96 replies to this topic

[congokong]

Spectres are renowned for doing whatever it takes to get the job done. Paragons are kind of the opposite. They choose saving hostages over pursuing their objective, feel the means justify the ends, and not even want to threaten people often. They act kind of like Superman; being noble heroes who do not besmirch their honor. Frankly, ruthless Shepards in particular seem to make the most sense for being chosen as spectres. This viewpoint made Kaidan especially seem to be an absurd candidate despite his abilities when you see how much spectres like Saren and Vasir got their hands dirty to accomplish their goals. How do you rationalize paragon spectres?

[ArcadiaGrey]

I'm playing a very paragon Shep right now, just finished ME2, and I don't feel that's she too good.  She's still a badass and believable as a Spectre.  As whatsherface said, Spectres represent the Council and come in all shapes and sizes, doing varied work in teams or alone.  Paragon Spectres would be sorely needed considering how many dodgy ones there are.

 

Kaidan on the other hand is way too much of a namby pamby to be one, I love the guy but still....

He shies away from making hard choices, and is a follower, not a leader.  He's more likely to believe someone from the Alliance/Council, even if they're actually a bad guy, and not believe someone from Cerberus, even if they've proved themselves to be alright.

I couldn't quite believe he got made a Spectre, when that happened my Shep was like 'oh...great, congrats (wtf if they let him in it doesn't say so much about me does it??)'.  

[aoibhealfae]

Why do you say Saren and Tela Vasir are believable Spectre because they like their hands dirty? Have you read Revelations? Saren was happy that he sabotaged Anderson's Spectre induction by killing a lot of innocent people and their families, which doesn't exactly help anybody at all including the Turian Hierarchy as they were trying to smooth things with the Alliance. Several years later, he got indoctrinated and became a slave to a machine god. Tela Vasir was working for Shadow Broker in the end and killed a lot of people to kill one Asari maidan, she tried again by raining SB goons on Shepard and gang and still unsuccessful. Even Ashley choose to become a Spectre and whimpered about making bad choices by trusting Udina and begged to serve Shepard and then got herself drunk on the ship. They're all really incompetent. Kaidan on the other hand only see protecting the Council as a job, Udina's death didn't bother him much and on the Normandy, he's mostly busy with his work instead of getting drunk.

 

Besides, being Renegade is largely subjective to the situation in hand. Save Wrex on Virmire only to kill him at Citadel. Save Rachni queen and leave her to die. Save Kelly only to make her kill herself by cyanide. Put Allers on your ship and then boot her off and she die on another ship. Choose Samara over Morinth but let her kill herself and her daughter Falare. Save Ashley on Eden Prime, choose her on Virmire, save her on Horizon only to kill her on Citadel. Have both Tali and Legion survive but choose Geth and watch Tali kill herself and Legion dies anyway. Have Jack survive ME2 but ignore the mission only to kill indoctrinated Jack later. Have Miranda survive ME2 and then refuse to give her the resources and she died. Bunch of these are preventable and some of it was impossible if you're really pure renegade and majority of pure renegade decision are quite self-sabotaging. Believability is quite a stretch here. 

[congokong]

I'm playing a very paragon Shep right now, just finished ME2, and I don't feel that's she too good.  She's still a badass and believable as a Spectre.  As whatsherface said, Spectres represent the Council and come in all shapes and sizes, doing varied work in teams or alone.  Paragon Spectres would be sorely needed considering how many dodgy ones there are.
 
Kaidan on the other hand is way too much of a namby pamby to be one, I love the guy but still....
He shies away from making hard choices, and is a follower, not a leader.  He's more likely to believe someone from the Alliance/Council, even if they're actually a bad guy, and not believe someone from Cerberus, even if they've proved themselves to be alright.
I couldn't quite believe he got made a Spectre, when that happened my Shep was like 'oh...great, congrats (wtf if they let him in it doesn't say so much about me does it??)'.  

I have a hard time believing Kaidan would hurt a fly; much less be a spectre or even in the military, honestly.

Regarding your Shepard, care to elaborate on her badass moments? For example, when faced with situations like with Balak, how did she handle it? That is one of those situations where I feel a spectre would be expected to pursue the objective. Even the council can give you a lesson (which later could apply to them ironically) after Feros about making sacrifices.

[ArcadiaGrey]

I have a hard time believing Kaidan would hurt a fly; much less be a spectre or even in the military, honestly.

Regarding your Shepard, care to elaborate on her badass moments? For example, when faced with situations like with Balak, how did she handle it? That is one of those situations where I feel a spectre would be expected to pursue the objective. Even the council can give you a lesson (which later could apply to them ironically) after Feros about making sacrifices.

 

Ah well you've got me there, she let him go to help the hostages.  She's a broken soul who lost her family, then her unit on Ikuze, and couldn't bear to let the hostages die.

But the rest of the time she has plenty of strong pieces of dialogue, showing she shouldn't be messed with.  Even when making a paragon decision she does it with attitude.

 

She flat out refused to go along with Zaeed's plans, not choosing the paragon option at the end of his mission as she thought he was despicable.  She then refused Jack's request to blow up her old home as Jack is clearly unstable, and disliked Jacob's attitude concerning the Alliance so barely gave him the time of day.

So she can dig her heels in and be mean, but to the ppl she perceives to be the bad guys.

 

I feel like Jen Hale keeps a certain amount of strength in her VA performance for all the dialogue options, so even when doing a paragon thing she says it with conviction.

[corkyspetals]

Just because my paragon Shepard CAN bend or break rules, it doesn't mean he breaks every rule he sees.  Actions have consequences, immediate and long term ones, some for Shepard and some for others.  My Shepard aims for justice and occasionally cuts through red tape to get that justice. 

 

I do get surprised when some of my Shepard's choices get  renegade points.  I guess my Shepard isn't 100% paragon.

[congokong]

Ah well you've got me there, she let him go to help the hostages. She's a broken soul who lost her family, then her unit on Ikuze, and couldn't bear to let the hostages die.
But the rest of the time she has plenty of strong pieces of dialogue, showing she shouldn't be messed with. Even when making a paragon decision she does it with attitude.

She flat out refused to go along with Zaeed's plans, not choosing the paragon option at the end of his mission as she thought he was despicable. She then refused Jack's request to blow up her old home as Jack is clearly unstable, and disliked Jacob's attitude concerning the Alliance so barely gave him the time of day.
So she can dig her heels in and be mean, but to the ppl she perceives to be the bad guys.

I feel like Jen Hale keeps a certain amount of strength in her VA performance for all the dialogue options, so even when doing a paragon thing she says it with conviction.

Did you like Wrex despite him basically being a murderer? Ex: His story of killing everyone on a Volus trading vessel. It always bothered me how a paragon Shepard never seemed to mind that. Him getting Virmired was justice.

[Pasquale1234]

Regarding your Shepard, care to elaborate on her badass moments? For example, when faced with situations like with Balak, how did she handle it? That is one of those situations where I feel a spectre would be expected to pursue the objective.

Once you turn off the fusion torches to avert the collision, the primary objective has been achieved. At that point, it's left to the player's discretion to define the secondary objective as capturing / killing Balak OR rescuing the hostages.

[capn233]

Eh, if you compared completely paragon vs completely renegade Shepard, they would end up about the same in believability by the end of the trilogy.  They each have their absurd moments.

 

Now as far as the backgrounds go, I would say either Ruthless or War Hero make sense to me as a qualification, whereas Sole Survivor doesn't seem like it makes as much sense.  Since the player's choices and opinions aren't contingent on the choices of other players, it isn't a big deal though.  Whether or not the background itself is believable may be a different story.

[ArcadiaGrey]

Did you like Wrex despite him basically being a murderer? Ex: His story of killing everyone on a Volus trading vessel. It always bothered me how a paragon Shepard never seemed to mind that. Him getting Virmired was justice.

 

My other paragon hated Wrex and let Ash kill him, which lead to him not trusting any Krogan and whole heartedly believing the Genophage was right.

This one however tolerated him, eventually becoming fond of him despite his past.  She needed all the help she could get and besides, I want this world to be the only one of the 4 I have to have cured the Genophage with Wrex and Eve alive.  So really I kept him around for that.  Little bit of metagaming there.  

[gothpunkboy89]

Yea it is believable. Just because a Specter can do something doesn't mean they always will do it.

[Reorte]

Extreme either way isn't really believable. A Spectre has to know when to draw the line, when to be tough, when to be nice. Being able to make the tough decisions doesn't always mean verging to the renegade side. You wouldn't want a Spectre to blow up the bad guy and a load of innocents from a distance because he didn't want to take any personal risks, you wouldn't want one who'd let the bad guy go free to cause much more damage to avoid hurting someone right now. A Spectre needs to know which is appropriate, accept that it's sometimes impossible to know, make a decision, and live with the consequences. And get it right often enough otherwise the whole concept is in danger of becoming unacceptable (even in-universe it's controversial). Tough decisions aren't only tough because they might involve a necessary evil, they're tough because you need to be sure that it is a necessary evil (or the opposite). Chuck in having to be pretty impressive physically too and it's no wonder that they're supposed to be the best, and why neither extreme looks like Spectre material.

That's arguably all contradicted by the Spectres we actually get to see.

[ZipZap2000]

To me decisions like sparing the queen.

Curing the Krogan and essentially ending Salarian political dominance.

Destroy.

Heretics.

Tali treason trial.

And many others really show off the paragon Spectre. Sure its not what most Spectres are in the game but its what's they're supposed to be. Like it or not the council speech in ME1 gives you the impression that they are supposed to embody the finer qualities of their species AND be willing to make the hard decisions.

A paragon Shepard who has to suck it up and shoot Mordin. Makes a lot more sense than one who's always wanted to shoot Mordin.

[congokong]

Once you turn off the fusion torches to avert the collision, the primary objective has been achieved. At that point, it's left to the player's discretion to define the secondary objective as capturing / killing Balak OR rescuing the hostages.

I doubt the council would buy that.

[gothpunkboy89]

I doubt the council would buy that.

I think they would. They don't seem to upset over slave raids by Batarians on Human Colonies.

[congokong]

I think they would. They don't seem to upset over slave raids by Batarians on Human Colonies.

It is less about human lives and more about Shepard being unwilling to make sacrifices; something the council reiterates.

[Dantriges]

The whole dilemma was a non existent one. A lone shuttle lifting off from a known location on an asteroid? The Normandy should have caught it, but they often forgot that you actually have a spaceship. Just pretend that you expected Joker to catch it, before it ever took off.

[gothpunkboy89]

It is less about human lives and more about Shepard being unwilling to make sacrifices; something the council reiterates.

 

And there is a time and place for sacrifices.

[congokong]

And there is a time and place for sacrifices.

And letting a group of terrorists who nearly killed millions leave to maybe save three people is time for sacrifice. If not then, then when are they referring? Shepard's objective was getting Balak, but Shepard wouldn't make sacrifices to achieve it. Seems clear-cut.

[gothpunkboy89]

And letting a group of terrorists who nearly killed millions leave to maybe save three people is time for sacrifice. If not then, then when are they referring? Shepard's objective was getting Balak, but Shepard wouldn't make sacrifices to achieve it. Seems clear-cut.

 

And then you turn him into a martyr for their people's fight against the unfairness that is humanity. Either way a completely made up story would be created around him. Killing him only allows them to whip the story up even greater painting him as a massive hero. Letting him leave saves people and means the best they can do is continue the same level of complaining rather then creating a false hero for people to idolize and add more fuel to their cause.

[General TSAR]

A Shep who is paragon 100% of the time? Hell no.

 

A Shep who is a mixture of both? Hell yes.

[congokong]

And then you turn him into a martyr for their people's fight against the unfairness that is humanity. Either way a completely made up story would be created around him. Killing him only allows them to whip the story up even greater painting him as a massive hero. Letting him leave saves people and means the best they can do is continue the same level of complaining rather then creating a false hero for people to idolize and add more fuel to their cause.

I do not care what story is made up for Balak. Letting him and his other terrorists go is a huge risk. Nor does it save lives. In ME3, he kills many more people including 117 Alliance soldiers and shuts down a dozen hospital life support machines with those batarian codes which are otherwise saved if you kill him. What a shocker.

[Monica21]

I do not care what story is made up for Balak. Letting him and his other terrorists go is a huge risk. Nor does it save lives. In ME3, he kills many more people including 117 Alliance soldiers and shuts down a dozen hospital life support machines with those batarian codes which are otherwise saved if you kill him. What a shocker.

I didn't know this happened. Makes me glad I've always killed him, even my Paragon Shepards. But I'm old enough to remember why the United States doesn't negotiate with terrorists, so that's always in the back of my mind. Not to mention that the woman you're communicating with lets Balak shoot someone right in front of her instead of giving you up.

[congokong]

I didn't know this happened. Makes me glad I've always killed him, even my Paragon Shepards. But I'm old enough to remember why the United States doesn't negotiate with terrorists, so that's always in the back of my mind. Not to mention that the woman you're communicating with lets Balak shoot someone right in front of her instead of giving you up.

Since you always kill him, you would not hear it, but that woman explains it as you are hacking terminals. If Balak is dead, the codes are instead used to get food for batarian refugees.

[gothpunkboy89]

I do not care what story is made up for Balak. Letting him and his other terrorists go is a huge risk. Nor does it save lives. In ME3, he kills many more people including 117 Alliance soldiers and shuts down a dozen hospital life support machines with those batarian codes which are otherwise saved if you kill him. What a shocker.

 

You would when he inspires copy cat terrorists with is death. Ever notice how even though we killed Osama Bin Laden a while ago terrorists still exist?  So he killed people already on death's door and killed only 112 Alliance Soldiers. You do realize that 1 battle with the Reapers would result in 20x that casualty list right? First Contact War had more casualiteis.

 

You can also recuirt Balak to help against the Reapers.