329 réponses à ce sujet

[Crowwalker100]

Thomas_R_Roy wrote...

Wynne:
Actually I did have a discussion with the writer (Mac Walters) about this topic. And he explained his view, and ultimately decided that he preferred leaving it the same. And that's his job, as a writer, to pick what he thinks is best, so I don't have any problem with it.

And so I definitely am not implying the writers don't listen! They definitely do.

As for the Council being evil or stupid - Udina is maliciously stupid, and that's clearly portrayed, but if that's true of the Council also, its not portrayed strongly enough. I have a tendency to guess that the rulers of a successful peaceful galaxy are probably reasonably intelligent and good.

As for some of the cynicism of politicians, I don't buy it. Politicians aren't all bad. Hell, I've known some.

Oh yeah and to the guy that said I could learn a bit of politics from his post - you know nothing about my level of education. And what you wrote is pretty flimsy. I don't think you've done a very good job of teaching "politics." I learned more in PolySci 101.

What was the writers veiw on it.. ? 

[Sphynx118]

WilliamShatner wrote...

Nozybidaj wrote...

Ulicus wrote...

I understood the need to keep the Council out of the picture. Even so, I think to have them actively doubt the Reapers' existence was the wrong way to go about it.  Firstly, it severely undermined the previous game's ending.  Secondly, it failed to take into account the fact that Shepard was only able to locate Ilos - and save the Council - through his visions: visions that depicted the Reapers.

A deluded Council, I could swallow... but their delusion, if any, should have been that the Reaper threat was effectively over rather than that the Reapers didn't exist.

Something along these lines would have worked fine:

Council: You have already stopped the Reapers, Commander.  Our investigations in the wake of your absence have been concluded. The Reapers are trapped in Darkspace.  As long as the Central Control Unit is protected, we are secure.

Shepard: You're wrong! The Collectors are working with the Reapers! They're up to something! 

Council: Or is that simply what Cerberus wants you to think?

Blah, blah, blah. Leading to the same effective "We'll reinstate your Spectre status, but we're not supporting you beyond that" end.

It would have been far more believable for the Council to believe you, and see your working for Cerberus as an oppurtunity.  Have them give you back full Spectre status and send you on their own mission based on your new "arrangement" having you collect information about Cerberus and sending it back to the Council.  Throw in a few N7 missions where you infiltrate some Cerberus bases, collect key data to send back to the Council, and if Miranda asks what you are doing, Renegade interrupt with a Falcon Punch.  In ME3 they could tie it into a subplot of the Council/Alliance -vs- whatever is left of Cerberus.

That way the Council remains believable and credible from a story stand point but the game still forces you into a working with the devil situation. And that took all of 5 seconds for me to come up with.

That's an excellent scenario I would have enjoyed playing and would have actually helped me swallow the working for Cerberus tripe.

You should be working at BioWare.

Hahaha omg! You just made a better scenario in about 5 min with no resources than the whole bioware writing staff was capable of doing in more than a year. Can we send this to "Big Mac" Walters or something? Proving how wrong he is? Srsly

[Sphynx118]

Crowwalker100 wrote...

Thomas_R_Roy wrote...

Wynne:
Actually I did have a discussion with the writer (Mac Walters) about this topic. And he explained his view, and ultimately decided that he preferred leaving it the same. And that's his job, as a writer, to pick what he thinks is best, so I don't have any problem with it.

And so I definitely am not implying the writers don't listen! They definitely do.

As for the Council being evil or stupid - Udina is maliciously stupid, and that's clearly portrayed, but if that's true of the Council also, its not portrayed strongly enough. I have a tendency to guess that the rulers of a successful peaceful galaxy are probably reasonably intelligent and good.

As for some of the cynicism of politicians, I don't buy it. Politicians aren't all bad. Hell, I've known some.

Oh yeah and to the guy that said I could learn a bit of politics from his post - you know nothing about my level of education. And what you wrote is pretty flimsy. I don't think you've done a very good job of teaching "politics." I learned more in PolySci 101.

What was the writers veiw on it.. ? 

No offense to Mac as a person but i suspect he just went: "No lololol i are master writer" instead of admitting that he screwed the hell up. There i did it. I called Big Mac a muppet-writer! Sue me

Modifié par Sphynx118, 13 février 2010 - 03:50 .

[cronshaw8]

Even if the council discovered that the wreck of Sovereign was not geth and more advanced. That still doesn't prove it wasn't a single ship. Shepard is the only one saying there are more reapers. And he is back from the dead (a surprising development even in the future) and working for the bad guys. I think the council's reaction is remarkably magnanimous, and makes perfect sense given their position. The turian is an ass about it, but their reaction is completely consistent with their history in the series. And the council aren't the only ones suspicious of Shepard. His former crew members all the sudden don't seem that concerned about the Reaper threat. Wrex is the only one doing something that might actually help. I mean christ Liara melded minds w/shepard and she thinks some petty revenge is more important than helping shepard against the reaper threat.

Modifié par cronshaw8, 13 février 2010 - 03:52 .

[Sphynx118]

cronshaw8 wrote...

Even if the council discovered that the wreck of Sovereign was not geth and more advanced. That still doesn't prove it wasn't a single ship. Shepard is the only one saying there are more reapers. And he is back from the dead (a surprising development even in the future) and working for the bad guys. I think the council's reaction is remarkably magnanimous, and makes perfect sense given their position. The turian is an ass about it, but their reaction is completely consistent with their history in the series. And the council aren't the only ones suspicious of Shepard. His former crew members all the sudden don't seem that concerned about the Reaper threat. Wrex is the only one doing something that might actually help. I mean christ Liara melded minds w/shepard and she thinks some petty revenge is more important than helping shepard against the reaper threat.

His former crew members ignoring the reaper threat is just another reason proving that biowares writing department went full retard so if you want to defend them then i suggest you dont bring that up lol

[cronshaw8]

Sphynx118 wrote...

cronshaw8 wrote...

Even if the council discovered that the wreck of Sovereign was not geth and more advanced. That still doesn't prove it wasn't a single ship. Shepard is the only one saying there are more reapers. And he is back from the dead (a surprising development even in the future) and working for the bad guys. I think the council's reaction is remarkably magnanimous, and makes perfect sense given their position. The turian is an ass about it, but their reaction is completely consistent with their history in the series. And the council aren't the only ones suspicious of Shepard. His former crew members all the sudden don't seem that concerned about the Reaper threat. Wrex is the only one doing something that might actually help. I mean christ Liara melded minds w/shepard and she thinks some petty revenge is more important than helping shepard against the reaper threat.

His former crew members ignoring the reaper threat is just another reason proving that biowares writing department went full retard so if you want to defend them then i suggest you dont bring that up lol

It has been two years and nothing has happened. If someone was yelling the sky is falling, the sky is falling. and two years later the sky still hasn't fallen, would you belive him?

[Sphynx118]

cronshaw8 wrote...

Sphynx118 wrote...

cronshaw8 wrote...

Even if the council discovered that the wreck of Sovereign was not geth and more advanced. That still doesn't prove it wasn't a single ship. Shepard is the only one saying there are more reapers. And he is back from the dead (a surprising development even in the future) and working for the bad guys. I think the council's reaction is remarkably magnanimous, and makes perfect sense given their position. The turian is an ass about it, but their reaction is completely consistent with their history in the series. And the council aren't the only ones suspicious of Shepard. His former crew members all the sudden don't seem that concerned about the Reaper threat. Wrex is the only one doing something that might actually help. I mean christ Liara melded minds w/shepard and she thinks some petty revenge is more important than helping shepard against the reaper threat.

His former crew members ignoring the reaper threat is just another reason proving that biowares writing department went full retard so if you want to defend them then i suggest you dont bring that up lol

It has been two years and nothing has happened. If someone was yelling the sky is falling, the sky is falling. and two years later the sky still hasn't fallen, would you belive him?

ROFL did the bioware writers write you too? Because your logic is just as weird as their writing im afraid. Your team members SAW everything you saw. They spoke with sovereign. They spoke with vigil and ran around in the facility at Ilos. By your logic shepard would have given up the reaper threat too.

[wburl12]

I think to make sense of the council's behavior in ME2 you have to keep certain things in mind.



1. Shepard is working with Cerberus

2. The difference between the council's treatment of Shepard and their actions toward Shepard.

3. The council races view of humanity

4. Our own politicians actions when faced with a serious and in hindsight obvious threat.





Anderson won't tell Shepard certain things because Shepard is working for Cerberus. Given Cerberus actions in the past this strikes me as pretty prudent. The council feels so strongly about Cerberus that they are at least thinking about or have considered charging Shepard with treason even knowing what a political scandal charging the savior of the citadel with treason would cause.



Viewed in that light I think the council being willing to reinstate his spectre status and let him go about his buisness is pretty generous. Shepard is a man with power and access to information the council would be real reluctent to put in Cerberus's hands. They let him go anyway seeming to trust he won't betray them and will work with Cerberus only as long as necessary to resolve the abduction crisis.



Now as to their treatment of Shepard; I think it has more to do with the council's views of humanity in general than anything. They seem to be scared to death of humanity. Remember that humanites introduction to the council is extremely recent in terms of galactic political events. Their first introduction to humans is when this brand new to space species puts a serious boot to the turians in the reclamation of Shanxi. Now remember that the turians are the council's conventional military operations studs. All the sudden this species comes along that seems capable of not only new and effective tactics that the council has never seen before (ie carriers) and grasping and innovating on long established council race tactics and technologies, but also have an exteremely small percentage of their species activly serving in the military. Add to that the very expansionist mindset of humanity and their extreme unpredictability ( I think it was Mordin who talked about how you can look at an asari or a turian and make an accurate assumption about them but humans are to varied and Samara mentions how three humans will have six opinions about a given topic) and you have this powerhouse of a powderkeg of a species.



From that perspective it makes sense for the council to be distrustful of humans in general and even specifically when dealing with individual humans. All their action towards humanity and humans seems directed towards either co oping humanity or directing human efforts into difficult colonial ventures in troublesome space and giving them little to no support ( terminus or close to terminus system colonies). Two birds with one stone right there. Even the council giving humans a seat seems to be more a matter of not being able to ignore humans any more or they may start actively ignoring council decisions than a matter of gratitude and recognition. The council's condecension towards humanity seems to be a mix of spuring us to direct our efforts and behavior towards joining the galactic community and a bit of the old and busted picking on the new hawtness.



As for the council ignoring the reaper threat I think that is the most understandable of the council's actions even if I think it's cowardly and short sighted. Now please bare with me as I'm going to get dangerously close to invoking Godwins law here. In living memeory(barely) we have the whole of the developed world ignoring a threat until it was actively being attacked by said threat, not just one isolated incedent but an active campaign. In hindsight not directly facing the axis expansion was a horrible mistake costing tens of millions of lives but at the time the politicians fooled themselves into thinking that the axis could be bought off or weren't a real threat.



Given the mostly circumstantial evidence of the reaper threat, the council either not believing or ignoring the problem seems to me to be a very realistic bit of writing.

[Saint Op]

Except 2 years for everyone else was like 5 minutes for Shep and honestly until colonies started getting abducted what could Shep have done in that time, run around and fight heritic geth.



Wrex I understand his reasoning. You save your people I'll save mine for now type thing, ok thats fine.



Ash is just dumb I guess. I won't help cause you have a logo on your stuff I don't like. Because you and your crew (Garrus even) is ok with Cerbarus with the understanding that they are working for you and the situation trumps that. Plus I was using the bad guys for info I couldn't get, A new life, A new ship, and at the end I took thier top soldiers and the ship and told them to bite me. So I'm ok with that.



Liara is nucking futs simple as that I don't get her reasoning at all.



I killed the counsil cuz i figured I could just argue with myself and what I got from it was the new counsil thinks it was one reaper and also it's hinted that the keepers used Soverign parts to repair the Citadel so I don't trust anything there anyway.

[cronshaw8]

Sphynx118 wrote...

cronshaw8 wrote...

Sphynx118 wrote...

cronshaw8 wrote...

Even if the council discovered that the wreck of Sovereign was not geth and more advanced. That still doesn't prove it wasn't a single ship. Shepard is the only one saying there are more reapers. And he is back from the dead (a surprising development even in the future) and working for the bad guys. I think the council's reaction is remarkably magnanimous, and makes perfect sense given their position. The turian is an ass about it, but their reaction is completely consistent with their history in the series. And the council aren't the only ones suspicious of Shepard. His former crew members all the sudden don't seem that concerned about the Reaper threat. Wrex is the only one doing something that might actually help. I mean christ Liara melded minds w/shepard and she thinks some petty revenge is more important than helping shepard against the reaper threat.

His former crew members ignoring the reaper threat is just another reason proving that biowares writing department went full retard so if you want to defend them then i suggest you dont bring that up lol

It has been two years and nothing has happened. If someone was yelling the sky is falling, the sky is falling. and two years later the sky still hasn't fallen, would you belive him?

ROFL did the bioware writers write you too? Because your logic is just as weird as their writing im afraid. Your team members SAW everything you saw. They spoke with sovereign. They spoke with vigil and ran around in the facility at Ilos. By your logic shepard would have given up the reaper threat too.

for shepard it is the day after the normandy exploded. For everyone else 2 years have gone by. I'm not sure how this is difficult for you to understand

[cronshaw8]

And the council is doing the exact same thing they did w/Ilos. We can't officially sanction your trip to Ilos Shepard but if you think it is important do your thing. We can't officially sanction your relationship w/Cerberus Shepard but if you think it is important and you stay in the terminus systems we will reinstate you and you can do your thing. I'm not sure what resolution would be satisfying for people.

I think people are just pissed Shepard didn't get a pat on the back.

[dynas2001]

I wouldn't trust sheppard either. He got brought back to life by a fringe terrorist org? Cerberus could have put in mind alterations (like miranda wanted to do) or any number of things. Heck, he is lucky the council didn't shoot him.  i mean look at the stuff they have done in the past.  Torturing and killing children?

Modifié par dynas2001, 13 février 2010 - 05:27 .

[durasteel]

Eski.Moe wrote...

The turians need a new councillor by the way.

Someone like, for example... Garrus?

[RiouHotaru]

I don't think the Council will be able to ignore the datapad with the Harbinger schematic, since that likely comes with the wealth of information EDI datamined from the collector base, which likely confirms everything Shepard said.



Also, does anyone notice the familiar trope of all the actually dammning evidence that Shepard could use either winds up being hearsay (audio or visual in nature only, and unreproducable) or gets blown up/destroyed somehow?

[phatpat63]

[/quote]

It would have been far more believable for the Council to believe you, and see your working for Cerberus as an oppurtunity.  Have them give you back full Spectre status and send you on their own mission based on your new "arrangement" having you collect information about Cerberus and sending it back to the Council.  Throw in a few N7 missions where you infiltrate some Cerberus bases, collect key data to send back to the Council, and if Miranda asks what you are doing, Renegade interrupt with a Falcon Punch.  In ME3 they could tie it into a subplot of the Council/Alliance -vs- whatever is left of Cerberus.

That way the Council remains believable and credible from a story stand point but the game still forces you into a working with the devil situation. And that took all of 5 seconds for me to come up with.

[/quote]

QFT. 100%

[Mox Ruuga]

Saint Op wrote...

Liara is nucking futs simple as that I don't get her reasoning at all.

Blunt, but true.

Her character was destroyed for the sake of some throwaway comic book plot, which about 5% of the people who play ME2 will end up reading.

[Von Verrikan]

durasteel wrote...

Eski.Moe wrote...

The turians need a new councillor by the way.

Someone like, for example... Garrus?

Garrus, who hates politicians, red-tape, and anything to do with rules that hold him back from his goal? That makes as much sense as putting subject zero on the council in place of anderson.

[Tasker]

Sorry I havn't read the entire thread as it's a bit on the long side, but...


Couldn't Bioware be doing the following.  ( I know it's weak at best, but this could be how they'll play it. )


The council and Anderson are tricking Shepard.

They know nothing of project Lazarus so as far as they're concerned Shepard was dead.
Shepard comes back after 2 years of being dead and is working for Cerberus.
As far as they know Shepard might have been working for Cerberus for those missing 2 years.
If that's the case then surely the council wouldn't advertise what they've been upto themselves for the last 2 years.


Having said all that though, it would be awsome if they took the double agent idea from this thread and turned it into DLC.

Now that would really make the fact i'm working for Cerberus a bit easier to swallow.

Modifié par Orkboy, 13 février 2010 - 07:39 .

[SpideyKnight]

Sir Ulrich Von Lichenstien wrote...

Doomhams wrote...

Government dealing with a problem in the typical way governments do... deny there even is a problem until it explodes **** on everyone.

Indeed, this and what Korraz said, anyone who reckons it is bad writing clearly is living in a bubble from the rest of the world.

No, we just see what you don't want to.  The game already states they have very advanced methods to date something.  Hence why they can date the Prothean ruins and the ruins that came before.  Yet they can't use those same methods on Sovereign?  Doubtful.  The plot has been shoe-horned in there, a brute force method that diminishes the quality of the plot.  You can close your eyes and scream that the bad men aren't there if you want, but the rest of us see.  In ME1 cautious skepticism was acceptable from the Council, we were new, and one of their best agents just turned rogue.  A little berating there, while a little contrite, was understandable.

The proof is that a reaper was delivered to their doorstep, the statue in the presidium is a mass relay, etc...  The mission reports from the first game show that the Council knows your actions the moment you do them.  We're not asking for the Council to admit this to the public, but don't lie and cover your eyes and scream incessantly at Shepard, that plot device got old in the first one.  A real governmental body would've lied to the people, without a doubt, but they wouldn't have carried on that ruse to Shepard.  They would've told him that after he deals with this Collector business he needs to get on with his mission of finding a way to stop the Reapers.  While sending out several more operatives to try and find a way as well.  Because you always need a plan B.

[Terraneaux]

durasteel wrote...


Someone like, for example... Garrus?

People might get a bit suspicious of new council appointees all seeming to be shepard's friends.  

[Sailears]

SharpEdgeSoda wrote...

Council is indoctrinated. D:

The only thing that makes sense.

[Kaiser Shepard]

Terraneaux wrote...

durasteel wrote...


Someone like, for example... Garrus?

People might get a bit suspicious of new council appointees all seeming to be shepard's friends.  

What are they going to do about it?

[Ulicus]

Nozybidaj wrote...

Ulicus wrote...

I understood the need to keep the Council out of the picture. Even so, I think to have them actively doubt the Reapers' existence was the wrong way to go about it.  Firstly, it severely undermined the previous game's ending.  Secondly, it failed to take into account the fact that Shepard was only able to locate Ilos - and save the Council - through his visions: visions that depicted the Reapers.

A deluded Council, I could swallow... but their delusion, if any, should have been that the Reaper threat was effectively over rather than that the Reapers didn't exist.

Something along these lines would have worked fine:

Council: You have already stopped the Reapers, Commander.  Our investigations in the wake of your absence have been concluded. The Reapers are trapped in Darkspace.  As long as the Central Control Unit is protected, we are secure.

Shepard: You're wrong! The Collectors are working with the Reapers! They're up to something! 

Council: Or is that simply what Cerberus wants you to think?

Blah, blah, blah. Leading to the same effective "We'll reinstate your Spectre status, but we're not supporting you beyond that" end.

It would have been far more believable for the Council to believe you, and see your working for Cerberus as an oppurtunity.  Have them give you back full Spectre status and send you on their own mission based on your new "arrangement" having you collect information about Cerberus and sending it back to the Council.  Throw in a few N7 missions where you infiltrate some Cerberus bases, collect key data to send back to the Council, and if Miranda asks what you are doing, Renegade interrupt with a Falcon Punch.  In ME3 they could tie it into a subplot of the Council/Alliance -vs- whatever is left of Cerberus.

That way the Council remains believable and credible from a story stand point but the game still forces you into a working with the devil situation. And that took all of 5 seconds for me to come up with.

I think your scenario - while certainly plausible and believeable - gives Shepard far too easy an "out" from his dealings with Cerberus. Ultimately, "Shepard-as-undercover-cop" is a very different kettle of fish to "Shepard is forced to work with the devil" and a lot of the situation's tension evaporates.

I mean, obviously a tension remains, but there's no sense of "Am I doing the right thing?" because of course you are... and I think that sense of "Am I doing the right thing?" was important to the story BioWare wanted to tell. Though I may be mistaken.

In any case, it is what it is. I just hope it's retconned as the Council lying to Shepard because of his current Cerberus entanglements.

Modifié par Ulicus, 13 février 2010 - 09:54 .

[Nozybidaj]

Mox Ruuga wrote...

Saint Op wrote...

Liara is nucking futs simple as that I don't get her reasoning at all.

Blunt, but true.

Her character was destroyed for the sake of some throwaway comic book plot, which about 5% of the people who play ME2 will end up reading.

5% is rather generous don't you think?  The comic book industry as a whole doesn't have what would be considered a giant user base, and of that user base only a percentage of them are going to be interested in a niche product like a 4 part ME story.  I appreciate the devs wanted to do something "cool" to jump start the ME2 experience but it seems they went ouf of their way to really make a mess of one of the "poster child" characters of the series.

[Nozybidaj]

Ulicus wrote...

I think your scenario - while certainly plausible and believeable - gives Shepard far too easy an "out" from his dealings with Cerberus. Ultimately, "Shepard-as-undercover-cop" is a very different kettle of fish to "Shepard is forced to work with the devil" and a lot of the situation's tension evaporates.

There's no sense of "Am I doing the right thing?" because of course you are.

In any case, it is what it is. I just hope it's retconned as the Council lying to Shepard because of his current Cerberus entanglements.

There was never much tension anyway.  It was clear from the start that there was no other option, no other avenue.  Shepard doesn't even get to show he doesn't actually enjoy it aside from less than a handful of snide comments to TIM.  He doesn't have any oppurtunity to do anything to undermine "the devil" in the case even though he is in the perfect position to do so.  He doesn't even confront TIM about obvious things like Akuze, Kahoku, all the ME1 tragedies, or what they did to Jack.

For the most part he just goes along with everything TIM says and never has any moment where he expresses and sort of personal dilemma over whether he is doing the right thing or not.  Not much tension there to be given up in favor of making the story more believable.