76 réponses à ce sujet

[Teabaggin Krogan]

I'd just use the default cop out, worm hole. It avoids the whole "if humans can do it why can't reapers" thing because it's some random fluke.

 

Have them find an alien artifact near the galaxy core black hole with a description of a set of wavelengths and signals ... they construct a receiver and pick up a signal from Andromeda. Someone millions of years ago theorized that it could function as a worm hole, send a probe through and that probe's signals were still returning to the milky way.

 

Then it should probably be called Mass Effect: Interstellar.

[shepskisaac]

I don't know why we need all this complex math when we know Andromeda is 2.5 million light years away and standard FTL ships in ME travel at a rate of 12-15 light years a day (30 with reaper tech).

Just divide with three numbers?

Going at Council civilization 12 ly/day speed = approx 580 years to arrive

Going at Reaper 30 ly/day speed = approx 232 years to arrive

 

I used 2.54 Mly distance to Andromeda from Wikipedia, not sure if that from center of one galaxy to another. If it is you can substract few dozen years asuming launch from Milky Way disc's edge and arrival on Andromeda's edge

[Addictress]

Going at Council civilization 12 ly/day speed = approx 580 years to arrive
Going at Reaper 30 ly/day speed = approx 232 years to arrive

I used 2.54 Mly distance to Andromeda from Wikipedia, not sure if that from center of one galaxy to another. If it is you can substract few dozen years asuming launch from Milky Way disc's edge and arrival on Andromeda's edge

Yay, that works right? Hundreds of years. There you go.

[PinkysBrain]

Then it should probably be called Mass Effect: Interstellar.

 

Now now, what I wrote is schlock ... but less schlocky than that. It doesn't require the wormhole to be there at exactly the right time. It was there all along hidden behind the event horizon, a one way street which you can only know works after 2.5 million years. It only being one way can be science babbled away based on the size of the galaxy cores.

 

It might have been known about for a long time too, just a mostly irrelevant military secret, because there is no tactical value to a one way trip.

[capn233]

 
ME2 Prologue Image
 

 

 

Back in the day I wanted to try and calculate the distance here, but seems like a variable is missing (like focal length).  Maybe I missed something obvious.

 

They say travelling at light speed it will take us 2.54 million years. There has to be some wormhole or super relay. Maybe there is a portable relay on the ark.

 

Or will it?

 

If your ship was traveling at 0.9999999999 c then it would only take you 36 years...

[The Dystopian Hound]

Back in the day I wanted to try and calculate the distance here, but seems like a variable is missing (like focal length). Maybe I missed something obvious.


Or will it?

If your ship was traveling at 0.9999999999 c then it would only take you 36 years...

yeah....... I'm not a scientist so I have no ******* clue what you are talking about.

[Hanako Ikezawa]

yeah....... I'm not a scientist so I have no ******* clue what you are talking about.

Basically, the closer you get to the speed of light the slower time goes for you. So while the universe may experience 2.54 million years, you only experience 36. 

 

Not that this matters in Mass Effect since the Theory of General Relativity doesn't apply to our FTL travel. 

[The Dystopian Hound]

Basically, the closer you get to the speed of light the slower time goes for you. So while the universe may experience 2.54 million years, you only experience 36.

Thanks. Still crazy. I'm sure with space magic they can get us there faster.

[Hanako Ikezawa]

Thanks. Still crazy. I'm sure with space magic they can get us there faster.

They will. Conventional FTL has us completely shatter the light barrier, our ships going thousands of times faster than light. It will be a journey of a couple to few centuries, which is why everyone will be in stasis for the journey. To those aboard, the trip will go by in literally a blink of an eye, sort of like when doctors put a patient under for an operation. When you close your eyes, the operation hasn't started, and when you open them again, the operation is finished. In this case, they close their eyes in the Milky Way, and open them in Andromeda. 

[capn233]

Maybe they will have 400 years of odd dreams.

[Chaoswind]

How come I am learning about this Space Engine thing just now?

 

I have to download it and check it out!!!

 

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

 

I know that I am trying to build a bridge with bread crumbs, I just though the ME2 ending cut scene partially corroborated the numbers thrown around by Mass Effect Retribution (Using the Diameter and Angle of the milky way in the scene, gave me a result of almost half a million light years of distance, but I rather double check them with the Space Engine program to see if I fucked it up somewhere). The FTL calcs in the OP have several holes and assumptions like no upper speed limit while inside FTL, or no rest for the reapers during the trip, and so on, thus they are very likely to be WRONG,  However my plan all along was to use them as a baseline to start discussion and I think I can improve the analysis.

 

 

We HAVE variables that are reliable and variables that are not, but a compressible picture can be drawn from them with some effort involved.

 

For example, when it comes to TIME we have the end of ME1 as the earliest point in the timeline in with the reapers could begin their trip towards the milky way, they COULD have started the trip earlier, but then the whole thing with Nazara/Sovereign and the Heretic Geth stops making sense.

 

Mechanically we know how fast the reapers are within the stated limitations (Acceleration of 152,082,215.7 meters per second during 24 hours of operation), we know how long "on average" Citadel based FTL drives can operate before reaching charge saturation, and we know most space stations have drive discharge points ships can use meaning the technology to absorb and use the static energy generated by ship based FTL exist and is used, but its somehow too big to use on standard ships or what the ships have can be overwhelmed after a time.

 

However that is the end of the reliable variables, we have the statement from Mass Effect Retribution that claims the reapers where millions of light years away from the Milky way, however if that was the case then why are they much closer than that in ME2 ending cut scene and why do they appear to have just started moving then? Did they start their journey at the end of ME1 and what we see in ME2 is they restarting their journey after a short rest to their FTL drives? Is everything artistic nonsense? Well yeah, but that is the unfun answer.

[Arcian]

How come I am learning about this Space Engine thing just now?
 
I have to download it and check it out!!!

It's amazing and exactly the kind of space travel mechanics I would like to see in a Mass Effect game.
 

For example, when it comes to TIME we have the end of ME1 as the earliest point in the timeline in with the reapers could begin their trip towards the milky way, they COULD have started the trip earlier, but then the whole thing with Nazara/Sovereign and the Heretic Geth stops making sense.

No need to speculate, I asked Mac Walters directly on Twitter and he replied that they started moving after Sovereign was destroyed. Since Sovereign was destroyed in 2183 and they arrived in 2186, it took around 3 years for them to travel to the edge of the galaxy. Going by their 30 light years/day speed limit, that means they started around 32850 light years out from the edge of the galaxy.

However that is the end of the reliable variables, we have the statement from Mass Effect Retribution that claims the reapers where millions of light years away from the Milky way

This can most likely be attributed to being a hyperbole not rooted in any empirical fact.

however if that was the case then why are they much closer than that in ME2 ending cut scene and why do they appear to have just started moving then? Did they start their journey at the end of ME1 and what we see in ME2 is they restarting their journey after a short rest to their FTL drives? Is everything artistic nonsense? Well yeah, but that is the unfun answer.

The unfun answer tends to be the correct one. I doubt the people who made that cutscene used any kind of scientific calculations to get the distance or the motion correct. The only purpose of that scene is to let us know that the Reapers are coming.

[HSomCokeSniper]

Yeah, I read all that.

 

 

 

Now I can't wait to see the actual in game explanation to be, you know, space magic.

[Sylvius the Mad]

You're talking about acceleration and deceleration.

Physicists would never call it deceleration. It's just acceleration in the opposite direction (or negative acceleration in the same direction).

[Beerfish]

Don't drink and derive.

[Arcian]

Physicists would never call it deceleration. It's just acceleration in the opposite direction (or negative acceleration in the same direction).

Well, if we're going to be really anal about it, it's called a retrograde burn.

[Sylvius the Mad]

Well, if we're going to be really anal about it, it's called a retrograde burn.

No, that's the thing you do to cause the negative acceleration.

Your goal is negative acceleration. The means by which you achieve it is a retrograde burn.

[capn233]

What if pi was really square?

[Navasha]

I will admit I stopped reading after your first calculation.    You took a given piece of information:  Reapers can travel about 30 light-years in a 24 hour period.   Ran some calculations on it and determined that in a 50 hour period they could travel 130 light-years.    Clearly, your calculations are not working right somewhere, since your result violates the 'known' piece of information. 

[Spectr61]

No, that's the thing you do to cause the negative acceleration.
Your goal is negative acceleration. The means by which you achieve it is a retrograde burn.

Retreat, hell.

We are advancing in a rearward direction!

[Iakus]

What if pi was really square?

pi r round

 

brownies r square!

[Arcian]

Retreat, hell.

We are advancing in a rearward direction!

Moonwalking.

[capn233]

Some say that deceleration is negative acceleration, but the faction that is correct say that it is acceleration that has an opposite sign to the velocity.

[Kabooooom]

Didn't see anyone post this yet but I hate it when people make new topics out of stuff like this, so here you go. It's an interview with Mac and Aaryn that actual yields some interesting answers. It could have been just a ballpark sort of comment, but they say that the colonists are in cryo for 600 years before they reach Andromeda.

Which fits with an FTL speed of a little less than 12 ly/day, which is the canon speed of standard vessels in Mass Effect. That's proof they aren't using Reaper tech or anything else.

http://links.eml.gli...DE3dGgsIDIwMTYi

[Kabooooom]

Oops double post