216 réponses à ce sujet

[Catastrophy]

Mind Blown! If it's a Reaper it would be necessary to take it down. And you can't do it alone, so you need to call for some help to do it.

 

How MP and SP tie in together just begins to take a clear shape.

[DarthSliver]

Revan I am sorry but the trailer is probably just fluff and there are probably only a few things in there that will make it to the main game. I will restate those things that are obvious for the sake of the list:

-The ship getting us to Andromeda in the trailer is probably the Ark that is taking us to Andromeda in the actually game. Whether it is called an Ark or not is up for debate. 

-Leaving the Milky Way Galaxy to get to Andromeda, we gotta get to where the game takes place so we know for a fact this will happen. 

 

Stuff that may not be in the main game is as follows:

 

-Shepard telling us a farewell, I don't believe Shepard will be sending us of to Andromeda. First player choice as the first reason and second Shepard saying farewell to us is symbolic to the Trilogy saying goodbye to us. METrilogy more or less is the Step child you don't really care about because they aren't your kid. 

 

-Leaving Earth may or may not be true but I do believe it was just for show on leaving the Milky Way since the story will be human centric in Andromeda. This as well falls under how they want to make Player choice matter. 

 

I only stated in previous threads of wanting a canon ending for ME3 so we can stay in the Milky Way but also so they have a solid story state to go off from too. Whether they realize it or not already some choices we made in the Trilogy will need to be washed over for the sake of Andromeda story. 

[SwobyJ]

Anyways, what does the community think? Is the ARK actually Sovereign remade for a new purpose? How would you feel about being on a ship that used to be Sovereign?

 

What do I think? I've thought this might happen since at least 2013. Time for twisty twisty twists if so.

 

Might.

[Miserybot]

Is the ARK actually your mom?
 

HAHAHAHAHAH!

[Revan Reborn]

Mind Blown! If it's a Reaper it would be necessary to take it down. And you can't do it alone, so you need to call for some help to do it.

 

How MP and SP tie in together just begins to take a clear shape.

Why would you want to destroy the only home you've likely ever known? By the time MEA begins, it's likely the ARK has been traveling for centuries and you were born on it.

 

<snip>

We can bounce back and forth, but even you concede that the trailer could be canonically accurate. Nobody knows. My point, and has been the point from the start, is to not discount something until proven otherwise. We will see what BioWare has done, but you do yourself a disservice if you just believe everything BioWare shows is worthless and has no meaning whatsoever.

[Catastrophy]

Why would you want to destroy the only home you've likely ever known? By the time MEA begins, it's likely the ARK has been traveling for centuries and you were born on it.

 

We can bounce back and forth, but even you concede that the trailer could be canonically accurate. Nobody knows. My point, and has been the point from the start, is to not discount something until proven otherwise. We will see what BioWare has done, but you do yourself a disservice if you just believe everything BioWare shows is worthless and has no meaning whatsoever.

Whoa! We begin the game indoctrinated? Then a mechanic to work it off at reasonable rate by playing the MP makes sense if you don't want to run all the sidequests.

[Revan Reborn]

Whoa! We begin the game indoctrinated? Then a mechanic to work it off at reasonable rate by playing the MP makes sense if you don't want to run all the sidequests.

Sounds like another tedious galactic readiness system to me. How about we just harvest the new species instead and build a brand new reaper in the MP?

[Catastrophy]

Sounds like another tedious galactic readiness system to me. How about we just harvest the new species instead and build a brand new reaper in the MP?

Yeah, why not? But if it's a human reaper we need to be able to customize boob size and hair colour, too.

[Revan Reborn]

Yeah, why not? But if it's a human reaper we need to be able to customize boob size and hair colour, too.

Unfortunately due to engine limitations BioWare cannot properly render hair correctly. Thus, the human reaper will not be able to have blonde hair, red hair, or anything in between. Boob customization though, now that could work... It would certainly double the power of the reapers by being able to fire two beams simultaneously instead of one. It would actually be kind of awesome if we could use the ARK as a super weapon sort of like the Death Star.

[themikefest]

Yeah, why not? But if it's a human reaper we need to be able to customize boob size and hair colour, too.

Make sure it has 3 eyes

[DarthSliver]

Unfortunately due to engine limitations BioWare cannot properly render hair correctly. Thus, the human reaper will not be able to have blonde hair, red hair, or anything in between. Boob customization though, now that could work... It would certainly double the power of the reapers by being able to fire two beams simultaneously instead of one. It would actually be kind of awesome if we could use the ARK as a super weapon sort of like the Death Star.

 

they should make RTS game where we play as the Reapers harvesting the Galaxy. i always thought a rts game would work great with ME as a standalone of course

[Revan Reborn]

they should make RTS game where we play as the Reapers harvesting the Galaxy. i always thought a rts game would work great with ME as a standalone of course

Perhaps. I'm not really much of an RTS person myself. I find games that are nothing more than click spams like Starcraft to be incredibly boring. A turn-based strategy game like Civilization, on the other hand, could be incredible.

 

Regardless, it would be interesting if the ARK still has some reaper capabilities and could even play into the narrative of the game.

[Bizantura]

So much emphasis is allways put on "back engineering".

 

If one understands the technology your own imagination will do insted of copying/pasting.

 

It allways irks me with that back engineering thing, humanity sounds like a soulless dead techno race incapable of any imagination.  Just like the borg steeling everything by usurping not capable of true understanding or inventing, just using.

 

If the scientists at some point understood the technology used by the reapers they could invent their own even improved vehicels and what not, surpassing way ahead of what the reapers ever produced/invented in a fraction of time.  Crux technology leads to explosions of invention and many posabilities unthinkable in short few years.

 

Imagination is a crux difference between biological and synthetic intelligent beings but we often act like only synthetics back engineering and scrounging for materials thru usurping violent mercantilism.

[lucky5hot]

The major plot points of ME:A have already been leaked online and can be read if you dont mind basic spoilers, its just a matter of whether or not you want to know.

 
Warning, the link below and this post I will provide in my opinion is the most definitive spoiler out there for ME:A, and it was leaked nearly 12 months ago.
 
http://www.eurogamer...s-effect-4-leak
 
1) These leaked surveys have proven to be true in the past... EG the information leaked about DA:I turned out to be entirely correct.
 
2) The facts of this leaked survey nearly 1 year ago seemed to be largely correct/corroborate the subsequent ME:A trailer and N7 day trailer. EG, explorer, krogans, etc. 
 
3) Therefore, the survey and the summary of the storyline is likely true.
 
----------------------------------------
 
Key points in the first part of the leak, overall plot synopsis.

 

...The next Mass Effect game takes place in the Helius Cluster (a cluster of 100s of solar systems in the Andromeda Galaxy), far removed by time and space from Commander Shepard's heroic acts and the final events of the Mass Effect trilogy...

...You are a pathfinder, a combat trained but un-tested explorer leading an expedition into the Helius cluster to establish a new home for humanity...

...you will encounter the savagery of untamed lands in the form of cut-throat outlaws and warring alien races...

... Along the way, you will encounter the remains of a once powerful and mysterious alien race, the Remnant, whose forgotten technology holds the key to gaining power in this region of the galaxy...

 

Notably, this survey plot synopsis doesnt give the reason for leading the expedition other than 'to find a new home for humanity'. Therefore, we dont know whether this is just a safeguard or a necessity for the alliance due to a cataclysmic event.

 

Also, regarding the size of the ship, I think its reasonably likely that it carries a huge portion of life as an "Ark" of sorts, and the screenshot we have is obviously life on the arc, looking very similar to the citidel.

 

Regarding the brief outline of what you find. It seems like enough to carve out a new trilogy. Warring factions, ancient alien race with superior technology that you can wield and then decide the outcome of this 

 

Everything else about the leak, including settlements (might have been stolen from FO4), deploying strike missions (from DA:I), the new crew, dialogue, etc. Nothing is that notable, its just going to be improvements on the existing formula, (I personally hope they keep it closer to ME3 than DA:I).

 

So, in terms of story, we have the entire story laid out for us. Its extremely unlikely that this will change for the reasons 1-3 I laid out initially. The only thing that is really left as mystery is:

 

1) What is the reason for leaving earth. Was it a safeguard or a a result of a cataclysmic event.

2) What implications will the mysterious alien race have for the rest of the trilogy. After weilding this power and choosing the outcome of the war in the local cluster of andromeda, how will they carve it into a larger story about Andromeda as a trilogy. 

 

Personally, I really hope they end up winding it into some existential threat like the alternate ending for ME3 that was dropped, (Drew Karpyshyn's stated ending theory that the reapers were trying to work out how to stop the opposite of the big bang from happening to the universe, something you could call 'the big crunch'). 

 

http://www.eurogamer...-trilogy-ending

 

However, I reckon that rather than going this direction, which would leave an inevitable end to ME, possibly at ME6, Bioware want to keep spinning the story forever which is why they will make the next game about simple exploration.

 

Finally, I note that Eurogamer talk about ARKCON being an acronym for something like "Alliance Reconnaissance...". I've thought about all the acronyms here that would make sense. Everything sounds so wankerish when you put 6 words together like that. I actually think the real definition is "Ark Contingency", and it carries a sample of many alliance civilisations of the Milky Way to andromeda merely as a safeguard after the reapers, rather than because suns are blowing up or something. It might even be that it started DURING the reaper invasion, (this goes against what bioware have said with it occuring afterwards)... however, it takes so long to arrive in Andromeda, it technically still occurs afterwards.

 

One interesting consequence of leaving during the war, is nobody on the Ark would actually know what befell of the people of the Milky Way, therefore no canon ending is required (which considering how much of a stink everybody threw about ME3's ending, will serve well).

 

 

 

[Khrystyn]

Is the ARK actually Sovereign remade for a new purpose? How would you feel about being on a ship that used to be Sovereign?

I don't think it's Sovereign 2.0.

What I've been postulating in my thoughts is whether Sovereign and the other reapers had their carcasses dissected, and their internal power sources(an Eezo device, I guess) were removed. These reaper energy plants were then adapted and fitted to the remaining ships of the armada, to help them return to their home worlds without the necessity of waiting until the broken Mass Relays were fixed. In time, the reaper power sources where attached to a multi-alien built galactic explorer ship, just like the reapers could do. I also wonder if this explanation for a new propulsion system would make the control, synthesis, and destroy endings cohesive in some way; regardless of the three ME-3 endings, reaper technology was adapted to make hyper-FTL a new reality.

[Vespervin]

DarthSliver, I would LOVE an RTS game where we're the reapers and we need to harvest the galaxy. That would be so much fun!

[SwobyJ]

For all we know, Andromeda could be a 'cooling period' where we may get material of some sorts that do address the trilogy/ME3 ending, but  often indirectly and in a still open ended enough way*, like ME2 gave material 'explaining' (but really not really) the Reapers. Then Bioware can decide what more directly to do, if anything, about the Milky Way. They may even have all the big scale stuff largely figured out, but lower scales are often trickier.

 

Having connections like Reaper/Reaper-derived tech in the Ark doesn't make the main plot a centrally Reaper one, its just creative continuity and it can be played with in its own way.

 

We only have the most basic idea of the start of MEA known. Plot-wise, world-wise, character-wise, etc, we're still largely in the dark about. Could the Ark, subjectively or objectively be a Reaper? For all we know, yeah. I acknowledge stuff like the wings of the Ark looking like what could be some mix of arms of the Citadel and legs of Reapers. Need more data.

 

I have a bias towards this theory though, because my craziest thoughts did include something like a Human Reaper indeed being built again by the Reapers, so imagining this concept mixed in with that would make me consider that the Ark could effectively be like a Human Neo Reaper (or various tech mixed in together, rather), adapted and improved for the sake of mere mortals .

 

 

 

 

*An interesting writing challenge would be in making the script for MEA be full of alluding to events and facts of the Milky Way, without directly stating it or looking too much like teasing.

[lucky5hot]

I see that this thread is more about the technological specifications of travel rather than what the story will entail. Here's my lateral thinking on the topic.

 

How does the alliance solve the technological challenge of inter-galaxy travel?

 

Problems; 

- Mass relays do not travel inter-galaxy

- We know they did not use a relay, they travel via ark

- Without FTL technology, the journey would take millions of years

- FTL technology as known in Mass Effect cannot work without the relays to discharge, therefore they need new technology

 

Solutions; 

- Fix the known Mass Effect Drive FTL so it works without needing the discharge. Journey approx 570 years (likely, we know the reapers had this technology).

- Live on the ship for millions of years in journey to Andromeda using conventional space travel. (seems unlikely).

- Use an alternative FTL (Unlikely as where would the technology come from other than the reapers within the Milky Way? We know all the technology that exists in the Milky Way was allowed through the reapers).

- The remnant (Andromeda precursor race), leave/communicate some sort of FTL technology to the Milky Way which both inspires our journey to them and gives us the technology (unknown).

 

So, all the speculation in this thread rightly involves the reapers, as superior technology is the sole domain of the reapers. Lets go deeper.

 

"There is no canon ending"

 

Problems;

- How can there be no canon ending if we take the technology from the reapers after they are gone. Surely one outcome happened and it will be known to the protagonist in the new game

- We also hear a recording from commander Shepard in the trailer, which possibly has a tie in to the game, like an inspirational farewell to the 'explorers'. Commander shepard would live for maximum 100+ years, so how do they not know what happened to the reapers if Shepard records a farewell.

 

Solution;

- Either it has been SO long since the reaper invasion nobody remembers what happened (seems unlikely as it would have to be tens of thousands of years to be plausible).

- Or the game just outright avoids it, (would be extremely frustrating)

- Or the Ark departs the Milky Way before the ending of Mass Effect 3, so nobody actually knows what happened. (In chronological terms, seems the only likely contender, and would be a sound reason why nobody knows about it).

- Commander Shepard is still alive to record the farewell to the Ark/Explorers AND they dont know the canon outcome of the ending because it was recorded before ME3 ends.

 

They use/borrow reaper technology to build the ark and solve the mass effect FTL drive problem to use FTL continuously 

 

Problems;

- Sovereign states several times throughout the game that he is the ONLY reaper in the Milky Way that waited around to signal the others, the rest are on some sort of timer to leave Deep Space and arrive. Therefore, Sovereign is the only reaper in the Milky Way during ME1-2, and he is only dead for around 2-3 years in game time before the rest arrive.

- During the reaper invasion, only a few reapers are killed and it is likely days/weeks/months they are dead before the end of ME3, not years.

- There is no reasonable/logical amount of time to build the Ark using any reaper that is not soverign during ME3 before ME3 ends.

- During ME2/ME3, only cerberus has control of the ONE single single dead reaper that exists of which the technology could be investigated, and they only have it for a few years before ME3 begins.

 

Solution;

- The only Reaper that gives a logical amount of time for the alliance to use to build the improved FTL is soverign

- The only way Sovereign gets to the alliance is if Cerberus gave the FTL technology to the alliance, either as a package to save humanity or specifically giving them the idea of the Ark

- Therefore, the FTL had to come from Sovereign through Cerberus.

- [Alternatively Final Theory], the Asari did have access to Prothean technology who in turn had access to technology from other precursor races, who might have learned the FTL secret from the reapers. Its also possible it was stored in that database inside their statue but not resolved in the game, so perhaps the Asari lead the science team on the Ark.

---------------------------

 

Id be interest if anybody can see a flaw in my logic but my conclusion is something like this;

 

- Multi-race alliance team build the Ark after being notified of the threat during ME1, (even though the council claimed to not believe what Shepard was talking about we at least know the Asari might have had access to this knowledge as they literally had a Prothean database they were syphoning from).

- The Alliance team then built the Ark after ME1, completing it before the end of ME3, based off the citadel technology and all their available technology, plus the somehow newly acquired FTL technology.

- The FTL technology was likely acquired somehow from Sovereign, likely through Cerberus, the specifics are uncertain. Could have been through espionage by N7, could have been through Cerberus goodwill, who knows.

 

Not sure why it actually had to be the enterity of a reaper or soverign, as there is no evidence of any advanced technology required that is not in the Citadel already, EXCEPT the advanced FTL drive. 

 

All we have to be concerned with is the FTL drive to make the trip only 570 years.

[Heimdall]

They use/borrow reaper technology to build the ark and solve the mass effect FTL drive problem to use FTL continuously

Problems;
- Sovereign states several times throughout the game that he is the ONLY reaper in the Milky Way that waited around to signal the others, the rest are on some sort of timer to leave Deep Space and arrive. Therefore, Sovereign is the only reaper in the Milky Way during ME1-2, and he is only dead for around 2-3 years in game time before the rest arrive.
- During the reaper invasion, only a few reapers are killed and it is likely days/weeks/months they are dead before the end of ME3, not years.
- There is no reasonable/logical amount of time to build the Ark using any reaper that is not soverign during ME3 before ME3 ends.
- During ME2/ME3, only cerberus has control of the ONE single single dead reaper that exists of which the technology could be investigated, and they only have it for a few years before ME3 begins.

Solution;
- The only Reaper that gives a logical amount of time for the alliance to use to build the improved FTL is soverign
- The only way Sovereign gets to the alliance is if Cerberus gave the FTL technology to the alliance, either as a package to save humanity or specifically giving them the idea of the Ark
- Therefore, the FTL had to come from Sovereign through Cerberus.

Well, no. We don't actually know what happened to Soverein's remains exactly. The games have been very vague. Anderson and the Council report that most of Sovereign is still unaccounted for in ME2 (Though they might not be fully honest on that), and we know the Turians had enough pieces to develop the Thanix cannon. It's quite possible that the Council got their hands on Sovereign's drive core or enough to get the data necessary.

[Khrystyn]

It's quite possible that the Council got their hands on Sovereign's drive core or enough to get the data necessary.

 

That's just what I was typing! Darn it!

Sovereign, Harbinger, and the other reapers had their carcasses dissected, and their internal power sources (a reaper-exclusive Eezo device, I guess) were removed. These reaper energy-power plants (a micro Mass Relay, like the statue in the Citadel?) are then adapted and fitted to the remaining ships of the armada, to help them return to their home worlds without the necessity of waiting until the broken Mass Relays were fixed. In time, the reaper power sources where attached to a multi-alien built galactic explorer ship, perhaps a repaired Arcturus Station that can house 45,000 aliens?

I also wonder if this explanation for a new propulsion system would make the control, synthesis, and destroy endings cohesive in some way, in that regardless of the three ME-3 endings, reaper technology was adapted in the future to make hyper-FTL a new reality.

 

Edit: And now I just realized that I made this comment earlier this afternoon in this thread. My mind is failing, again. So sorry.
 

[Swan Killer]

Finally a thread with a first post that I enjoyed reading all the way, thanks for the read. It's an interesting theory, I wouldn't be surprised at all, if the ARK project people used Reaper tech to construct the ark. Or it might be a Reaper itself, just a different form. We know they all are supposed to look slightly different from each other (it doesn't show in ME3, because it was rushed and for budget reasons I guess, but it's clearly visible at the ending of ME2). While it might not be a capital ship, it could be a Reaper that just...different, has been unknown for us thus far. Those things on the back of the ark certainly have the resemblence of actual Reaper "legs".

 

Anyways, good theory.

[lucky5hot]

Well, no. We don't actually know what happened to Soverein's remains exactly. The games have been very vague. Anderson and the Council report that most of Sovereign is still unaccounted for in ME2 (Though they might not be fully honest on that), and we know the Turians had enough pieces to develop the Thanix cannon. It's quite possible that the Council got their hands on Sovereign's drive core or enough to get the data necessary.

 

I just checked and you were right. From http://masseffect.wi.../wiki/Sovereign

 

My memory of how the wreckage went was definitely wrong, Cerberus only recovered a piece along with the Turians. 100% fits into the lore that some other parties also recovered wreckage but it was not disclosed. Or that the council outright lied that they thought it was nothing more than geth while simultaneously developing an "Ark Contingency".

 

Some pieces were recovered by Cerberus to fit into the AI onboard the new Normandy, to use as anti-Reaper algorithms.

Some turian researchers discovered that Sovereign's main gun used an electromagnetic field to fire a stream of molten metal at a fraction of the speed of light. These turians reverse-engineered their own version soon after, dubbed the Thanix Cannon.

However, what remained was not enough to convince the Council that Sovereign was anything more than a geth construct.

 

You are 100% right, its totally plausible that the drive was also recovered and developed in stealth. Again, in contast to many people thinking that its built like an entire reaper, I think that the tech that was discovered was limited to bits and pieces and finding an FTL would have been lucky. However, even with those plainly false assumptions in my breakdown, I think the overall process flow still stands.

 

With the canon ending somehow mysteriously not in ME:A, it almost certainly has to be sovereign that was used to build the ark.This places the Ark launch before the end of ME3, using an FTL from sovereign 'debris'.

[Khrystyn]

So the first thing they do after harvesting Sovereign's carcass and/or drive core is mount it to a ship and send it to Andromeda? And not use it somehow against the reaper invasion?  (Fight a Reaper with a Reaper?) Before Shepard can rally the armada from multiple species? And Admirals Anderson and Hackett either didn't know about it or kept this little tidbit from Shepard? 

 

Am I missing something? Probably.

 

I think the storyline that the ship was journeying to Andromeda before the end of ME-3 doesn't make much sense to me, even though it's apparently canon. Seems like BW will have to make a tortuous contortion to 'splain this to us in a believable way. I never could trust those alien Council politicians, and neither did Ashley. They probably left humans off the ship and then we'll get our alien protagonist. The human-looking N7 soldier in the E3 demo? It's just in our fickle imagination, and we've all been duped ... again.  Ahhh.. the mystery and wonderment of it all.

 

I don't like to be ill-informed; I just don't know enough about the story canon to speculate with a complete understanding on this issue. 

[Heimdall]

So the first thing they do after harvesting Sovereign's carcass and/or drive core is mount it to a ship and send it to Andromeda? And not use it somehow against the reaper invasion? (Fight a Reaper with a Reaper?) Before Shepard can rally the armada from multiple species? And Admirals Anderson and Hackett either didn't know about it or kept this little tidbit from Shepard?

Am I missing something? Probably.

I think the storyline that the ship was journeying to Andromeda before the end of ME-3 doesn't make much sense to me, even though it's apparently canon. Seems like BW will have to make a tortuous contortion to 'splain this to us in a believable way. I never could trust those alien Council politicians, and neither did Ashley. They probably left humans off the ship and then we'll get our alien protagonist. The human-looking N7 soldier in the E3 demo? It's just in our fickle imagination, and we've all been duped ... again. Ahhh.. the mystery and wonderment of it all.

I don't like to be ill-informed; I just don't know enough about the story canon to speculate with a complete understanding on this issue.

I would suggest that the Council (Or whoever built the Ark), knew about the previous cycles of extinction and realized there was a more than likely real chance that they would lose, so they decided to build a failsafe. Whatever knowledge they gained in the design could still be used in other fields, but they wouldn't want to raise suspicion by spreading around such advanced tech. Besides, contrary to what some think the Ark isn't a Reaper, it's technology is just based on them, specifically their FTL capability.

Then, when the Reapers arrived, work on the Ark went into overdrive and the Council became directly involved in the project, organizing what resources they could to get members of all the major species onboard with what military assets they could spare.

That's my theory.

[Khrystyn]

Then, when the Reapers arrived, work on the Ark went into overdrive and the Council became directly involved in the project, organizing what resources they could to get members of all the major species onboard with what military assets they could spare. That's my theory.

 

And not a peep to Shepard from Hackett and Anderson, the Asari, the Salarians, the turians? Even Anderson told Shepard, "I trust you." I guess not! You would think that Anderson would say something to Shepard, like: "The reapers are here - you keep them busy while the Council sends a few thousand people to Andromeda. We'll call you when we get there."

 

I really don't get it. I'm all in for the reaper's drive technology - it's what makes the travel seem plausible. It's the 'when did they take off' timing that has me been puzzled, befuddled, and bewildered. I just think it would have been more plausible if the jump to Andromeda begins after their control, destroy, synthesis fate. Andromeda is set hundreds of years after Shep's death. I'm not being critical of your suggestion. Can't wait to see how BW will work their way out of what I see is a 'trapped corner', imo.