437 réponses à ce sujet

[Dean_the_Young]

Andrew_Waltfeld wrote...

Dean_the_Young wrote...
And I'll note you actually agreed with my main point, about saving the base meaning tech boost and human dominance.

actually the wording you had meant the oppsite. You gained reaper tech, but at the price (meaning - having to give up, unable to obtain) human dominance. My whole point was that just like killing the council intentionally, this could lead to another decision like that.

Trick of the tongue, my friend. It doesn't necessarily mean giving up human dominance, but rather that you have to have it (because that's what Cerberus will do with the tech). Many people fixate that the cost is that Cerberus will get the tech, but I was taking it a step further to reminding what that means.

Granted, the final choice seems a lot less challenging when put in the context of 'Keep base, greater chance to survive Reapers, but Humans will become dominant' versus 'risk galactic genocide and refuse technology because I don't like someone who hasn't tried it but has done much smaller scale crimes'.

[DPSSOC]

WandererRTF wrote...

It had baby Reaper.. or rather dead one.. Much less so after the huge explosion. Which is nothing different from what they had from Sovereign.

Well there is the slight benefit that you have all of it this time.  What was recovered from Sovereign was bits and pieces because looters and keepers took a lot of it.  As Anderson says they can't even account for half of him.  So we now have a mostly intact Reaper as well as the technical data on the means of their construction which could allow us to replicate or reverse engineer it.

[Dean_the_Young]

I'd hardly call it slight. If you want to recreate a missile, do you think you'd get better results from one that flew into the landscape or most of one that fell off a crane at the construction facility?

[WandererRTF]

Umh... Less than half of at least a mile long thing is still a lot more than intact 100 m thing. And it being intact is yet another mystery. Even the smaller explosions seemed to tear of pieces from it and after it fell out of the view there was a much larger explosion(s).

Also reaper construction seemed to consist of mixing liquefied sentient beings with metals and feeding the resulting slurry to the baby for it to grow. Not much of 'technical data' for any one to view. Given that the people (souls if you will) were also trapped into the construct (as stated by Legion in the comments about 'Nazara' as well as sort of indicated by Harbingers ramblings) its kinda doubtful that there would have been an instruction manual on how to build reapers present at the site - Harbinger had all the knowledge and no need to spread it around.

And had there been (as unlikely as it is).. Replicating (or reverse engineering) would have required doing the very same thing Shepard went to stop in the first place. Liquefying humans - which is not that far from ME era Cerberus ops.

[Andrew_Waltfeld]

Dean_the_Young wrote...

I'd hardly call it slight. If you want to recreate a missile, do you think you'd get better results from one that flew into the landscape or most of one that fell off a crane at the construction facility?

Actually one that you partially blew up and then fell off a crane at the construction facility. Touche on your other response though. Still I just don't want to keep on the track of reaper technology which was an big theme, and embracing reaper tech to defeat them seemed going oppsite from what everything in the game. You get numerous mentions of how projects that go outside reaper technology gets side-tracked becuase someone decides, o hey, somebody already did the work- let's just use that. Humans would have developed their own system of space travel had we not discovered the mass relays, sure we may have the thanix cannons, but I rather be an tad creative in our technology invoation then follow the path of the reapers. I would not be throughly surprised if the base is later to found out to be useless because the reapers are able to counter it, while the people who blew up the base get some new technology the reapers can not. It can easily swing both ways.

[Dean_the_Young]

WandererRTF wrote...

Umh... Less than half of at least a mile long thing is still a lot more than intact 100 m thing. And it being intact is yet another mystery. Even the smaller explosions seemed to tear of pieces from it and after it fell out of the view there was a much larger explosion(s).
Also reaper construction seemed to consist of mixing liquefied sentient beings with metals and feeding the resulting slurry to the baby for it to grow. Not much of 'technical data' for any one to view. Given that the people (souls if you will) were also trapped into the construct (as stated by Legion in the comments about 'Nazara' as well as sort of indicated by Harbingers ramblings) its kinda doubtful that there would have been an instruction manual on how to build reapers present at the site - Harbinger had all the knowledge and no need to spread it around.
And had there been (as unlikely as it is).. Replicating (or reverse engineering) would have required doing the very same thing Shepard went to stop in the first place. Liquefying humans - which is not that far from ME era Cerberus ops.

So your proof that there is nothing of value from the Reaper tech in the base is...

A brief glimpse of some pumps, the fact that you didn't see a hand written document to pick up and reading explaining step by step how to make a Reaper ™, and a supposition that nothing in the game supports (that Cerberus will change its mind and merely commit genocide against humans/aliens to build a reaper in the EXACT SAME WAY, when it's been proven that Reaper tech doesn't have to be made out of Reaper goo to work).
And you're actaully suggesting that they just dump grey goo on itself and that it comes out as a highly sophisticated technological machine.

Really, it's hard to take you seriously at this point. Whether you like it or not, and you clearly don't, the game does tell you what's what, and it gives plenty of things to infer the exact same truth from.

[DPSSOC]

WandererRTF wrote...

Umh... Less than half of at least a mile long thing is still a lot more than intact 100 m thing. And it being intact is yet another mystery. Even the smaller explosions seemed to tear of pieces from it and after it fell out of the view there was a much larger explosion(s).

Ok so maybe not so much intact as present.  As to your first point if I gave you random severed bits of a full grown tiger  how much could you tell me about how a tiger functioned as opposed to having an entire tiger cub.  It's not the size that's important it's that we have all of it and can more accurately speculate on how it worked as a whole.

WandererRTF wrote...
Also reaper construction seemed to consist of mixing liquefied sentient beings with metals and feeding the resulting slurry to the baby for it to grow. Not much of 'technical data' for any one to view. Given that the people (souls if you will) were also trapped into the construct (as stated by Legion in the comments about 'Nazara' as well as sort of indicated by Harbingers ramblings) its kinda doubtful that there would have been an instruction manual on how to build reapers present at the site - Harbinger had all the knowledge and no need to spread it around.

I got the impression, perhaps wrongly, that the construction was primarily automated and the Collectors were more for gathering (or collecting if you will) the raw materials rather than aiding in the construction.  If it was automated than the instructions could (it's entirely possible Harbinger was doing everything remotely with no real automation) be inside the facilities computers as part of the Build Reaper program that would have run the machines.

WandererRTF wrote...
And had there been (as unlikely as it is).. Replicating (or reverse engineering) would have required doing the very same thing Shepard went to stop in the first place. Liquefying humans - which is not that far from ME era Cerberus ops.

I was thinking more replicating on a conceptual level, examining how Reaper tech operates and trying to replicate it with conventional construction methods, which may involve liquifying humans I don't know.

[Dean_the_Young]

Why would it? We already know you don't need to do that for the Thanix cannon.



Besides, if it requires biomass, why not replicate cloned meat? Or grass? Or jellyfish? (Actual jellyfish, which make up perhaps half of the ocean's biomass. Not Hanar.)

[WandererRTF]

Well... If Protheans were not good enough for being used as reaperfodder - and if you listen to what Harbinger rants of the different species (like turians being too primitive) you should get a good idea what they are after - then i doubt random proteinslurry would do much better. If the reapers could make moar reapers from seaweed they probably would have and then there would be quite a lot (more) of those...

But fluff-wise the construction seems to require real sapient beings of proper type and not just biomass - given that reapers have had quite few million years and thousand tries to make it work it would be rather interesting (to say the least) if humies could make reapers without using sapient beings.

If you can explain why a being with superhuman intelligence would post good design specs on a space station filled with brainless remote drone minions that would be something... That is just beyond me. Given that Harbinger could possess any and every Collector he wanted there would have been no need for plans, no need for design specs, nothing.

As for the Thanix.. it was Turian weapon doing the same thing Sovereigns weapons were doing. It was not exactly based on reapertech. It was based on what reapertech could achieve.

[FlintlockJazz]

The reapers need souls to puree into new reapers. Harbinger is Cthulhu after OCP have gotten to him and made RoboCthulhu.

[Dean_the_Young]

WandererRTF wrote...

As for the Thanix.. it was Turian weapon doing the same thing Sovereigns weapons were doing. It was not exactly based on reapertech. It was based on what reapertech could achieve.

That is excactly what reverse-engineering Reaper technology does and entails. The Thanix cannons are pure Reaper tech, directly derived from the remains of an actual Reaper. If you start arguing that the Thanix canons aren't Reaper tech because they aren't made from Reaper goo, then there is no such thing as Reaper technology, only Reaper-materials.

[WandererRTF]

By your principle all mass effect cores on every ship are reaper tech...

[Dean_the_Young]

WandererRTF wrote...

By your principle all mass effect cores on every ship are reaper tech...

They are. That's the entire point of the Reaper development path: all Mass Effect technology is derived from what the Reapers deliberately left behind to be reverse engineered and guide technology development. All cutting-edge technology in Mass Effect is primitive Reaper tech.

That's why claims that We Must Not Use the Base Because It Is Reaper Tech is so ridiculous. You're already using Reaper tech. It is, quite literally, all you have to work with: it's your weapons, your ship, your AI's, your biotics. The primary difference is that what you have now is pushing the limitis of what the Reapers intended you to get, the point at which they intended to stop you, whereas they never at all intended you to get the raw Reaper tech in the Collector base.

If you destroy the Collector base and say 'we'll take what we have now and develop new paths', you aren't developing new paths. You're simply reinventing the development of Mass Effect technology, which the Reapers mastered in spades at their creation. To truly develop alternative tech, you'd have to do it on paths not informed by E-zero tech, which means it's about 200 odd years out of date, and there will  be no short cuts.

[smudboy]

Dean_the_Young wrote...
They are. That's the entire point of the Reaper development path: all Mass Effect technology is derived from what the Reapers deliberately left behind to be reverse engineered and guide technology development. All cutting-edge technology in Mass Effect is primitive Reaper tech.

That's why claims that We Must Not Use the Base Because It Is Reaper Tech is so ridiculous. You're already using Reaper tech. It is, quite literally, all you have to work with: it's your weapons, your ship, your AI's, your biotics. The primary difference is that what you have now is pushing the limitis of what the Reapers intended you to get, the point at which they intended to stop you, whereas they never at all intended you to get the raw Reaper tech in the Collector base.

If you destroy the Collector base and say 'we'll take what we have now and develop new paths', you aren't developing new paths. You're simply reinventing the development of Mass Effect technology, which the Reapers mastered in spades at their creation. To truly develop alternative tech, you'd have to do it on paths not informed by E-zero tech, which means it's about 200 odd years out of date, and there will  be no short cuts.

This is an excellent point.

On another point, I do find it interesting, though, that the research team from the Derelict Reaper didn't find any (known, useable) technology save the IFF, but that the Collector Base is the next big breakthrough.  'course, this is all dependent on what was left behind, 37 million years ago, whereas the Base is current.

[Wildecker]

Unfortunately, what you get at the base is like a collection of recipes with each starting "Take (large number) of (creatures of your choice), select the prime specimen and grind them down. The surplus goes to your Husk/Scion/Praetorian factory. Deliver the liquid to the main hall and wait for the magic field to give it some shape." It's not the Reaper Institute of Technology you conquered, just a shipyard where you can watch and "learn" to build Reapers the way they have been built for cycles: snatch, grind, spray, repeat.

EDIT: I knew I had seen this somewhere - the "Morphic Field".

Modifié par Wildecker, 21 avril 2010 - 01:39 .

[FlintlockJazz]

Dean_the_Young wrote...

WandererRTF wrote...

By your principle all mass effect cores on every ship are reaper tech...

They are. That's the entire point of the Reaper development path: all Mass Effect technology is derived from what the Reapers deliberately left behind to be reverse engineered and guide technology development. All cutting-edge technology in Mass Effect is primitive Reaper tech.

That's why claims that We Must Not Use the Base Because It Is Reaper Tech is so ridiculous. You're already using Reaper tech. It is, quite literally, all you have to work with: it's your weapons, your ship, your AI's, your biotics. The primary difference is that what you have now is pushing the limitis of what the Reapers intended you to get, the point at which they intended to stop you, whereas they never at all intended you to get the raw Reaper tech in the Collector base.

If you destroy the Collector base and say 'we'll take what we have now and develop new paths', you aren't developing new paths. You're simply reinventing the development of Mass Effect technology, which the Reapers mastered in spades at their creation. To truly develop alternative tech, you'd have to do it on paths not informed by E-zero tech, which means it's about 200 odd years out of date, and there will  be no short cuts.

Actually, its a presumption that they never wanted us to exceed a certain level, its just that the more advanced reapertech is usually accompanied with indoctrination or other side effects that are not so good for those who come into contact with it.  They seem to think its important for organics not to develop along other paths, to the extent that they will leave tech for them to find.  Why?  Is it because they want us to evolve like they did and become reapers regardless of their own actions?  Is it because they are afraid of something they don't understand?  I sometimes wonder if reapers are actually at the end of a dead-end tech route, they can't develop any more and they can't ascend or whatever it is we are supposed to be progressing towards and have been blinded to any other paths they could have taken and as a result impose this upon the galaxy, existing merely to exist.

I believe that it was Stargate that had humanity's advantage at one point being that we had projectile weapons that could go through the forcefields of the enemy (whose defenses were geared up for the more advanced laser weaponry), though I could be wrong about that being in Stargate, could've been something else.

[RyrineaNara]

I blew up the base, since I wouldn't trust the Illusive man to handle such things like that type of technology. Seriously he think Cerberus is Humanity, so yeah I am not going to trust him.

[FlintlockJazz]

Wildecker wrote...

Unfortunately, what you get at the base is like a collection of recipes with each starting "Take (large number) of (creatures of your choice), select the prime specimen and grind them down. The surplus goes to your Husk/Scion/Praetorian factory. Deliver the liquid to the main hall and wait for the magic field to give it some shape." It's not the Reaper Institute of Technology you conquered, just a shipyard where you can watch and "learn" to build Reapers the way they have been built for cycles: snatch, grind, spray, repeat.

EDIT: I knew I had seen this somewhere - the "Morphic Field".

The info on the morphic field is quite interesting, cheers for that.  Legion does say that Nazara (Sovereign) had many minds, so its not too much of a leap to assume that the minds of those pureed into reaperdom are in some way absorbed into the reaper too.  Does this mean that reapers are essentially soul-stealing?  Collecting the souls of humanity and imprisoning them in a living hell? 

The thought of TIM producing husks and scions while I'm trying to kill the reapers is a distraction that is not needed for my Shepard...

[Wildecker]

DrathanGervaise wrote...

Shandepared wrote...

WandererRTF wrote...

By your principle all mass effect cores on every ship are reaper tech...

Jet engines are **** tech. If you support air travel you're a **** sympathizer. (oh that's right, this crappy forum censors that evil EVIL word)

The Brits came up with it first.

Aah ... meet Henri Coanda, then ...

[Dean_the_Young]

FlintlockJazz wrote...

Actually, its a presumption that they never wanted us to exceed a certain level, its just that the more advanced reapertech is usually accompanied with indoctrination or other side effects that are not so good for those who come into contact with it. 

For the first part, since the Keepers are supposed to send the signal when the dominant races on the Citadel reach some level of sophistication, it's pretty logical that the extension of that fact is that the Reapers wanted to take care of races then, not later. Later (and in the current cycle, that could well be thousands of years) gives the races more time to advance and, if unchecked, be a threat.

Certainly they never wanted Shepard to get to the Collector Base and find Reaper tech: even the Collector Ship trap didn't have the IFF itself, and the only way Shepard got it was because Cerberus found the lost Reaper corpse which had been missing since before the Protheans.

They seem to think its important for organics not to develop along other paths, to the extent that they will leave tech for them to find.  Why?  Is it because they want us to evolve like they did and become reapers regardless of their own actions?  Is it because they are afraid of something they don't understand?  I sometimes wonder if reapers are actually at the end of a dead-end tech route, they can't develop any more and they can't ascend or whatever it is we are supposed to be progressing towards and have been blinded to any other paths they could have taken and as a result impose this upon the galaxy, existing merely to exist.

While the Reapers are supposed to be beyond conecption, I chalk it up to the 'machines like order' principle. Sovereign's quote, 'We impose order on the chaos of organic development' is suggestive of several things.

For one, it suggests the Reapers do know of other paths of development, the chaos of which Sovereign speaks. They just don't think much of it, and want it all unified... which they do rather brilliantly, because the passive direction of the Mass Relay technology and all that entails means that if any one race decides to go Luddite and ignore mass effect tech, they'll be over run and outgunned by the race that exploits the Citadel.

Since the Reapers actively commit the genocides/Reaper conversions, I don't think they're passively willing to let others become Reapers (though they may think it inevitable as the pinnacle of development).

Existing to exist is as good a reason as any for the Reapers, but then we aren't supposed to be able to fathom them. (At least not until ME3.)

[Dean_the_Young]

Boob shot?