the AI need to exercise any control when nothing that happens in any of the ME games comes even vaguely close to threatening it or it's harvest solution?" in my last two replies. Your counter argument is "well, it only happened because Shepard did stuff", well, yes, Shepard did stuff, exactly! And the catalyst could have prevented it all if he could just open that relay.

 

The quantum shielding as you describe it in the other thread would not have worked on the alpha relay while it spun up, in which case it needed moving parts. That was the opening. Not a problem for the Citadel's outer shell.

 

Oh and btw, you didn't answer my two questions yet:

1. For the forth time now, why would the reapers/catalyst put in the extra effort to prevent the catalyst from taking control - if he wants - when building the Citadel?

2. You said there are multiple reasons why the reapers wouldn't attack the citadel right away in the beginning of ME3, even if the catalyst can open the arms or if they can "burn" through the shell somehow. Which reasons are those?

 

 

 

Yes logic defying plot device stuff happens. Like Sovergein suddenly suffering an over load because Shepard kills his robo Saren puppet. Even though before he was taking everything they had on the chin and not even flinching as the blew up ship after ship. But only after Shepard got a hold of a program that apparently can out smart a Reaper. Even though Geth can only remained reprogrammed for a few seconds. And was given to him by a VI on an abandoned planet. Abandoned because the Prothean Scientists left the planet to the Citadel with no way to return though the Conduit. All the work the Protheans had done besides a few scattered places left behind specifically for the next cycle to continue. The Prothean's were able to magically create the program and transmit it across the vast distance of space to that one VI. Then despite the fact the current cycle has had very slow slow luck translating Prothean data into their terms the Prothean VI is able to magically alter a program capable of not only locking out but delaying a Reaper's ability to interact with technology they created in a form our current technology could understand and store in an omni tool.

 

It is really hard to explain all these massive leaps in all logic or sense later in games without the ability to call on the get out of jail free card of it was magic or the Gods stepped in on your behave thus all these duce ex machina things were able to exist and happen in a very specific order to allow you to get away with this.

 

I only made an educated guess on what quantum shielding is based on the small amount of data we get in game. How ever the Reapers created the quantum shielding. They would also know how to get around it. This is a group that is capable of disassembling an organic body down into it's base materials then reforming them into other things to create Reapers. If you can create it you can also destroy it.

 

1. There is no extra effort needed to prevent anything. It actually would take more effort to wire it though the entire thing then not to. So I don't know what extra effort you are talking about here. When the whole point of the Reapers is to keep them a secret until the time is right and the Citadel is set up specifically to attract the races of the galaxy to it.  Now if it was just a massive relay hidden some were like the Collector Base was. That would be another story. But when it is set up specifically so anyone traveling the Relay network would discover it. Sets it up as the perfect place for the races to live at. This alters everything.

 

2. The Citadel is only a trap. Once it has been sprung or failed it's usefulness for the harvest is no longer there. It is only drawn into importance again by both sides because it is the mythical last piece of the puzzle for the unknown and never ever tested Crucible. By ignoring it all though the harvest it means they will feel like there is a safe place on the Citadel. The survivors of the harvest would flock to it out of fear wanting to feel safe some were. With every species cornered in one area that makes guarding them much easier till the rest of the worlds are finished. Then they can move in to finish off what was left of this cycle. They didn't seem to have any trouble taking it in the game.

 

Players seem to put to much emphasis on it's nature as a trap. Pushing it well beyond it's function to mythical importance. As if the entire harvest could be prevented or stopped dead in it's tracks by it. It can't and it won't. It has a part to play in the over all trap but it isn't the single deciding factor on everything.

 

But I got a few questions for you as well that you never responded to.

 

1.What is the worse case scenario for the Reaper if they did close the arms?

2.How long could any races hiding inside the arms last? Assuming it has it's standard population of 13.2 million inhabitants hiding in the closed arms.

3. Why isn't it one big giant indoctrination trap?

 

I mean why even use them to send the signal to activate the Relay when it would be filled with millions of inhabitants. All Sovereign would do is see signs the cycle is ready to harvest. Sends a signal to the millions of indoctrinated agents that is the entire citadel population. A group of them manages to "find" something new about the Citadel and activate it. Turning it into the giant relay effect. When they invade they scatter those millions of indoctrinated agents as refuges of their attack.

[ImaginaryMatter]

I have a question about the destruction of Saren-hopper causing Sovereign's shields to overload. Did people think this was the case before ME2/ME3? Naturally, I assumed the two events were independent of one another and they just happened in close proximity to each other time wise. It never occurred to me that one caused the other until reading about it on this forum and then checking the Codex entry from one of the later two games (I'm assuming ME3?).

[JavenRai]

What is really brilliant is the reapers logic - (sarcasm option).

 

http://the-alteratio...-plan-600689358

[Natureguy85]

1. There is no extra effort needed to prevent anything. It actually would take more effort to wire it though the entire thing then not to.

 

The Reapers built Mass Relays but it's a challenge to run electrical wire? You've said some dumb and crazy things but this has to take the cake.

 

 

2. The Citadel is only a trap. Once it has been sprung or failed it's usefulness for the harvest is no longer there. It is only drawn into importance again by both sides because it is the mythical last piece of the puzzle for the unknown and never ever tested Crucible. By ignoring it all though the harvest it means they will feel like there is a safe place on the Citadel. The survivors of the harvest would flock to it out of fear wanting to feel safe some were. With every species cornered in one area that makes guarding them much easier till the rest of the worlds are finished. Then they can move in to finish off what was left of this cycle. They didn't seem to have any trouble taking it in the game.

 

That's not true. For one, it holds the Catalyst. They'd probably want to make sure that's under their control. After all, what if the Reaper threat made them abandon their stance on not exploring the Citadel? Second, it still controls the Relay Network and would allow them to do their "divide and conquer" strategy and Harvest as normal. Reapers are machines. They are also creatures of habit, doing the same thing over and over. It makes sense that they would try to overcome changes to their plan and get it back on track.

 

Plus there's all that data we've talked about multiple times. The population on the Citadel is relatively small, even with all the refugees.

 

 

3. Why isn't it one big giant indoctrination trap?

 

I mean why even use them to send the signal to activate the Relay when it would be filled with millions of inhabitants. All Sovereign would do is see signs the cycle is ready to harvest. Sends a signal to the millions of indoctrinated agents that is the entire citadel population. A group of them manages to "find" something new about the Citadel and activate it. Turning it into the giant relay effect. When they invade they scatter those millions of indoctrinated agents as refuges of their attack.

 

This is a neat idea, but because those who find it will be there a lot and for a very long time, it's likely that it would be noticed and that might drive people to stay away.

 

I have a question about the destruction of Saren-hopper causing Sovereign's shields to overload. Did people think this was the case before ME2/ME3? Naturally, I assumed the two events were independent of one another and they just happened in close proximity to each other time wise. It never occurred to me that one caused the other until reading about it on this forum and then checking the Codex entry from one of the later two games (I'm assuming ME3?).

 

 

 

What made me think it was related was not just the timing but the red electrical lines. They were all around Saren as he transformed, as he died, and as Sovereign powered down and floated away. They were also around Sovereign when he took off from Eden Prime.

[voteDC]

I assumed it was a case of shock, that Sovereign had "assumed direct control" over Saren's corpse and its destruction gave terrible feedback into the reaper's systems.

We don't know what destroying a possessed Collector did to harbinger but perhaps the Collector General took the brunt of any feedback.

Something I find strange though is that the codex makes mention of the fact that the Reapers have solved the feedback issue that enabled the Alliance to take down Sovereign. How did that information come about? Did the Reapers send out flyers or something?

[rossler]

We don't know what destroying a possessed Collector did to harbinger but perhaps the Collector General took the brunt of any feedback.

 

Doesn't do anything to Harbinger other than releasing control of the Collector. One of Harbinger lines is "releasing control" when you kill a Collector that was possessed by Harbinger.

[Natureguy85]

I assumed it was a case of shock, that Sovereign had "assumed direct control" over Saren's corpse and its destruction gave terrible feedback into the reaper's systems.

We don't know what destroying a possessed Collector did to harbinger but perhaps the Collector General took the brunt of any feedback.

Something I find strange though is that the codex makes mention of the fact that the Reapers have solved the feedback issue that enabled the Alliance to take down Sovereign. How did that information come about? Did the Reapers send out flyers or something?

 

 

Doesn't do anything to Harbinger other than releasing control of the Collector. One of Harbinger lines is "releasing control" when you kill a Collector that was possessed by Harbinger.

 

Maybe that's the fix. Harbinger releases control before the subject dies, similar to Agents in the Matrix.

[gothpunkboy89]

The Reapers built Mass Relays but it's a challenge to run electrical wire? You've said some dumb and crazy things but this has to take the cake.

 

That's not true. For one, it holds the Catalyst. They'd probably want to make sure that's under their control. After all, what if the Reaper threat made them abandon their stance on not exploring the Citadel? Second, it still controls the Relay Network and would allow them to do their "divide and conquer" strategy and Harvest as normal. Reapers are machines. They are also creatures of habit, doing the same thing over and over. It makes sense that they would try to overcome changes to their plan and get it back on track.

 

Plus there's all that data we've talked about multiple times. The population on the Citadel is relatively small, even with all the refugees.

 

This is a neat idea, but because those who find it will be there a lot and for a very long time, it's likely that it would be noticed and that might drive people to stay away.

 

 

What made me think it was related was not just the timing but the red electrical lines. They were all around Saren as he transformed, as he died, and as Sovereign powered down and floated away. They were also around Sovereign when he took off from Eden Prime.

 

 

So you are just being an unabashed idiot aren't you? Mr Fob specifically said extra effort to not wire the AI to the entire Citadel. That isn't extra effort. It doesn't matter what the Reapers created. They could have created the entire galaxy from nothing. By every scrap of knowledge that exists not wiring something completely takes less time to do then wiring something completely does. If I get a new TV I can set it up on my tv stand very quickly. How ever connecting all the wires to it takes much longer to do.  If you still don't understand this super basic even kindergartens level understanding of time.  Well......

 

They Repeat what works. Control of the Relays isn't as important as you want to make it out to be. They didn't seem to have any trouble kicking the collective rears of the species of the galaxy in game. You continue to hype it well beyond the level it actually sits at. You might as well be stating that a smart phone renders all computers and game consoles obsolete from now till the end of time. For the pedestal you are putting the citadel on.

 

You can state the population is small but when it is sealed and no way for food to be imported in. It is shown to have a water supply but never is a replaceable food supply really shown. Food and water are both very important during a siege when you can't get supplies.

 

Depending on how they do it you don't realized you are indoctrinated because it doesn't show. That one Asari lady if you spare her on Virmire you meet her again in ME2. And it is only during ME3 she kills some people causing you to lose some galaxy ready points.

[MrFob]

@gothpunkboy89: Have you ever set up a networked infrastructure (which is what the Citadel's system would have to be)? It does take extra effort to isolate systems. It's relatively easy to isolate programs and restrict access but in the case of the catalyst, we are dealing with an AI, an adaptive program that can change itself and therefore change what it could access.

Fir example, it took special blocks and shackles to prevent EDI from accessing everything on the Normandy. It would have to be the same here. Sure, the reapers could isolate the catalyst's system from the relay systems but why should they, if they build the whole thing as the reaper trap and as part of the catalyst in the first place?

 

By the way, the Citadel is not just the relay trap (and part of the catalyst), it also has one more vital function which would be crucial for the war: It is the only place we know from which the entire relay network can be remote controlled. Vigil says so and when Sovereign takes over at the end of ME1, he shuts down the relays (at least the ones around the Citadel). Shepard can re-open them after defeating Saren.

This begs two questions:

1. Why don't the reapers want this immense tactical advantage right from the get go of the war? (this is what we discussed mainly here.)

2. Given that Shepard could use the system in ME1, why doesn't the council use it to the advantage of the organics in ME3? (I guess it's possible that ships with a reaper IFF could still pass through, hence it wouldn't do much good)

 

To answer your 3 questions from above:

1. That the Citadel would not be accessible as long as the quantum shielding around the arms holds, which could be a VERY long time (open ended for all we know). I know you don't believe this is possible but we don't have any facts on the amtter one way or the other and as I said, this is a head canon.

2. No idea. It's also irrelevant. In my first post about this topic a few pages back, I already mentioned that there is a chance that the Citadel inhabitants might rather starve or kill themselves then being processed by the reapers. Drastic for sure but that's why it's called a worst case scenario. The reapers seem to be all about minimizing the risk of a worst case scenario (look at their justification for the cycles) so this would fit into their pattern.

3. As I said in another recent post (not sure if it was in this thread or anther), my head canon is that the Citadel does have very mild indoctrination capabilities to prevent people from prying too hard. As NatureGuy85 stated, you couldn't make it too obvious, so people wouldn't see the station as a threat. (After all, you want people to come there for the trap to work and if stories of strange behavior by the inhabitants leak out, this would be detrimental to the plan).

 

As a final comment, it wasn't directed at me but calling people "unabashed idiots", especially people who clearly can make fairly complex logical arguments, is insulting and doesn't promote a civil discussion either. If I had to guess, it's this fairly aggressive attitude that seems to tick people off over time when they try to debate with you and makes them also more aggressive in turn (I don't exclude me here, I noticed this in some of my recent responses to you, which is why I take breaks now). I'd suggest toning it down (and I am fairly sure it's against the site rules in the first place). You may not agree with others, maybe even have good counterpoints but IMO that's not a reason to get outright hostile, especially in a discussion about fictional stuff that we are having for the fun of it.

[themikefest]

Depending on how they do it you don't realized you are indoctrinated because it doesn't show. That one Asari lady if you spare her on Virmire you meet her again in ME2. And it is only during ME3 she kills some people causing you to lose some galaxy ready points.

Wrong.

 

Rana Thanoptis actions in ME3 has no effect on war assets. You could've looked that up to find out it has no effect on assets before posting your comment.

[gothpunkboy89]

----

 

But it doesn't. You act as if the AI will behave contrary or can possibly behave contrary to how it is suppose to. EDI was created with shackles and restrains to prevent it from doing anything TIM didn't want it to do. You can not apply the same logic here because it is fundamentally different. The Catalyst isn't being forced into something to do a job someone else wants to happen. The Catalyst would have been the one to design the Citadel from the ground up. It would already plan well a head what functions it would want to access and what functions it wouldn't need to access.  What would be networked together and what would be isolated. There would be no extra work to do this.

 

If the AI never planned to have control of the arms they wouldn't wire the arms into it's control. Then afterwards create blocks or isolate that system from it after the fact. The connection would never have been created in the first place. Particularly if those systems didn't support what ever their version of Wi-Fi is. Which seems to be the case as Sovereign couldn't remote access the Citadel to kick start the relay. It required a physical access to start up the system or activate the arms.  Many of these systems seem to be single point access and that does not take extra time to set up.  Seriously I use to do it all the time with my buddy and his Xbox to play Halo without screen cheating. Took like 2 minutes to do that and even if skynet was busy taking over every computer on Earth since Xbox didn't support wifi (least pretty sure it didn't) they would be isolated from it's control as long as someone didn't plug an Ethernet cable into a router.  Skynet would never gain control of our xboxs.

 

Or am I missing some way for someone to gain access to a closed system like that without physically interacting with it?

 

Vigil also stats the entire facility went dark to avoid the Reapers. Yet was able to track them and their progress of wiping out the Prothean Empire without drawing any attention to it. Mean while Javik's group attempted the same thing and got Reapers out the bottom for their effort.  Vigil contradicts himself during his own little speech. Even if you take the route of he was talking to the player rather then the characters thus able to go outside of standard story telling he still contradicts himself.  The only thing it is ever shown to do is control Relays that connect to the citadel.

 

This answers both your questions. There is no tactical advantage to gain from using it. And to lock down the relays would only hurt organics more then it would effect the Reapers. They are capable of travel across the vast distances of space without Relays. They are not able to.

 

 

1.,2. Both cases would be a win win for the Reapers. They still manage to win at the end. Nothing that is created has a way we can't deal with it. We create metal armor. We build weapon's capable of penetrating it. We build tanks we create weapons capable of penetrating it. We create kinetic barrier we figure out ways of breaking it.  It a bit far fetched to think the Reapers don't operate on a similar set up.

3. Indoctrination only changes people if applied to long. We see the effect on the dead Reaper because there was no control to it anymore. Whats her name during Arrival DLC seemed perfectly normal up to the point she betrayed you. Despite a long time expose to the count down timer. It is only when you directly interfear with Reaper's showing up does the change really take place.

[MrFob]

Alright, quick and oversimplified crash course in network architecture: If you want to build a large scale network (and I am not talking about 2 xboxes but a space station, the size of Manhattan x 5), as long as bandwidth isn't an issue, the most economical way to build, operate and maintain a network is a star shape. This means you build one big mainframe and connect every system and terminal to that central location. This has heaps of advantages, I am not all going to go into but I guess it's fairly obvious that this makes it easy to operate the network and organize everything. There are other forms of architecture which make things a little more complicated but ultimately, for the purpose of what we are arguing about, they don't offer a much different scenario and this one is the easiest to explain.

Now, imagine you want to isolate a system from the rest. what you need to do is to build two mainframes, one for the isolated system and one for the rest. It is even likely they did this for the Citadel because they wanted to keep some stuff secret (the catalyst, the relay functionality, the relay network remote control, the receiver for the keeper signal, etc.). So they definitely need two mainframes, one public one and one secret one.

 

You need to put in some extra planning to build this properly and not have accidental connections (you need parallel wiring and such), you even need two power sources (if skynet really wanted to play Halo badly, it could have probably just hacked your xbox through the power line and you and your friend would have had to sit out the apocalypse playing checkers). So that's extra effort. If you want to now divide the secret catalyst from the secret relay functionality system, you need to not double but triple everything. That's where the "extra effort" comes from and if real life large scale networks are even remotely comparable, it's a lot of extra effort. .

 

But as I said, it's probably not a biggy for the catalyst and the reapers to do this 'cause they are super machines. The real question is (again): Why would they? Even if we assume your head canon that the catalyst wanted all of these events to play out as they did and never interfere (an idea which would hilariously backfire if I choose destroy as I have explained), it still wouldn't hurt to build a normal star network where everything is connected. It's not like the catalyst would have to use it. But suggesting that they planned this whole thing out more complicated than it needs to be in order to deliberately keep the catalyst from these systems because he knew that he'd never need them (which is wrong) is just preposterous.

 

But then again, since the Shepalyst can suddenly open the arms in the control ending, it seems that all of this stuff (even public and secret functions) are connected somehow after all anyway so it makes even less sense but I have no good answer for that one.

 

Now for Vigil:  Vigil speculates a lot, that's true but AFAIK, he doesn't outright lie (and has no reason to either). He also always tells us explicitly when he speculates and he doesn't do so in the following: Vigil states :"[the reapers] gained control of the Citadel and through it the mass relays."

Now you wonder how Vigil can know this and it's a good question. My best hypothesis is that he still gets some data from the Citadel through the conduit (we know that e.g. comm boys can communicate even through relays when they are not active (spinning), so I guess Vigil can do the same with the conduit. This would give him all the info he needs.

 

Vigil continues "Communication and transportation throughout our empire was crippled. Each system was isolated from the others, making it easy pray for the reaper fleets." This indicated that the Citadel controls the entire network, not just the relays around the Citadel. However, I missed one thing here: I always assumed that from the Citadel, you can control every relay individually, turning some off and leaving others on. This would have given the council an enormous advantage in ME3. They could have isolated the reapers while still allowing the allied fleets free movement through the part of the network where there are no reapers yet. However, this is not explicitly stated, so it may be that you can only turn the network on or off as a whole. And you are right, that would be a good explanation for why the council doesn't use this function.

 

However, even if that is the case, it would still have made sense for the reapers to attack the Citadel immediately in the beginning of ME3. As you said, even closing the entire network would give them a massive advantage.

And to lock down the relays would only hurt organics more then it would effect the Reapers. They are capable of travel across the vast distances of space without Relays. They are not able to.

 

As for your last paragraph:

1. and 2. I agree it's far fetched but quantum shielding may be different in this regard and loosing the citadel (keep in mind that the catalyst is in there) would be a big deal. And again, this is just a band-aid to explain why the reapers might not attack right away. I am aware it's not exactly the epitome of masterful world building.

3. The Citadel may be different in that regard as well, indoctrination hardly works always the same way but hey, ok, you were the one who asked why it might not work in the first place and this is an argument why it might not, so you answered your own question. And the people in arrival didn't act strange? When I first played it, I was completely weirded out by Kenson and her response to inquiries about indoctrination. She just deflected me. The only issue there was that I didn't get a dialogue option to follow up. Once arriving on project base things got only stranger with her outright revering attitude towards the countdown timer. Also, the Cerberus guys in the derelict reaper (since you brought it up in the previous sentence) are even weirded out themselves as it starts. Good luck keeping all that contained when you do it to a couple of million people who are in constant communication to the outside world. But yet again, I just want to point out that here again you seem to shift your arguments, just to be able to have an opposing viewpoint. I don't mind being challenged but I really wonder what your actual opinion is sometimes.

[Natureguy85]

So you are just being an unabashed idiot aren't you? Mr Fob specifically said extra effort to not wire the AI to the entire Citadel. That isn't extra effort. It doesn't matter what the Reapers created. They could have created the entire galaxy from nothing. By every scrap of knowledge that exists not wiring something completely takes less time to do then wiring something completely does. If I get a new TV I can set it up on my tv stand very quickly. How ever connecting all the wires to it takes much longer to do.  If you still don't understand this super basic even kindergartens level understanding of time.  Well......

 

FOB's explanation aside, the extra effort of running a cable from the Catalyst hub to the Relay function is so infinitesimally small when compared to the entire construction of the Citadel as to be nonexistent.

 

 

They Repeat what works. Control of the Relays isn't as important as you want to make it out to be. They didn't seem to have any trouble kicking the collective rears of the species of the galaxy in game. You continue to hype it well beyond the level it actually sits at. You might as well be stating that a smart phone renders all computers and game consoles obsolete from now till the end of time. For the pedestal you are putting the citadel on.

 

Terrible analogy 137 aside, then why did they bother shutting off the Relays ever? Why was the Census data less important this time?

 

 

You can state the population is small but when it is sealed and no way for food to be imported in. It is shown to have a water supply but never is a replaceable food supply really shown. Food and water are both very important during a siege when you can't get supplies.

 

That has nothing to do with what we were discussing. We were talking about people hiding there as part of the Reapers plan of herding people into a centralized location which, while it makes sense as an idea, is the opposite of what we are told the Reapers do, which also makes sense.

 

 

 

Depending on how they do it you don't realized you are indoctrinated because it doesn't show. That one Asari lady if you spare her on Virmire you meet her again in ME2. And it is only during ME3 she kills some people causing you to lose some galaxy ready points.

 

You might not, but other people do. You know something is wrong with the Salarian in the cell on Virmire, the one that attacks you. You know something is wrong with the people on the Derelict Reaper when you listen to their recordings. You know something is wrong with TIM in ME3. You should know something is wrong with Kenson in Arrival after listening to her on Project Base.

 

 

Wrong.

 

Rana Thanoptis actions in ME3 has no effect on war assets. You could've looked that up to find out it has no effect on assets before posting your comment.

 

That would require work. Running your mouth based on nothing is easier.

 

 

The Catalyst would have been the one to design the Citadel from the ground up. It would already plan well a head what functions it would want to access and what functions it wouldn't need to access.  What would be networked together and what would be isolated. There would be no extra work to do this.

 

And not giving itself control over the most vital system is moronic.

 

 

 

Vigil also stats the entire facility went dark to avoid the Reapers. Yet was able to track them and their progress of wiping out the Prothean Empire without drawing any attention to it. Mean while Javik's group attempted the same thing and got Reapers out the bottom for their effort.  Vigil contradicts himself during his own little speech. Even if you take the route of he was talking to the player rather then the characters thus able to go outside of standard story telling he still contradicts himself.  The only thing it is ever shown to do is control Relays that connect to the citadel.

 

Since you still don't get it, here's another good description of why we believe Vigil. You're right that we question how Vigil knows, but it's really a minor thing. Most of it is irrelevant to what's happening at the time but it does serve to broaden the scope of the story going forward. The questions raised about how he knows are valid but they do not derail the story.

[Ieldra]

Can someone explain in a few sentences what spawned the debate on this page? I'm having a little problem seeing its relevance. As far as the information we have suggests, either the Catalyst itself or the Reapers as its servants built the Citadel and retain complete control over its functions unless prevented by an outside agent like those Prothean scientists who deactivated the relay switch to the Reapers' home base.

[Natureguy85]

Can someone explain in a few sentences what spawned the debate on this page? I'm having a little problem seeing its relevance. As far as the information we have suggests, either the Catalyst itself or the Reapers as its servants built the Citadel and retain complete control over its functions unless prevented by an outside agent like those Prothean scientists who deactivated the relay switch to the Reapers' home base.

 

Yes. The debate is that Gothpunkboy disagrees with what you just said. While we claim the Catalyst breaks the plot of the first game because the Catalyst should have just opened the Relay, he says it makes more sense that it couldn't control the relay because it's just a passive observer.

[Ieldra]

Yes. The debate is that Gothpunkboy disagrees with what you just said. While we claim the Catalyst breaks the plot of the first game because the Catalyst should have just opened the Relay, he says it makes more sense that it couldn't control the relay because it's just a passive observer.

I see and I agree. It doesn't make any sense at all that the Catalyst built the Citadel with no control over its functions, and even after the Protheans deactivated the relay switch, it should've been able to activate it again through the Keepers, even if it had lost direct access, in fairly short order. If it was unable to do so, that makes it appear rather incompetent - which would be another reason to distrust everything it says. 

 

There's also this: the Leviathans built the Catalyst, but the Reapers and the relay tech trap are the Catalyst's design, for the Leviathans rather obviously didn't think of anything like the extinction cycle. So the Catalyst built the Citadel as an extension of itself, and we can't even rationalize this as the Catalyst being ignorant of some of its own functions similar to the way we are ignorant of some of ours. 

[gothpunkboy89]

Can someone explain in a few sentences what spawned the debate on this page? I'm having a little problem seeing its relevance. As far as the information we have suggests, either the Catalyst itself or the Reapers as its servants built the Citadel and retain complete control over its functions unless prevented by an outside agent like those Prothean scientists who deactivated the relay switch to the Reapers' home base.

 

Mr. Fob claimed there would be more time and effort to create the Citadel and not wire the Catalyst into every single control of the station.  I stated it wouldn't take any extra time and effort. Because setting up a line direct from the phone box to a router then to 1 computer takes less time then someone running the line from the phone box to router. Then splinting that 3-4 ways and running the wiring to 3-4 different computers. Then creating programs to limit their access to the internet.

 

If you never planned to set those computer up to connect to the net. Then there is no need to run the wiring out to them.

 

 

The key information everyone seems to over look is the Protheans altered the Keeper signal. The keeper signal is important because it shows the supposed Relay portion requires physical contact to activate it. Rather then let Sovereign remote activate it. You know needing to go old school with a key in the ignition rather then being able to push a button half way across the parking lot to start your car.

 

And even just altering the keeper signal is bigger then it makes it out to be. They would need to alter every single keeper AND what ever it is that constructs more keepers.

 

But if even Sovereign can't just ping the Citadel and have it open the arms and activate the relay. Then how or why would Catalyst be able to do the same? The singular reason for Sovgerin to be in the galaxy is to watch for when the time is right to harvest the galaxy.  But 12 Prothean scientist working with limited resources is able to reprogram the entire station to ignore the main reason it exists?

[MrFob]

I think the key information is that the writers just shoved the catalyst into the story at the end of ME3 with no regard for what happened before.

 

But it wouldn't be any fun to just say that, hence the discussion on how it could retroactively work after all.

 

Also, the protheans didn't have to alter the keepers. they altered the signal. Vigil says "the signal is sent through the station to compel the keepers to activate the Citadel relay". Everything else has been said already.

 

 

@Ieldra: I believe the current conversation started approximately here. But I have to admit, it got quite a bit off topic from the original thread actually.

[Natureguy85]

 

The key information everyone seems to over look is the Protheans altered the Keeper signal. The keeper signal is important because it shows the supposed Relay portion requires physical contact to activate it. Rather then let Sovereign remote activate it. You know needing to go old school with a key in the ignition rather then being able to push a button half way across the parking lot to start your car.

 

And even just altering the keeper signal is bigger then it makes it out to be. They would need to alter every single keeper AND what ever it is that constructs more keepers.

 

Wait, how can you know any of that? Vigil is the only one to tell you and you said he can't be trusted.

Anyway, you're wrong again. Yes, ME1 showed that somebody needed to push a button but that was before we learned there is an AI onboard. Now needing a button push is stupid. The mere fact that they did it one way is not an argument against doing it another way. If there is a controlling AI on the station, there is no reason for it to not have control over the Relay function directly.

 

No Keepers need to be altered. Changing the signal is equivalent to your favorite radio station changing it's signal. Now when you tune in to the old frequency or amplitude, you won't hear the station anymore.. The Keepers are looking for a particular signal to open the Relay. If they get a different signal, they will act differently or not at all.

[AlanC9]

Wait... how do you figure the prothean scientists were changing the signal? I thought the metaphor was that they were re-tuning the receivers.

[Ieldra]

@gothpunkboy:

You're overlooking one thing: if the Catalyst had been active during ME1's plot, Sovereign shouldn't even have been needed to activate the relay. It is possible that Sovereign couldn't remotely activate the relay switch, but it's not plausible that the Catalyst couldn't do it. You'd have to assume, basically, that the Catalyst was prevented from affecting a part of itself that it had built, as well as prevented from ordering anyone or anything else to repair whatever mechanism was needed to restore that functionality. So either we'd have to assume the Prothean scientists were sufficiently badass to permanently disable a godlike AI of whose existence they didn't even know, or that this AI was stupid enough to design those parts without any kind of control redundancy. Neither strikes me as even remotley plausible.

[Ieldra]

I think the key information is that the writers just shoved the catalyst into the story at the end of ME3 with no regard for what happened before.

 

But it wouldn't be any fun to just say that, hence the discussion on how it could retroactively work after all.

It may be less fun to say that, but we certainly should keep it in mind when discussing this. If the writers don't respect their own past creations, how the heck can we be expected to make sense of the story?

[AlanC9]

Sovereign shouldn't even have been needed to activate the relay. It is possible that Sovereign couldn't remotely activate the relay switch, but it's not plausible that the Catalyst couldn't do it. You'd have to assume, basically, that the Catalyst was prevented from affecting a part of itself that it had built, as well as prevented from ordering anyone or anything else to repair whatever mechanism was needed to restore that functionality. So either we'd have to assume the Prothean scientists were sufficiently badass to permanently disable a godlike AI of whose existence they didn't even know, or that this AI was stupid enough to design those parts without any kind of control redundancy. Neither strikes me as even remotley plausible.

But we're already swallowing that WRT the Keepers anyway. They are the Citadel's maintenance and repair system, and ME1 established that the protheans were somehow able to sabotage them in a fashion which was both undetectable and permanent. And not just individual Keepers, but the production system, or germline, or however Keepers are produced.

[MrFob]

But we're already swallowing that WRT the Keepers anyway. They are the Citadel's maintenance and repair system, and ME1 established that the protheans were somehow able to sabotage them in a fashion which was both undetectable and permanent. And not just individual Keepers, but the production system, or germline, or however Keepers are produced.

 

Again, they did not alter the keepers, they altered the signal (see my last post).

 

To quickly summarize: Reapers send signal to Citadel -> Citadel receiver gets reaper signal -> Citadel sends out keeper signal -> Keepers receive keeper signal ->Keepers activate relay.

 

The protheans messed up step 3. Why the keepers wouldn't repair this though, I don't know. It is said that it took the protheans years to figure out how to do this properly though, so it wasn't easy I guess.

 

I do agree that the keeper situation is just as convoluted though. Somehow the reapers built a station that had these maintenance workers and then they built it so that the keepers activate the relay when sent a signal though the station from the reapers. It's a bit of a mess. But at least in ME1 it is acknowledged that it's a convoluted setup. Vigil does speculate that the keepers evolved over time, which changed them in a way so that the reapers could no longer signal them directly. At least it's clear the writers thought about it back in the day.

By the time of ME3, they don't even bother to try anymore.