582 réponses à ce sujet

[KnightofPhoenix]

Vaenier wrote...

No one knows how saving the base automatically means TIM gets it? I am so confused >..
I have the only ship to get there. Why does TIM get to keep the cool clubhouse? I want it :'(

If Shepard dies but preserves the base, we see TIM sending Cerberus ships to the station (how? I have no idea. Mayeb EDI sent the Reaper code).
IT makes sense, it's either TIM or the council that can use the base. Maybe in ME3, we will be given the option to tell the council about it (I won't do it, but I like having options).

[Jonny_Evil]

senojones wrote...

Faith is irrelevant. Without belief in the divine there is no faith, and many, many people don't believe.

Since when has faith been only exclusive to believing in a divine purpose?

-Confident belief in the truth, value, or trustworthiness of a person, idea, or thing.
-Belief that does not rest on logical proof or material evidence.
-Loyalty to a person or thing; allegiance
-A set of principles or beliefs.

Those are all definitions to what faith is. Yes the idea of a divine being with religion is apart of what faith means, but its not the context of what I ment.

All of which is totally irrelevant to the question of the survival of a species. If you believe in God and an eternal afterlife for the faithful then extinction is not a problem because we'll all live forever in paradise. Everything else you mentioned, principles, loyalty, trust, mean nothing when weighed against the survival of the species.

[john william]

I wish this had a poll. I'd really like to know how many people did the paragon thing and how many did the smart thing.

[TrueRedemption]

Perhaps yet another angle to approach this question would be predicting TIM's actions.
I'm not a fan of the Cerberus approach and research which earned them a bad reputation, but listen to all the reasons the Normandy crew joined, and what TIM has done for Shepard in particular. Its obvious Shepard is a valued commodity, and while methods such as using Shepard as bait are not favorable, they are effective. TIM may be evil, he may ultimately want to destroy all aliens, but that is not the goal or the issue at the moment. For the past 2 years TIM has been so terrified of the incoming Reaper invasion that repelling them has consumed most of his time and resources. Mordin lays it out very clearly when you first meet him, deducing that your squad is from Cerberus, yet recruiting aliens, they must be desperate. TIM is desperate, whether the player chooses to believe the situation is that bad is a personal choice. Point is, desperate people are predictable and dependable, TIM may consider future galactic domination, but until the Reapers are defeated he is only going to use the base for those purposes. If you read mission reports they mention that improved relations with various aliens may prove useful. This obsessive concern with the Reapers insures that the base will get the attention and resources it deserves. If the council or alliance waves off the threat or just can't commit the resources, TIM suddenly becomes an above average choice. I mean think of the list of people TIM suggested you recruit, counting Zaeed he still suggests you only recruit 2 humans as opposed to 6 aliens. Sure your crew is human but TIM built using what he had available, which was all human. I'm not suggesting TIM has undergone some change in character and is now an open minded all around good guy, but at the very least its safe to say his fear of the Reapers outweighs his quest for human dominance for now. TIM knows Shepard will rush to Ashley's aid at Horizon, Shepard knows TIM won't waste the collector base on his own agenda until the reapers are taken care of.

Modifié par TrueRedemption, 03 février 2010 - 05:44 .

[Popguin]

I could post a long ethical justification for destroying the base if I wanted to, but really, at the end of the day, I did it solely to ****** off the Illusive Man.

[AK118]

it's not revealed, but it's obvious illusive man would have used the base for his own gains. otherwise, if you were alliance, it would have been better, maybe. but still, they were building a reaper. that's all they did there. so not like there was any tech that was good for anything else. and the researchers could be indoctrinated or something. or be compelled to impale themselves.

[Urazz]

I was under the impression that the base was mainly for building reapers and so there really wasn't that much good tech to really use to fight against the Reapers with unless TiM was gonna use it to build a pet reaper or something.

[TrueRedemption]

To know how to build something usually reveals the best ways of taking something apart as well. Consider those puzzle games that usually involve metal rings and screws in bottles, if you know the solution one way, going the other way is much, much easier than before.



Random thought, if it took all those tens of thousands of humans to build only a small incomplete reaper, how many billions of cuttlefish had to die to create the Reaper fleet?

[Fulgrim88]

TrueRedemption wrote...

Perhaps yet another angle to approach this question would be predicting TIM's actions.
I'm not a fan of the Cerberus approach and research which earned them a bad reputation, but listen to all the reasons the Normandy crew joined, and what TIM has done for Shepard in particular. Its obvious Shepard is a valued commodity, and while methods such as using Shepard as bait are not favorable, they are effective. TIM may be evil, he may ultimately want to destroy all aliens, but that is not the goal or the issue at the moment. For the past 2 years TIM has been so terrified of the incoming Reaper invasion that repelling them has consumed most of his time and resources. Mordin lays it out very clearly when you first meet him, deducing that your squad is from Cerberus, yet recruiting aliens, they must be desperate. TIM is desperate, whether the player chooses to believe the situation is that bad is a personal choice. Point is, desperate people are predictable and dependable, TIM may consider future galactic domination, but until the Reapers are defeated he is only going to use the base for those purposes. If you read mission reports they mention that improved relations with various aliens may prove useful. This obsessive concern with the Reapers insures that the base will get the attention and resources it deserves. If the council or alliance waves off the threat or just can't commit the resources, TIM suddenly becomes an above average choice. I mean think of the list of people TIM suggested you recruit, counting Zaeed he still suggests you only recruit 2 humans as opposed to 6 aliens. Sure your crew is human but TIM built using what he had available, which was all human. I'm not suggesting TIM has undergone some change in character and is now an open minded all around good guy, but at the very least its safe to say his fear of the Reapers outweighs his quest for human dominance for now. TIM knows Shepard will rush to Ashley's aid at Horizon, Shepard knows TIM won't waste the collector base on his own agenda until the reapers are taken care of.

That's quite a good approach. All the people who blew it up, and even most of those who kept it where pretty sure that TIM was not to be trusted with it.
However, given his behaviour in ME2 and what little i know of the books, he really might be the a good choice, opposed to the ignorant Council. Theres no doubt about him using it for his own benefit, but opposed to popular belief, his own benefit, at least for the moment, is pretty much common with everyone elses, including aliens.

I'm not saying that this makes me handing it over to him instead of the Council, its just another argument in my books that keeping it was the smart thing. For even the worst person to put the base to use does care about stopping the Reaper threat first, even if it's out of sheer panic, instead of love for the universe, it's still worthwile

Modifié par Fulgrim88, 03 février 2010 - 10:23 .

[Jonny_Evil]

tmp7704 wrote...

Jonny_Evil wrote...

The only Reaper technology was the system which built the new Reaper, everything else was Prothean. Unless you think that the Normandy is going to be able to cut through a Reaper ship in two shots?

I think the fact Normandy is using Reaper technology gun makes it plausible it'd be able to destroy what seems to be primarily cargo ship, even if it's also Reaper-made. Quite like human guns can cut through human-made shields and armour without much problem. It at least makes more sense than the Reapers settling for their secret base to use supposedly very inferior technology of thrall race when they could instead use their own?

You can tell it's not Reaper technology by the aesthetics involved. Reaper technology has a dark metallic sheen to it and tends to sweeping curves with a touch of lovecraftian horror. The Collector ship and base had a lot of rough stone, hexagonal designs, organic looking technology, waste piles, and a rusty orange colour scheme. They pretty much looked exactly like high tech insect hives, and the Collectors/Protheans were insects.

The Reapers rounded up the Protheans, enslaved them, altered them and used them to study newly evolved races. The Protheans, by the very nature of their own advancement when the Reapers destroyed them had more than enough technology of their own to do the job, so why give them more? Also, they were slaves. If the Reapers had built that ship and the base, why would they have gone out of their way to tailor them to the mindset of their thralls?

[Marlina]

TrueRedemption wrote...

<snip>

Very good post. (But try using a few more paragraphs next time! ;P) This is exactly the reason i "trust" the Illusive Man.
For now, anyway. He may be up to no good if we manage to defeat the Reapers, but let's take care of the greater threat first. We can deal with TIM later.

[AussieLokken]

Sovreign said that they give the races of the universe access to their technology to make sure they evolve as the reapers dictate, they set them down these paths intentionally giving them access to the tech - TIM getting the collector base = humanity advancing based on prothean/reaper tech... plus TIM's a jerk, and seeing his reaction to you blowing up the station is totally worth it

[Giantevilhead]

Fulgrim88 wrote...

Giantevilhead wrote...

What makes people think that they can actually learn anything from the Collector base? Everytime someone has tried to study Reaper tech, they go crazy and start turning people into husks. Only the Geth seem to have some kind of protection against Reaper tech and Cerberus will never give the Collector base to the Geth.

Well, additionaly to the aforementioned Reaper technology working just fine (ME Relays, Citadel) you might have noticed that big gun on the Normandy. That's ripped of Sovereigns main gun by Turian Engineers and seems to work just fine.

People should stop arguing that every reaper manufactured toaster comes with unstoppable mind controlling magic.<_<

Reaper tech can be investigated. And we don't have to copy it, it will work just fine if it simply helps to find a better way to countermeasure it, with technology of our own which the Reapers can't predict.

Except the mass relays and the Citadel aren't designed to mess with people's heads. If they did then it would negate their purpose.

The Collector base is not a Reaper manufactured toaster. It is where the Reapers genetically modified and enslaved the Protheans. Do you really think that a place like that wouldn't have something that allows the Reapers to mind control the Collectors? The Collector base is also full of tech that turns people into husks, which tends to make people go crazy. Then there's the tiny issue that the Collector base has a direct line to Harbinger. What's to stop Harbinger from connecting to the base again and assuming control of an unlucky Cerberus researcher?

[ryujio85]

Hey I just wanted a challenge. Keeping the technology just makes taking down those pansy Reapers too easy. All I need is my ship, crew and team.

[TLK Spires]

you are giving technology that has the power to dominate the minds of those who are simply near it for a long enough period of time to a man who expresses a desire to secure a single race's *superiority*, not *advancement*, over all other sentient races.



you are placing the desires of the few over the many.



you may think you are using their own weapon against them, but you are effectively giving hitler a doomsday oven.



this is why keeping the base is the renegade choice.

[Sniper11709]

AussieLokken wrote...

Sovreign said that they give the races of the universe access to their technology to make sure they evolve as the reapers dictate, they set them down these paths intentionally giving them access to the tech - TIM getting the collector base = humanity advancing based on prothean/reaper tech... plus TIM's a jerk, and seeing his reaction to you blowing up the station is totally worth it

Ok would people please stop with "advancing down the tech line reapers set out" crap as an arguement for not keeping the base. Every race major race in the Mass Effect universe is already well and truly down the Mass Relay/Reaper tech line (yes even humans) to the point that in the few short years till the reapers get into the galaxy they don't have the time to all of sudden switch tracks.

What they need to do is close the gap between Reaper level tech and the level they left behind as quickly as possible.

The upgraded weapons you use against the collecters are a crude (not explicetly said that it's crude but i'm assuming) reaper cannon knockoff, their FTL prupulsion and communications is based off the Mass Relays (except for the quantam entangler which is Cerberus tech), Kinetic Barriers use mass effect fields.

If any one thinks the major races can change their dependence before they get there i think your expectations are a tad unrealistic, then again it's a game so i could be wrong.

The only ones who could possibly change the situation is the faction who is playing around with dark energy (if it's not the reapers).

[Jimbe2693]

I blew it up to ****** the illusive man off

[ryujio85]

Doesn't this argument largely revolve around the games definition for renegade. I see the renegade as a character willing to put results ahead of virtue. So a renegade choice might be correct in the sense that the technology might save the universe but the paragon character will see that the technology is evil and therefore will not use it. Being renegade isn't necessarily bad

[Jonny_Evil]

Sniper11709 wrote...

AussieLokken wrote...

Sovreign said that they give the races of the universe access to their technology to make sure they evolve as the reapers dictate, they set them down these paths intentionally giving them access to the tech - TIM getting the collector base = humanity advancing based on prothean/reaper tech... plus TIM's a jerk, and seeing his reaction to you blowing up the station is totally worth it

Ok would people please stop with "advancing down the tech line reapers set out" crap as an arguement for not keeping the base. Every race major race in the Mass Effect universe is already well and truly down the Mass Relay/Reaper tech line (yes even humans) to the point that in the few short years till the reapers get into the galaxy they don't have the time to all of sudden switch tracks.

What they need to do is close the gap between Reaper level tech and the level they left behind as quickly as possible.

The upgraded weapons you use against the collecters are a crude (not explicetly said that it's crude but i'm assuming) reaper cannon knockoff, their FTL prupulsion and communications is based off the Mass Relays (except for the quantam entangler which is Cerberus tech), Kinetic Barriers use mass effect fields.

If any one thinks the major races can change their dependence before they get there i think your expectations are a tad unrealistic, then again it's a game so i could be wrong.

The only ones who could possibly change the situation is the faction who is playing around with dark energy (if it's not the reapers).

We've already gone over this. No amount of progress in the field of eezo technology has ever defeated the Reapers. Ever. Not in millions, perhaps billions of years. So racing to upgrade to the tech you might find there is already a non-starter.

The only time there's been a hitch in the Reaper's plans is when the Protheans did something totally unexpected, they used bio-technology to subtly alter the Keepers. You'll note that they didn't try to reprogram the Citadel itself, or destroy it, or indeed do anything that would pit themselves directly against the Reapers in that particular field, instead they came at the problem from a different angle and beat them without using eezo technology at all.

No-one is suggesting that there is any way to bring non-eezo technology up to the same level that it would be worth using it against other galactic races. However, no matter how good you are with eezo tech the Reapers will always be better. Therefore it comes down to two choices, use a technology they fully understand and have millions of years of experience defending themselves against, or try something new that they may never have seen before and have no defences against. If they could overcome the technical hurdles and build a dreadnought sized GARDIAN laser, for example, it would completely ignore a Reaper's kinetic barriers and strike the hull, whereas anything using ME tech, including the Thanix cannon, would be stopped by their shields.

[ryujio85]

john william wrote...

Bioware's morality makes about as much sense here as the whole "destroy the council/save the council" dilemma at the end of ME1.  Which is to say none at all.  I actually resisted the urge to keep the collector base but I couldn't argue against Illusive Man's cold, hard logic.  There's no question that the galactic civilization is better off with the treasure trove of secrets that is the collector base.

At the end of WW2 it came to light that both the Germans and the Japanese conducted horrifying experiments on live human subjects and made certain breakthroughs because of it.  Would the allies have performed those same experiments.  Of course not.  Did the allies throw their research away?  Hell freaking naw!

The allies were renegade 100% man. Dropping the A-bomb, Screwing the Polish over to ensure peace with Russia and fire bombing the hell out of Germany. I'm glad they did all that **** but it isnt in line with a Paragon character. So I don't understand why you would use their actions as a metaphor for paragon choice.

[KnightofPhoenix]

@ Johnny evil. I already pointed this out, but you conveniently ignore it and keep refering back to the same argument. What about TIME? Do the council races have time to develop new technology that isn't based on the mass relays? What the Protheans did didn't save them at the end, though it helped us. And they had all the time in the world.

All the technology is based on the mass relays. Any derivative is still derivied from Reaper Tech. The only way to create a totally new technology is to use something not based on the mass relays, aka develop something entirely new. That requires a huge amount of time and ressources to achieve.

Urgency plays a huge role in decision making. When preserving the base, the sense of urgency was a strong factor.

[Jonny_Evil]

KnightofPhoenix wrote...

@ Johnny evil. I already pointed this out, but you conveniently ignore it and keep refering back to the same argument. What about TIME? Do the council races have time to develop new technology that isn't based on the mass relays? What the Protheans did didn't save them at the end, though it helped us. And they had all the time in the world.
All the technology is based on the mass relays. Any derivative is still derivied from Reaper Tech. The only way to create a totally new technology is to use something not based on the mass relays, aka develop something entirely new. That requires a huge amount of time and ressources to achieve.
Urgency plays a huge role in decision making. When preserving the base, the sense of urgency was a strong factor.

And as I keep pointing out, but you conveniently ignore, they don't have to develop these technologies from nothing. GARDIAN lasers are in common usage, there's never been a need to develop them to a larger scale because ME weapons work against other non-reaper ships just as well. All they need is materials research into maintaining a larger version. Plasma drive exhausts are most likely dangerous, is there any way to weaponise them? You do not need to develop something entirely from scratch, there are plenty of technologies that could be upscaled and weaponised, that were never bothered with because ME technology is easier to use. You don't need to start from scratch.

[manyfistss]

I went renegade, and I welcome the new Imperium of Man. I'll even keep my alien waifus on the sides, because that's how I roll!

[Fulgrim88]

Jonny_Evil wrote...
We've already gone over this. No amount of progress in the field of eezo technology has ever defeated the Reapers. Ever. Not in millions, perhaps billions of years. So racing to upgrade to the tech you might find there is already a non-starter.

The only time there's been a hitch in the Reaper's plans is when the Protheans did something totally unexpected, they used bio-technology to subtly alter the Keepers. You'll note that they didn't try to reprogram the Citadel itself, or destroy it, or indeed do anything that would pit themselves directly against the Reapers in that particular field, instead they came at the problem from a different angle and beat them without using eezo technology at all.

This argument is a little flawed, given the fact that the Protheans where only able to reach the Citadel via the Conduct (stripped of Reaper ME technology right there) and even the Keepers being Reaper (bio)technology.
They did something unexpected, but they didn't come up with some tech of their own. Not at all.

People should stop arguing that only because the circle of extinction has been going on for millions of years, the Reapers are prepared for everything. We have to keep in mind that in 90% of the cases, the Citadel controlling species where completely unaware.
It's not like hundreds of subsequent civilisations have tried to outsmart them and failed - it's more likely that the majority of them never even got the chance to try.

The current situation is special in many, many ways and was only possible due to the Protheans being our predecessor. Just look at all the variables:
- The Protheans were the only spacefaring species of their time, which is likely pretty rare in itself
- They also happened to be curious and scientific, thereby achieving a very high, if not unrivaled level of technology
- And, due to their galactical haegemony, were able to preserve that tech in a remote outpost even after the Reapers Harvest, culminating in the use of the Conduit and the reprogramming of the Keepers, thus breaking the circle of harvest aeons before the Events of the game.

As seen in the history of Ilos, the chances of a remote outpost being overseen by the Reapers are very slim. This outpost being a research facility with the stored knowledge of the dominant species AND the possibility to reach the Citadel and make use of it, are near zero.

What makes the Reapers dangerous is not their ability to adapt to every given situation, but the extreme effectiveness of their Harvesting cycle.
We don't have to worry about TIM outsmarting the Reapers. The Protheans already did.

Modifié par Fulgrim88, 03 février 2010 - 01:30 .

[Zoe Dedweth]

Where do you find out that the illusive man let dragons teeth etc be used on human colonies ? Did he build the stuff himself ?