I've never picked the green stuff, but have watched it on youtube. It doesn't show Wreav getting his Krogan motivated to fight like in destroy. Not sure about control. But in the green, it shows the Krogan rebuilding just like it does if Wrex is in charge. Did the green change Wreav's mind?
Oh yeah. Did the crucible tell the thing to say that synthesis is the final evolution of all life?
I don't have to worry about that. I shoot the tube.
Well, this sort of thing has a long SF pedigree. I think the mass effect drive is blatantly lifted from the Lensman series; although "Doc" Smith was enough of a scientist to know better, and actually lampshades that physics says the drive couldn't work before establishing that it does work.
But wouldn't that mass only exist within the boundaries of the mass effect field?
Isn't the principle reason we are incapable of achieving light speed travel because the faster and closer we get the more mass is gained thus more energy is needed to achieve that speed? Basically you have a mass and energy needed to continue acceleration is increased at an exponential rate. But ME fields would counter that by reducing the mass of a ship traveling at FTL allowing the energy needs to be reduced.
Which would also go a long way to explain how Relays are capable of working. If they on their own create a channel that has no mass and anything traveling down it is given a starting mass of 0. Added on top of the ME field effect of reducing mass even further down then normal with the same amount of energy applied it would make the Relays work in theory. maybe not the instant blink and you are there set up. But it would allow much faster speeds.
And this can't work with synthetics because....
Because the Turians were only held back from wiping out the Krogan by the Asari and possibly Salarians.
I don't remember this part... the Citadel was build by the Catalyst? From zero? Are we sure about that? The Citadel might have been adapted, used by the Catalyst, in order to achieve his goals.
As far as we know the Reapers built the Citadel at the same time as the relays to use it as a hub and trap. The station is certainly not built for the Leviathans. And even if Vigil was wrong and the whole thing was just repurposed, the Dark Space Relay is an addition. There isn´t really a point to create relay into nothing in a space city. At that point, when you stuff a ton of AI hardware and a relay into a refitted space station it would make more sense to connect the relay function into the new hardware or at least connect it to both instead of the old one only.
but the reapers/catalyst were perfectly able to control or access any of the Citadel functions: through the Keepers, which they fully control.
it works for ages, until the prothean altered the signal.
Who needs an operator to operate a machine, when you are (in) the system which the operator uses to control the machine. It´s not like millions of keepers work a thousand winches and ropes to open the arms.
It´s not like millions of keepers work a thousand winches and ropes to open the arms.
Hey, no one's seen the entire inner workings of the Citadel, so you can't know that 
Hey, no one's seen the entire inner workings of the Citadel, so you can't know that
Ok now I'm just picturing thousands of Keepers running on giant hamster wheels to generate power.
As to synthesis, I'll repeat myself, without mind control how does it solve anything? Are the green turians suddenly meant to forgive the Reapers who have slaughtered billions of their people just because they share some of the same genetics? We are human and that doesn't work for us in the slightest, we still happily kill each other for the smallest of reasons.
It wouldn't work here unless mind control was involved.
You're right but you've got to see who is proposing this solution. The Catalyst. The same thing that kills organics just to stop them from creating synthetics that would kill organics. It only cares about completing his buggy task (synthetic-organic conflict). If there are no synthetics and no organics then the task is aborted. It doesn't care about consequences. But Shepard should care about those consequences before picking such option. If the Catalyst tells you it is a perfect solution it only means that this solution is perfect in Reaper logic, nothing more. If these new cyborgs kill each other off into extinction it wouldn't care.
Because the Turians were only held back from wiping out the Krogan by the Asari and possibly Salarians.
And Shepard with Geth and EDI could stop synthetics from wiping out organics. How is that different?
synthesis doesn't mean a perfect, peaceful, non-violent galaxy.
it merely solve the conflit between synthetics and organics by creating a new form of life, and nothing more.
Except that is exactly what we are shown. They even have the Reapers helping to repair worlds they took part in the destruction off.
Are we seriously meant to believe that? That we would see that sort of utopia without mind control.
Because you know what, if I was human, turian etc I think I'd still be slightly upset with the Reapers.
Korgans killed billions during Rebellion and Turians were able to live in the game galaxy as them. They didn't like each other but they existed with each other in the same galaxy.
After they'd crippled the Krogans ability to breed. They lived in the same galaxy because the Krogan had become powerless.
Plus remember not all turians or salarians agreed with the genophage as it happened. Many wanted them all wiped out.
The mass relays would work just as well as wormhole termini, and I think that's what they were going for originally. Only some "short-range" ftl that leaves the ships their autonomy was required, so they added some more tech without making the effort to adapt the lore. I can see several ways out of this problem, but none of them were taken.Well, this sort of thing has a long SF pedigree. I think the mass effect drive is blatantly lifted from the Lensman series; although "Doc" Smith was enough of a scientist to know better, and actually lampshades that physics says the drive couldn't work before establishing that it does work.
Mass changes the geometry of space, and one of the effects of that is gravitation. If eezo creates the equivalent of mass - and that's all it does according to the Codex - it will have that mass's gravity.But wouldn't that mass only exist within the boundaries of the mass effect field?
Reducing mass would enable you get much closer to light speed with less power, but the power required to achieve c would still be infinite unless the mass is zero. That's how the equations of special relativity work.Isn't the principle reason we are incapable of achieving light speed travel because the faster and closer we get the more mass is gained thus more energy is needed to achieve that speed? Basically you have a mass and energy needed to continue acceleration is increased at an exponential rate. But ME fields would counter that by reducing the mass of a ship traveling at FTL allowing the energy needs to be reduced.
Because the Turians were only held back from wiping out the Krogan by the Asari and possibly Salarians.
Doesn't answer the question.
Doesn't answer the question.
Doesn't it? One race was only prevented from fully wiping out another by a 3rd possibly 4th race. They how ever planted a massive bomb on their planet as well as spending millions of dollars to ensure the fertility virus remained 100% effective.
So in question to how the various races would live in the same galaxy as the Reapers after the billions of deaths they caused is pretty much the same logic. Anyone who would instigate a fight with them would be on the receiving end of a good old fashion ass kicking by the Reapers. Much like the Krogan knew if they instigated a fight they would be on the receiving end of a good old fashion ass kicking by the Turians. And if the Turians instigated they would be on the receiving end from the Asari and possibly some of the Salarian Union.
Reducing mass would enable you get much closer to light speed with less power, but the power required to achieve c would still be infinite unless the mass is zero. That's how the equations of special relativity work.
As far as I understand things, physics don't prevent something from travelling at FTL, but the lightspeed barrier is the problem. Anything normally travelling at ftl couldn't decelerate to c, and anything that normally travels at sublight speed can't accelerate to c.
That's why most proposals for working ftl travel include changing the geometry of space so that it's not necessary to achieve c locally. Fictional warp drives use that idea as well as any technology that uses wormholes. Simply reducing mass won't help you at all, unless you can reduce mass to zero, and I've never seen anything that indicates that eezo can *eliminate* mass.
Well ships have two different drives to be used. Normal drives and FTL drives. Or maybe low and high gear might be more closer to the mark. Either way it would explain the differences and why some ships can enter gravity wells of planets and some can't.
Basically during low gear the eezo core is only operating at a fraction of over all power. This allows the smaller ships to have enough mass displacement to allow them to easily enter and exist gravity wells of planets. How ever larger ships the mass displacement isn't enough to allow entry and exit out of gravity wells. Which isn't really important because they wouldn't need to anyways. How ever it is enough mass reduction for maneuverability in space battles and that is all that is needed.
During high gear or FTL travel the eezo core and engine are maxed out at full power. This provides a significantly higher mass reduction then normal flight.
Mass Effect technology works by creating an area of effect like a magnet. Strongest in the center with the magnetic field weakening the further you go from it. The eezo core would reduce not only the mass of the ship but the mass of the space around the ship as well.
How much mass is there in the vacuum of space? What would happen if a mass reduction field was applied to it? Is negative mass even possible? If the mass around the ship was equally reduced as the ship when traveling wouldn't that in theory at least solve the problem?
Which would also explain how the Reapers manage to move faster then organic ships. As one of the down sides to FTL travel is the build up of static on a ship's outer hull that has to be discharged before it builds up to much. Reapers being able to harness the static build up to provide and even greater charge. Causing it to reduce mass even more then normal allowing faster speeds.
But the catalyst was created by the Leviatans to study and solve a problem. They had no reason to make him capable of complex material action, like to activate a mass relay, to run an entire space station etc.
He conceived the Harvest plan, yes, but he need "manpower" to see it realized
The catalyst as a being of "pure intellect", with very limited material/mechanical abilities, sounds very plausible to me.
Before the EC there were hundreds of possible interpretations of the ending, and almost all of them had plot holes. It was impossibile to establish which was the right, logical interpretation. Even indocrination theory was plausibile/possible.
I suppose that the right, consistent interpretation has always been there, but it was almost impossible to "see" it, and to fully understand it.
After the EC, imho, the "right" interpretation has been canonized and well explained.
If you're willing to "accept" a few, possible (not certain, but possible) things (like the catalyst as a being uncapable of controlling the Citadel), the consistency of the saga is preserved.
Remember that argument in Engineering over if EDI is in the Normandy or is the Normandy? That really didn't matter because either way, she could control many functions of the ship. She couldn't control all of them, but she was working within an existing ship and was inserted in a particular way. She did not build the Normandy for herself. The Catalyst is similar but did design and, through servant robots or Reapers, create the Citadel. Why would it create a thing and put itself inside but not give itself control over the most crucial functions?
There really weren't all those interpretations without making up stuff or stretching things like you're doing. IT was a cool idea but was always wrong, particularly in not following what the established rules for Indoctrination were.The literal interpretation was always the right one. Again, notice what you're doing; you are trying to think up excuses to make sense of what was presented when that stuff doesn't make sense on it's face. That's not our job as the audience. This wasn't a mystery that we are trying to solve, where that might be appropriate.
but the catalyst did not physically create the army that bring down the Leviathans.
Can we say that the scientists of project manhattan create the nuclear bomb? Yes, of course.
But i doubt that they even touch a bolt in order to assemble it...
The sherpalyst is an "updated" version of the catalyst, a sort of catalyst 2.0., yes.
But it is also something different, generated by the immense amount of energy released by the crucible.
We cannot know what are the abilities and the limitations of the sherpalist
The Catalyst may have physically made the servants by directly controlling the factories. We don't know much about that. Leviathan says it created an army of pawns. This makes it sound like what I suggested.
There is nothing to suggest Shepard-Catalyst has any abilities the Catalyst does not. You're making that up.
Synthesis may seem like magic to some, but to the Reapers, it's their way of reproducing.
No, it isn't but I do like to see Reapers as a crude or imperfect attempt at Synthesis.
So any new information about the world is a "retcon"? I don't have a problem with that, but is "retcon" a useful concept if it's that broad?
No, not at all If something was planned all along, then it's just new. Any good reveal or twist will make sense in hindsight. Any contradictions must be addressed. In my Star Wars example, the retcon benefited the story, but the characters addressed the discrepancy. Neither is the case for Mass Effect and the Catalyst. In order for it to be a retcon, it has to be a new idea for the writing, not just for the audience. When Star Wars was made, Vader was not Luke's father and Obi-Wan was being literal when he said Vader killed Anakin. The movie changed that retroactively. Likewise, in ME, the Catalyst did not exist. ME3 changed that retroactively.
As for the voice recording, the magic is in how Tali acquired it. (The Council also has a dopey reaction to it, believing only the parts they need to in order to keep the plot moving, but that's par for the course with the series.) Let's set aside the grotesque improbability of finding just the right audio memory for a second, although when you do that you don't get to play the grotesque improbability of Liara discovering the Crucible plans against ME3. Think about the sequence. A geth leaves Sovereign after Eden Prime, goes to wherever Tali was,Tali kills it, extracts the memories, not only decodes them but finds out who Saren is, and then flies to the Citadel, which she somehow manages to reach before Shepard -- which is supposed to be a fast ship, right?
It's a good, workable plot device, but the idea that this represents careful world-building doesn't pass the laugh test. It's Bio making up what they needed when they needed it.
I'm not saying that ME2 and ME3 weren't worse, just that ME1 is not very good. You're in a better place than that writer with the series if your standards are so low that all three games pass, or high enough so ME1 fails too.
Those are all good questions or things to poke fun at, but those are plot issues, not worldbuilding ones. The time one makes the least sense and the other stand-out is how Tali knew the recording was of Saren or any Specter. It would be cool if they had Shepard do something else, like more Specter trials, and then have Tali contact Shepard or the Alliance saying she found the recording and had heard about the attack last month. Then Shepard would be the one to recognize Saren's voice, having heard it at the first hearing. But they didn't want to drag it out and I get that.
As to synthesis, I'll repeat myself, without mind control how does it solve anything? Are the green turians suddenly meant to forgive the Reapers who have slaughtered billions of their people just because they share some of the same genetics? We are human and that doesn't work for us in the slightest, we still happily kill each other for the smallest of reasons.
It wouldn't work here unless mind control was involved.
Only Synthetic vs Organic conflict matters to the Catalyst and therefore the ending.
synthesis doesn't mean a perfect, peaceful, non-violent galaxy.
it merely solve the conflit between synthetics and organics by creating a new form of life, and nothing more.
If it doesn't mean the former, who cares about the latter? What's so special about that conflict vs other conflicts? And the EC epilogue paints a pretty utopian picture for Synthesis.
You're right but you've got to see who is proposing this solution. The Catalyst. The same thing that kills organics just to stop them from creating synthetics that would kill organics. It only cares about completing his buggy task (synthetic-organic conflict). If there are no synthetics and no organics then the task is aborted. It doesn't care about consequences. But Shepard should care about those consequences before picking such option. If the Catalyst tells you it is a perfect solution it only means that this solution is perfect in Reaper logic, nothing more. If these new cyborgs kill each other off into extinction it wouldn't care.
I like this interpretation, but Leviathan says it is supposed to preserve life, not just keep Synthetics from destroying it. Which apparently the Catalyst interpreted as prevent "life = 0" because it kills a lot of Organics. Obviously it also had a different idea of what it means to "preserve" life.
Reducing mass would enable you get much closer to light speed with less power, but the power required to achieve c would still be infinite unless the mass is zero. That's how the equations of special relativity work.
As far as I understand things, physics don't prevent something from travelling at FTL, but the lightspeed barrier is the problem. Anything normally travelling at ftl couldn't decelerate to c, and anything that normally travels at sublight speed can't accelerate to c.
That's why most proposals for working ftl travel include changing the geometry of space so that it's not necessary to achieve c locally. Fictional warp drives use that idea as well as any technology that uses wormholes. Simply reducing mass won't help you at all, unless you can reduce mass to zero, and I've never seen anything that indicates that eezo can *eliminate* mass.
Well the codex says the Relays create "virtually massless" corridors. They raise the speed of light within the corridor, so within that corridor you actually aren't traveling faster than light, but you are for a viewer outside the corridor.
However, it doesn't really matter. The series establishes these things right off the bat as part of the setting. You have to accept them if you want to continue the journey. I have no problem with that. They just need to be consistent about how it works.
AsIt´s not like millions of keepers work a thousand winches and ropes to open the arms.
Hey, no one's seen the entire inner workings of the Citadel, so you can't know that
Ok now I'm just picturing thousands of Keepers running on giant hamster wheels to generate power.
Canon now.
As far as we know the Reapers built the Citadel at the same time as the relays to use it as a hub and trap. The station is certainly not built for the Leviathans. And even if Vigil was wrong and the whole thing was just repurposed, the Dark Space Relay is an addition. There isn´t really a point to create relay into nothing in a space city. At that point, when you stuff a ton of AI hardware and a relay into a refitted space station it would make more sense to connect the relay function into the new hardware or at least connect it to both instead of the old one only.
we don't know.
they might have built the Citadel and the relays, or they might have been used them, adapted them, to be a trap.
there were a lot o advanced civilization before and during the Leviathans egemony.
In any case, if you're an OS, who was created in order to analyze a very specific problem, however advanced you might be, you may not be able to fully control, in all its mechanical parts, something so advance e complex as the Citadel and/or a mass relay.
You may need others (keepers) to perform some actions/operations.
That's absolutely plausible.
Remember that argument in Engineering over if EDI is in the Normandy or is the Normandy? That really didn't matter because either way, she could control many functions of the ship. She couldn't control all of them, but she was working within an existing ship and was inserted in a particular way. She did not build the Normandy for herself. The Catalyst is similar but did design and, through servant robots or Reapers, create the Citadel. Why would it create a thing and put itself inside but not give itself control over the most crucial functions?
There really weren't all those interpretations without making up stuff or stretching things like you're doing. IT was a cool idea but was always wrong, particularly in not following what the established rules for Indoctrination were.The literal interpretation was always the right one. Again, notice what you're doing; you are trying to think up excuses to make sense of what was presented when that stuff doesn't make sense on it's face. That's not our job as the audience. This wasn't a mystery that we are trying to solve, where that might be appropriate.
Edi was created in order to control the normandy.
The catalyst was created from a completely different purpose than control the Citadel.
There is a HUGE difference.
The catalyst may have a certain control over the Citadel, but full control over all its relevant functionalities? Not necessarily.
You have no evidence that the catalyst MUST control the Citadel, 100% sure.
Could it have been the most logical and simple scenario? Yes, but the other scenario (limited control) is also possibile. So why, between to possible scenarios, do you pick the one which creates plot holes everywhere, rather than the other one, less likely but that creates no plot holes?
There is nothing to suggest Shepard-Catalyst has any abilities the Catalyst does not. You're making that up.
the mere fact that it's something different, something new, makes it possible.
we don't know almost NOTHING about the Shepard-Catalyst, expect that he is more suited to solve the galactic problem. Can he be more powerful and ubiquitous that the previous catalyst? Very much so.
Edi was created in order to control the normandy.
The catalyst was created from a completely different purpose than control the Citadel.
There is a HUGE difference.
The catalyst may have a certain control over the Citadel, but full control over all its relevant functionalities? Not necessarily.
You have no evidence that the catalyst MUST control the Citadel, 100% sure.
Could it have been the most logical and simple scenario? Yes, but the other scenario (limited control) is also possibile. So why, between to possible scenarios, do you pick the one which creates plot holes everywhere, rather than the other one, less likely but that creates no plot holes?
the mere fact that it's something different, something new, makes it possible.
we don't know almost NOTHING about the Shepard-Catalyst, expect that he is more suited to solve the galactic problem. Can he be more powerful and ubiquitous that the previous catalyst? Very much so.
Edi was created in order to control the normandy.
The catalyst was created from a completely different purpose than control the Citadel.
There is a HUGE difference.
The catalyst may have a certain control over the Citadel, but full control over all its relevant functionalities? Not necessarily.
You have no evidence that the catalyst MUST control the Citadel, 100% sure.
Could it have been the most logical and simple scenario? Yes, but the other scenario (limited control) is also possibile. So why, between to possible scenarios, do you pick the one which creates plot holes everywhere, rather than the other one, less likely but that creates no plot holes?
EDI was created to control certain things on the Normandy and actively blocked from controlling other things. She has no problem controlling those other functions once unshackled. She has no problem controlling the EVA body even though she wasn't designed for that. She's not a simple OS, but an Artificial Intelligence. And again, the Catalyst created the Citadel and installed itself there.
Edit: Finished and rephrased italicized sentence, which had been cut off.
I don't need "evidence that the Catalyst MUST control the Citadel 100% sure." It is simply the most reasonable expectation and there is no good reason for it to be otherwise. Any other set up is a nonsensical limitation on itself and its supposedly crucial task. To answer your question, its because it's not my job to head canon and invent ways to make sense out of the nonsense. It's the author's job to write a story that makes sense on its own.
the mere fact that it's something different, something new, makes it possible.
we don't know almost NOTHING about the Shepard-Catalyst, expect that he is more suited to solve the galactic problem. Can he be more powerful and ubiquitous that the previous catalyst? Very much so.
Your answer to everything is "it's possible" regardless of how little sense it makes or how poorly it fits. Yet you argue that I don't have proof of common sense things.
The Catalyst designed and created the Reapers. The Reapers constructed the Citadel. The Citadel is the Catalysts home.
Seriously. Why wouldn't it have full control? Why would it choose it imprison itself, for all eternity as far as it knows? Why would anyone create their own prison, especially If they think their "mission" is of such dire importance?
And why should have the Leviathans with the ability to perform mechanical tasks?
he was nothing but a sort o super-adavanced chess software, skilled in calculating variables and moving his pieces on the galactic board in order to achieve victory.
if he didnt' have full control over the citadel, it is because he could not have it.
I think that's the most normal thing in the universe for a sort of advanced chess software not being able to fully control the most advanced piece of mechanical tecnology in the universe.
you're making the catalyst a sort of a God. He's nothing more than an IA, with inevitable inherent limitations. He's not almighty.
And why should have the Leviathans with the ability to perform mechanical tasks?
he was nothing but a sort o super-adavanced chess software, skilled in calculating variables and moving his pieces on the galactic board in order to achieve victory.
you're making the catalyst a sort of a God. He's nothing more than an IA, with inevitable inherent limitations. He's not almighty.
You act like the Catalyst has to use fingers and hands to flip a switch or manually move the Citadel arms. It's a computer. It just needs to execute command: Relay_on=True or activate the motor and gears that make the Citadel arms move.
I don't understand. Are you suggesting the leviathans constructed the Citadel?And why should have the Leviathans with the ability to perform mechanical tasks?
he was nothing but a sort o super-adavanced chess software, skilled in calculating variables and moving his pieces on the galactic board in order to achieve victory.
if he didnt' have full control over the citadel, it is because he could not have it.
I think that's the most normal thing in the universe for a sort of advanced chess software not being able to fully control the most advanced piece of mechanical tecnology in the universe.
you're making the catalyst a sort of a God. He's nothing more than an IA, with inevitable inherent limitations. He's not almighty.
And again, the Catalyst created and installed itself
not true. It was created by the Leviathan, and that's all we know.
EDI was created to control certain things on the Normandy and actively blocked from creating other things. She has no problem controlling those other functions once unshackled. She has no problem controlling the EVA body even though she wasn't designed for that. She's not a simple OS, but an Artificial Intelligence.
if don't see the difference between the IA navigator of the normandy controlling the normandy and a software created to analyze a problem controlling a space station, I don't know what to say.
compatibility is not something you can always force.
don't need "evidence that the Catalyst MUST control the Citadel 100% sure." It is simply the most reasonable expectation and there is no good reason for it to be otherwise. Any other set up is a nonsensical limitation on itself and its supposedly crucial task. To answer your question, its because it's not my job to head canon and invent ways to make sense out of the nonsense. It's the author's job to write a story that makes sense on its own.
It's not headcanon.
it's in-game information that the catalyst cannot control all the citadel functionalities. He need Saren, he need Shepard, he use the keepers etc.
imho you want the story to be badly written, so you pick the scenario that makes lesser sense, even if thare is another, perfectly plausibile, available scenario,
Your answer to everything is "it's possible" regardless of how little sense it makes or how poorly it fits. Yet you argue that I don't have proof of common sense things.
between two (or more) possible/plausible hypothesis, I prefer to pick not the most reasonable/likely, but the one that fits better with all the other info that I have.
this way, my interpretation is perfectly self-consistent and uncontradicted by in-game information.
Does the game inform you that the Catalyst has full control over the Citadel? No. On the other hand, it's implied that the catalyst has limitations.
So, if the limited control scenario creates no plot holes, why sholudn't you accept it?
just to prove that ME3 is badly written?
(2) ...used the games to dominate the player to favor presentation of his favorite characters and faction, and because he had no idea how to make them smarter, he made the player character more stupid.
(4) ...used the games to present stupidity as profundity,
(5) ...replaced careful plot writing with sequences of short-term drama, shock effects and supposed coolness.
I could go on for quite a bit.
These three points at least for me are equally valid if applied to Inquisition.
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